Talk:University of California, Davis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

↓    Skip to table of contents    ↓

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the University of California, Davis article.
Article policies



Contents

[edit] Controversy

To whom it may concern, Please do not delete this section without permission, if anybody feels offended by this section please contact one of the Wikipedia admins or post it on the discussion area. This section has vital information about the Universities judicial system. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.189.230.2 (talk)

The section deserved deletion. It was completely unsourced and very far from npov. If you wish to fix it so that it follows the established guidelines then you are welcome to readd the information. Mikemill 08:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Humor

This whole section was removed. Some of the other UC sites have humor sections, why not Davis?

Not appropriate for external linksHechung 22:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mascot of UC Davis

Gunrock is the name of the costumed blue horse who roams the fields during sporting events. He is the mascot of various sports teams, but he is not the campus mascot. The campus mascot is simply the mustang.

Numerous articles from the ucdavis.edu website name the mustang as the school's official mascot (and not Gunrock specifically). These include:

In particular, the second link says that the mascot was chosen to be the mustang in honor of a throughbred named Gunrock, a mustang, who was brought to the campus some time ago.

Look at the mascot field in the other universities' infoboxes. For UCSD it is the tritons, for UCSC it is the banana slugs, UCR the Highlanders, SJSU the spartans, MIT the beavers, and finally for UC Berkeley it is the golden bears. None of the mascot fields in these universities' infoboxes mention the name of the costumed menace except for UC Berkeley, but the name is included as a minor parenthetical note.

Finally I will cite the second sentence in the second paragraph in the "Sports, clubs, traditions, and student activities" section of this very article, which says that the official school mascot is the mustang.

Since people seem to want to include Gunrock, I'll add his name in parentheses. But again, the official school mascot is just "the mustang" or "the mustangs". This is what belongs in the mascot field of UCD's infobox. 10:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it's not necessary to mention Gunrock, but the mascot is the mustang (singular). It's not "mustangs". The athletic nickname is the Aggies. The difference between UC Davis and the examples you cite is that the athletic nicknames coincide with the mascot. Here it's not the UC Davis mustangs; it's the UC Davis Aggies, as indicated in the official athletic logo. --C S (Talk) 13:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Davis is a bit weird. The mascot has nothing to do with the name the teams go by. UC Davis' official mascot is Gunrock, in any case. He's a mustang. Hence, the page should read "Gunrock the Mustang" under mascot. 128.120.57.105 06:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Do you have any references that say Gunrock is the official campus mascot? 06:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes. 128.120.57.105 06:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I still think Gunrock is the mascot for the sports teams and more generally the mustangs are the mascot for the entire campus. It looks like we have conflicting information. 06:33, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
The reason why it is unclear is because the pages you cited predate the change in 2003. After the vote, Gunrock the Mustang became the official mascot of the campus, for both athletics and the campus in general. Adding to the confusion is the fact that Gunrock only rears his head at sporting events.128.120.57.105 06:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, I'll verify those facts myself (probably tomorrow since it's late right now). If you want to you can change the mascot back to Gunrock and I won't revert. 06:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] University of California, Riverside Survey

I'm posting this survey request Talk:University of California, Riverside#UCR Survey on all the UC talk pages in order to gather outside opinion on ongoing issues concerning the POV of this article. Please read the article and add your insights to the survey to help us identify any points of consensus in the UCR article. Thanks--Amerique 21:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Survey closed, thanks--Amerique 19:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Agricultural School

It seems odd that although this school was founded as an ag school and continues to this day to lead in agricultural research, that there is no mention on the page about current agricultural research being done...like it does not exist. There's talk about the law school the med school the vet school, business and a vague reference to "life science". What about agriculture, which includes animal husbandry, dairy science, plant science, viticulture, pomology and soil science? Davis is known worldwide for agricultural research especially in developing countries.....why not talk about it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.193.202.246 (talk) 04:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] School Colors

The school colors are Yale blue and gold, as can be found here. Someone put this in but got reverted because someone else thought it was vandalism. I reverted back but someone reverted me. I don't want to get into a war so I'll post it here and hope someone else changes it. Reference: [1] Nguyenmdk 12:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't notice this message until just now, so excuse the lateness. I noticed this kind of reversion going on a couple months ago, so I did a little research and made the appropriate changes to the article. It's kinda complicated so let me just copy and paste what I wrote to someone else's user talk page:

Hi. I noticed a little revert war going on at University of California, Davis. This whole blue business is actually kind of messy, but hopefully my recent edits (see [2]) has cleared it up. What you wrote in the edit summary about why there is a blue is correct, but nonetheless Yale Blue is actually a particular shade of blue and UCD's specifications give a different shade. In my edit I tried to clarify the blue's origin, while making it clear that the shades are different. There's actually a source of confusion even at Yale over what Yale Blue should be, but I think my summary is reasonably accurate. --C S (Talk) 11:58, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

--C S (Talk) 11:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] dachshund vs Jack Russell terrier races

The webpage for the 2006 picnic day [3] list the races as "JACK RUSSELL TERRIER RACES". The also list a "DOXIE DERBY" race. But no dachshund races. So unless some can cite the dachshund as the race breed I'll be reverting it. Mikemill 22:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Doxie Derby is the dachshund races. There are Jack Russell Terrier races but they are by far less popular and not as well-known like the doxie derby. See references on Davis, CA and Picnic Day. See other references here, here and here, official website here. Compare photos for Doxie Derby verses Jack Russell Terrier. --Wakkow 16:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
The change looks great. Thanks for clarifying the issue. Mikemill 19:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Animal Cruelty & Testing

The section is in need of some work. Its poorly written and only offers one side's opinion. It also fails to cite any sources. Mikemill 05:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I also wonder if it is appropriate to include such a section to begin with. I would be convinced if this gathered significant enough media coverage. "Significant" would require national news articles at the least, and enough of it to establish that it is one of the most important controversial items that come to mind when considering UC Davis. --C S (Talk) 07:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
The University of California is, from an Australian point of view, the most well known university in America in which animal testing is carried out, with an approximation of 70,000 animals at any given time undergoing experimentation, 78% of which are humanely euthanized during or at the end of the experiment. I believe it's imperative that national media covered events should be listed encyclopedically. UC was the first University to have global publication of an accusation of animal abuse in 1986 when the ALF carried out the raid that is most remembered as far as 'animal liberation' goes. I will ammend the section with citation as required, feel free to contribute to it, but I disagree with any whitewashing or sanitisation. 211.30.71.59 06:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
In retrospect, there's so much information in relation to animal cruelty and UC, Davis out there,[4] that I'm definitely not going to take on this challenge alone, if anyone is willing to help?  :/ 211.30.71.59 06:49, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
After looking at the cited reference I think more is still needed. For example can we get a link to the USDA complaint? This isn't about whitewashing but making sure we present a neutral POV. Including things like official responses to the incidents would be helpful in that regard. I live fairly close to UC Davis and honestly I can not remember any news coverage of such events. Mikemill 14:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe there's been any major news coverage of this. I'm still waiting for references to that. Please, no more links to generic search queries; your Altavista query returns a number of "false positives". A reference for that statement that Australians know UC Davis as "the most well known university in America in which animal cruelty and testing is carried out..." would be nice also. It seems to me that the controversy is around UC Davis' primate research, so I would suggest that some mention of the research and primate center be made in the article. Then some mention can be made (with appropriate references) of the controversy around it. But a whole section? Not warranted. --C S (Talk) 16:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the section. Notability is far from established, no news articles, etc. Additionally, the whole section clearly has a slant to it. I'm not averse to mentioning this stuff, but it needs to be included in a NPOV manner appropriate to its importance. Perhaps along the lines of what I suggested above. --C S (Talk) 00:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

The California Aggie, a newspaper published by the students at UC Davis, ran an article about a complaint SAEN filed against the primate center.[5] Would this be enough of a basis to make mention of it in the article? Mikemill 18:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It looks good. Something should be written about UC Davis' primate research, and then stuff like the fines, complaints, etc. can be mentioned. I would suggest the research section as the appropriate place. --C S (Talk) 00:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I did some searching on the California Aggie website and found a couple of other articles mentioning previous instances. I'll get them together this weekend and write something up. Mikemill 04:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

UC Davis has well implemented approaches to inspecting research laboratories and ensuring that animal experimentation is performed using methods that are as humane and ethical as possible (as are determined by federal and state standards). While no rational argument can sway the opinions of those who equate any experimentation with cruelty, for those who are open to the fact that animal experimentation is necessary for scientific advancement, UC Davis employs many national and state based inspection agencies that enforce the federal Animal Welfare Act among other rules and regulations regarding animal research. In addition to having nearly constant inspections by external agencies, UC Davis has local resources and policies through their Environmental Health and Safety department which serve to uphold national and state laws and regulations at all times. Animal experimentation is a necessary component to research, without which many medical and scientific advancements would not be achieved (or even achievable). Tkessler45 11:26 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Davis wiki link

I moved the link for Davis wiki to a new section "Other websites" since it isn't exclusively for students but about Davis generally. Please discuss here before reverting this change.--Kenji Yamada 19:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Style Guide

Do we really need a link to the UCD style guide in the opening paragraph? Mikemill 22:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] World Record

Would it be worth mentioning that the students of UCD currently hold the record for the world's largest Flash mob? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TrogdorPolitiks (talk • contribs) 20:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] New nursing school

Someone should add this (from the wire): UC Davis has received a record $100-million pledge from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to found a nursing school in Sacramento, the school announced Tuesday.[6]. --Bobak 15:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject University of California

Several editors are organizing a WikiProject to better organize articles related to the University of California. A preliminary draft is available here. You are invited to participate in the discussion at Talk:University of California#Developing Wikiproject University of California. szyslak 21:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Public Ivy

UC Davis is listed as a public ivy. do not remove. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.137.192.150 (talk) 00:01, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

  • At least take the time and effort to incorporate it better. Right now it totally destroys the paragraph. Mikemill 00:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Okay, I have. If you disagree with it now, please incorporate it yourself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.133.70.255 (talk) 00:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Ucdavis aggies.gif

Image:Ucdavis aggies.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 07:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Endowment

See also: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_University_of_California#Source_of_each_university.27s_endowment

It seems that people are editing endowment information to align with US News and World Report. I concur with Amerique's observation in Talk:University of California, San Diego that US News is an unreliable source unless the information can be corroborated by other sources. Until that point, it seems prudent to keep the University of California endowment figures aligned with those published by the University of California in its Annual Endowment Report.Vantelimus (talk) 04:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

To anyone concerned, this is an issue on multiple campuses. In no case does US News endowment data correspond with info published by the UCOP or the campuses themselves, not to mention the figures published by more reliable new services. If the individual campuses actually had the US News figures in endowment, the UC system wouldn't be in such a financial crisis and real-world news sources wouldn't publish stories like this:[7] putting the total UC endowment at $8 billion or this [8] putting Berkeley's endowment at $2.9 billion. Ameriquedialectics 00:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, I added up the US News figures published on its website for 8 individual campuses (Merced and SF were unlisted) and the US News total just for those campuses comes out to 11.289 billion, not even accounting for UCSF's 1.2 billion endowment per the UCOP, which basically proves US News is BS. Ameriquedialectics 04:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Campuses 2008 US News endowments 2006 UCOP Endowment Report
Berkeley 3,344,720,000 2,464,109,000
Davis 1,325,241,000 552,003,000
UCSC 498,821,000 97,450,000
UCSB 713,139,000 151,836,000
UCSD 1,109,929,000 422,454,000
Irvine 855,605,000 189,401,000
UCLA 2,906,498,000 1,912,071,000
Riverside 535,875,000 95,652,000
Total 11,289,828,000 5,290,526,000

[edit] Definition of Endowment

It is pretty amazing the wide variation of endowment figures one can get from different sources. Amerique is probably on the right track when he speculates some of the numbers reported in the media (especially those of US News and World Report) add in capital assets not typically consider as part of the University endowment (see Talk:University_of_California,_San_Diego#Endowment). This broader view of the endowment is not what universities view as or report as their endowment. The endowment consists of investment assets which cannot be spent, but may only be used for making investments to derive cash flows to fund university operations, defer tuition, etc. This is in accordance with the University of California in its Annual Endowment Report and other universities. For instance, USC's 2007 financial report states "Endowment net assets are subject to the restrictions of gift instruments requiring that the principal be invested in perpetuity and only the income be utilized for current and future needs."Vantelimus (talk) 18:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

  • If we're using USNWR for rankings, I motion to use it for endowment too. The other data you're providing is old and thus possibly outdated. 70.133.79.174 (talk) 19:42, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
No. The UCOP may be dated, but Davis doesn't publish its own numbers, (I've checked) and US News is flat out wrong. The 2006 UCOP report is the most up-to-date reliable information there is. Ameriquedialectics 19:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
College and university rankings are subjective judgments. Even when based on objectively collected data, the selection of data and the weightings given to the data are subjectively based. Hence, controversy over the usefulness and appropriateness of rankings has arisen (see College_and_university_rankings#Criticism_.28North_America.29). As a way to balance the affects of subjectivity in rankings, Wikipedia articles typically do not rely solely on USNWR rankings, but rather present many of the popular rankings. See, for example, Template:Infobox_US_university_ranking, which uses rankings from USNWR, ARWU, Newsweek, THES, the CMUP, and The Washington Monthly. Other sources beyond these are also commonly used in sections on university ranking, including Time magazine, Princeton Review, and in the case of business schools (see List_of_United_States_graduate_business_school_rankings#Rankings), Business Week, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Forbes, and Financial Times. Indeed, many of these publications and ranking systems provide not one, but many rankings (e.g. National, International, subject area competence, etc.). Endowments, on the other hand, are objective data points in time based on the definitions of financial endowments. Thus, endowments, unlike rankings, have a single authoritative source for each institution, namely, the finance office of the university. When the authoritative source has published information on the endowment, such as the University of California has in its Annual Endowment Report, the information from this source should solely be used. The only time it would be valid to use an estimate for the endowment from a non-authoritative source is when an authoritative source has failed to published the information or the information is drastically out of date (say, five years or longer). Since neither of these two conditions apply for the University of California, I disagree with the proposed usage of USNWR endowment information for the University of California and its constituent campuses. Even if it were the case that we had to rely on estimates for the UC endowment, Amerique has effectively argued that the USNWR figures are wildly inaccurate and so should not be used (i.e. no data would be preferable to bad data). Vantelimus (talk) 20:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
As an aside to 70.133.79.174, register and join the project. There's lots of work to be done to improve the UC articles. I know from my own experience it isn't always easy to get into the encyclopedia mindset, but it seems you wish to make the information here as accurate as possible and that's a big step along the path to making valuable contributions.Vantelimus (talk) 20:42, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
We use USNWR's ranking because the source of those rankings are written, published, and owned by USNWR. For these rankings, USNWR is the authoritative source since they were the authors of that ranking. However, USNWR is not the author, publisher, or "owner" of each university's endowment. For each university's endowment, UCOP and the respective university is the authoritative source. --BirdKr (talk) 11:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Just reading through this, and I think the endowment listed on U.S World News is correct because it also includes the endowment for the Medical school and center, which is around ~700 million and adds up to be $1.2 billion dollar as listed before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gogomon (talk • contribs) 10:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Public University Rank

US News and World Reports ranks UC Davis as 11th tied with University of Washington. 70.133.71.206 changed it back to 8 which it clearly isn't. See [9]. I already changed it and it was changed back so I'd like to get some consensus here. The public schools are: 1. UC Berkeley 2. UVa 3. UCLA 4. Michigan 5. UNC 6. William & Mary 7. Georgia Tech. 8. Wisconsin/UCSD/Illinois 11. Washington/UC Davis 76.208.20.203 (talk) 05:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

  • I agree that your listing is correct according to the 2008 USN&WR rankings. Davis is tied for 11th Vantelimus (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Guys, it's 8.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php

Count the ones with the * next to them (publics). It's tied for 8th!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.137.194.27 (talk) 01:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Wrong. You are counting incorrectly. You cannot say UCLA and Michigan are tied for third therefore the fifth university in the list is fourth. The fifth is the fifth in the list unless it is tied with the preceding entry. Note that in the full list UCLA and Michigan are tied for 25th and the next one in the list is 27th, not 26th. Look at the list and notice how ties are handled -- they don't move up entries that are further down the list. Vantelimus (talk) 04:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    • One further example for clarity... if two baseball teams are tied for first place, that doesn't mean the third ranked team is in second place. Vantelimus (talk) 05:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Concur with Vantelimus. Not that these rankings have any real basis to them. Ameriquedialectics 14:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • UCLA and UMich are tied for 3rd best. UC Davis therefore, is tied for 8th. If two teams are both the same rank, they are tied for that rank. Your logic makes no sense. Revert until it does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.133.65.180 (talk) 00:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
There are 10 schools ahead of UC Davis in the rankings. That makes it 11th. Does that make sense? (The answer is yes.) Nguyenmdk (talk) 02:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Nguyenmdk has it right. Even if the first ten schools on the list were all tied for 1st place, there would still be 10 schools ahead of Davis, making it 11th, not 2nd. That is the way places on the list are handled. Go look at USNWR National University Rankings. Notice that UPenn and CalTech are tied for 5th place. Notice the next school on the list is MIT at 7th... not 6th... 7th. Vantelimus (talk) 18:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ranking table

for the rows that say like "Engineering" etc. is that for undergrad. or grad.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.133.79.35 (talk) 17:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Yes, those are for graduate schools. Pyrofork (talk) 00:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Enrollment/Ethnicity Table

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to put this in the article, much like UCR's here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California%2C_Riverside#Admissions.2C_enrollment_and_retention Any other opinions? Pyrofork (talk) 00:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Sounds good to me. I think such information is very much in the encyclopedic spirit. Plus, I think concise tables are often better than verbose prose. It seems a good addition to every UC school article lacking it. Vantelimus (talk) 02:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Someone do it!

[edit] Housing

In addition, if no one else objects, I'll add a section about Housing.Pyrofork (talk) 00:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

California Central Valley Portal
  • Good idea, do it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.18.186 (talk) 03:51, 14 May 2008 (UTC)