Talk:University of Delaware

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

University of Delaware is part of WikiProject Delaware, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Delaware.
Delaware Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.
Selected article star University of Delaware is a selected article on the Delaware Portal, which means that it was selected as a high quality Delaware-related article.

You should fix the statistics with the data from http://www.udel.edu/IR/facts/ because you don't have total you seem to have a mix of graduate and undergraduate stats.

Nate:

Racial Makeup N %
White 13,233 84.9
African American 865 5.6
Hispanic 570 3.7
Asian 524 3.4
Native American 39 0.3
Non-Resident Alien 158 1.0
Other 191 1.2

This is fixed Emurph 21:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] ResLife controversy

Okay, so the phrase "against student protest" under the ResLife controversy seems to suggest that all students were protesting the reinstatement of the reslife program. Friends of mine attended that faculty senate meeting and I know there were also a bunch of pro-reslife students along with a bunch of anti-reslife students. We need to maintain an NPOV; if were going to incorporate student feelings than we need to say there was a 'mixed reaction' to the new reslife program. Further, I would refute saying that the program was the exact same as the old one, as the paragraph suggests. I would recommend a comprehensive rewrite of the section that is NPOV. --Pruiz (talk) 07:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Paul, how about "against some student protest"? While the revived program is not "exactly" the same as the old one, it is the same program. - Schrandit (talk) 08:20, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll agree to that. "Some student protest" sounds better. I edited the section and sourced the new program. --128.175.77.240 (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
The inclusion of the NAS statement seemed to again bias the section- I rewrote the sentence from a NPOV to recognize that they are a longtime critic of the ResLife program. I do support the NAS statement's inclusion, but I don't support making it seem like the NAS is a neutral observer.--Pruiz (talk) 14:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Do you know that the NAS was previously a critic of the reslife program? - Schrandit (talk) 13:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tone

The tone of this article sounds too much like it was written by the university's marketing agency. It even uses first person pronouns (e.g. our) in some places. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceran (talk • contribs) 23:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


I agree the tone is too positive. Someone is editing things to sound better than they should. Plus, the line about Kiplinger's claimed UD was in the top 20 public institutions, when the actual honor was for being "best value." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.253.186.179 (talk) 22:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ResLife

I cleaned up the short section on the current issues regarding UD ResLife... it really wasn't structured in a neutral PoV and reflected FIRE's assertions rather than UD ResLife. Further, it claims that this program only existed for first year students, when in reality this existed as a campus wide program. (I feel that the person who wrote this didn't have a tremendous knowledge of the curriculum itself.) The reality is, UD ResLife lead the nation in curriculum based residence hall education. ACPA held its Residential Curriculum Institute at UD to teach other universities how to model programs after UD's. This section needs to be longer and reflect why ResLife initiated the program, its main ideas, the issues in individual liberties it brings up, and what it means for a residence hall education. [1] Curriculum based residence hall educations aren't anything new-- UD started it 4 years ago, and now is being criticized. --128.175.224.44 21:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

More on UD ResLife. I keep deleting the clutter in the section and it keeps reappearing. The reality was that FIRE brought the case to the university, not faculty nor students. I would say that the faculty and students did not have anything to do with the FIRE controversy, and should not be included among those who criticized the ResLife program. If you want to discuss the two faculty members who provided FIRE with the information, you can, but it seems to clutter the section. The second point that keeps getting deleted is the "minorities and racist" comment. The sentence is: "The controversy originated from training programs given to resident assistants that suggested all white people were inherently racist." The being in minorities/majority part of that section seems to rehash the "inherently racist" part of the sentence. Moreover, it doesn't flow with the section and sounds structurally awkward. Either make it relevant and flow nicely or leave it out entirely. --128.175.224.70 (talk) 00:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

You have proof that FIRE brought the issue independent of contact from students/faculty? Many, many students and faculty were offended by the program and were a part of the controversy. I'd say it’s on you to leave the information in and make it flow nicely, to take the information out is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. - Schrandit (talk) 05:55, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
The reality was that FIRE brought the case to the university, not faculty nor students. - this is absolutely, 100% false. Prof. Jan Blits notified FIRE, and FIRE went public with it. See [2] Raul654 (talk) 06:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Completely agree. I've been complaining about UD Res life since Day 1, just ask my parents. I emailed Pres. Harker on Day 2. It's just that we needed someone with the legal/political clout like FIRE to come in to give us a bigger say. I would say in fact that about 50% of students disagreed strongly/relatively strongly with many aspects of the Res. Life thought reform program. To say that only FIRE brought about this is completely ignorant. -Brad Kgj08 (talk) 23:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] To much clutter

I don't know what anyone else thinks, pictures are nice in all, but their come a point when to many of them and their placement becomes a real detriment to the article, and i think this article is a prime example. Either some re-placement or elimination of some of the pictures needs to happen, i'll wat to see if anyone thinks of anything or does anything if not i'll just do it my self. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 22:34, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

(As the one who took the pictures) - I agree that the placement of the pictures is bad, but your solution is, umm... worse. The best solution would be to add more prose to balance out the pictures. THe 2nd best solution would be to group them into a gallery (using the mediawiki gallery feature) until such time as there is more prose. →Raul654 22:49, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
I also agree that the placement needs some serious work. I know that a lot more historical background is available if someone is willing to write it; the more text, the better. I think that pic of Gore Hall should be the topmost picture, as well. The Mall is representative of UD, but that particular picture doesn't correspond to much within the text. --Several Times 20:29, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
I reorganized it a little bit; could still use some work. I think the exterior photo of the Trabant could go. --Several Times 16:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
I Agree about some pictures, like those of Trabant. Put them in a gallery so they are still there for those that wish to see them. --Mrowlinson 10:42, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Erm, you're a little late. I put them into a gallery yesterday. →Raul654 20:40, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
Haha, that's what I get for leaving a page open for days and not refreshing. By the way, I'm going to take a new picture of the library next time I get around to it. I think it would look a lot better with a picture taken during summer. Maybe one of the mall during autumn when the leaves are all different colors, too. I'll upload them and let you check them out before I edit since you're basically the guy which maintains this article. --Mrowlinson 09:25, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I think we need to restructure this article. I would like to expand the article a little bit, including information on some of the more prominent student organizations and providing more links into UD's website. However, I think we need to find a way of reorganizing this. Any ideas? I think that we could perhaps group officially sponsored activities (i.e. Music, Sports, Figure skating) under one heading, and then have a separate heading for student organizations and un-official happenings? Comments? Cazort 13:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Faculty

I noticed a few professors I have had (Richard Hanley, Muqtedar Khan) had pages created for them and I wondered if they should be incorporated / listed here in any way. I question this because they are articles within the range of debate between inclusionists and deletionists... that is, these aren't teachers well known like Ben Bernanke. Just curious about thoughts. gren グレン 20:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New images

I'm removing the images placed in the article by User:Ottawa80 because they're either breaking a lot of the formatting or making whole sections of the article look very awkward. There are already more than enough pictures as it stands. It may be pretty and all, but one picture of The Green ought to suffice. — Indi [ talk ] 17:23, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alumni Removal??

Several listed alumni do not seem particularly famous, not enough to be listed here. In particular, I question some of the musicians in local bands, where neither the band nor the artist have their own biographical entries. Does anyone object to their removal? --Brian G 02:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I concur. Raul654 04:55, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it may be getting to the point where we could justify a List of University of Delaware people or whatever the proper nomenclature would be and only have very well known people on the main page and list notable professors and other alumni there. gren グレン 20:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree completely, I went ahead and created a List of University of Delaware people page. The list was so long, it seemed to clutter the article. Also, good move on the deletion of local band names. --Pruiz 09:08, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drinking Culture

Since UD is such a big drinking school, I think it is almost mandatory that any comprehensive article on the university cover this unpleasant topic. To do otherwise is to write a strongly biased, POV article. On the other hand, I think we need to be very careful about keeping NPOV in such a section. I am going to look around for facts and references before I construct this section, and I would welcome anyone else's input. Cazort 13:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

in my opinion, there should be a student life section talking about entertainment around town, main street, etc. and the drinking could fit in there - Schrandit 18:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I go to UD, and I don't really think it's more of a drinking school than any others. There are a good number of parties at any point in time, but it's a big school, so that shouldn't be surprising. Something could be mentioned, however, about the local police and the university administration's crackdown on it, I guess. 128.175.215.55 23:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I also agree with above. I'm not certain that UD's drinking problem is all that different than any other mid-sided suburban, or for that matter...any college whatsoever's drinking problem. I say leave it out, or make it brief. (Also a UD student here). --Pruiz 09:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Music, and comments in general

These comments apply mainly to the music section but I think they could apply to other sections as well. What is the role of this page? I'm not sure it is very valuable to the public to list specific accomplishments (like are listed in the music section). What would be more useful, I think, would be to delete most of the information about achievement, etc, and give more practical information about what kinds of opportunities for performance, lessons, and what kinds of facilities there are at U.D. This stuff is more simple, and more easily quantifiable.

I'm going to add some stuff in the music section and if there are no objections, I will eventually delete the existing material. Cazort 17:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright issues for UDaily and other UDEL Public Relations pictures

-(Section courtesy blanked)-

[edit] Alumni Mistake?

The alumni listing includes "Chris Robertson - Cosmonaut". First, was he Russian? Second, that links to a page for "Chris Robertson" that's an Australian squash player - wrong guy? - User:StevenGarrity

[edit] Alcohol Abuse

People keep deleting the alcohol abuse section, even though it has links to references verifying the material there. If you have a problem with the section, please discuss it here. Continuing to delete this section constitutes vandalism, your edits will continue to be reversed if you do not justify them. Cazort 15:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

One of the reasons people keep deleting the alcohol abuse section is because it's irrelevant and not unique. The section must prove that UD is unique in it's alleged over consumption of alcohol. The reality is that most schools have alcohol-prevention and education programs. If you can find an explicit press release from the University of Delaware citing dramatic out-of-norm over consumption of alcohol, than the section should stay. In the interim, I propose it should be deleted and replaced by a section discussing UD's Center for Alcohol Studies. --128.175.224.70 (talk) 00:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Unable to find the research sited (Harvard Study). It was sited as being from 1993. A 14 yo study on binge drinking is probably not still accurate. The section should be reworked and maybe title 'Campus Safety'. I removed the section (put it as a comment) while it is reworked. Gtstricky (talk) 15:46, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
The section is not about campus safety. It is about alcohol abuse. They are not the same thing; this argument sounds like a weak attempt to create a euphemism. I will investigate the broken links though and delete anything that cannot be sourced accurately...thanks for finding them. I rephrased the sentence on the study...I was not able to find the study either, but it seems highly unlikely that a school-hosted website would fabricate something like that so I think that the website as a source should stay. Cazort (talk) 21:35, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Basically every image in this article (except the one I took of Dupont Hall) is probably a copyvio. I'm going to be going through, removing them all, and putting in ones I know are OK. Raul654 18:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General Whitewashing

I get the feeling that the UD administration is editing this page anonymously, deleting any material that is negative in any way towards this school. I have repeatedly had various sentences and comments deleted even when they are backed up by hard sources. This practice is absolutely abhorrent and is completely against wikipedia's policy. I am bringing this up here because I want to warn other editors of this page to remain vigilant for such edits. If necessary, I will request semiprotection of this page so that people will at least have to come out into the open by creating official usernames. I'm not trying to depict a negative picture of the school here, really...I love UD. But I want this page to paint an honest picture. One of the reasons I want to get the negative stuff out there is because I care about UD and I think that covering up negative things is one way to keep them from being solved or make them worse. Cazort (talk) 02:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I also think there are a lot of "weasel words" in here. Sections of this look like it's written like an advertisement. Cazort (talk) 15:29, 9 December 2007 (UTC)


I removed a couple weasel words and phrases: "world-class" and "particularly substantial," referring to majors.RafaelRGarcia (talk) 02:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)