Talk:University of Reading

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Contents

[edit] Halls of Residence

This section needs checking. Sgu03mbt added one list of halls, the universities halls of residence website (see External links) has a slightly different list, which excludes St David's and Mansfield Halls, but include a Whitenights Hall that isn't in Sgu03mbt's list. I've updated the article to include a superset of both, but I'm far from certain about the two that are missing from the University's own list. Can anyone confirm them, and make sure we are not double counting something that has multiple names. -- Chris j wood 12:41, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The University has only just taken over Witan Hall College - hopefully these links will help. The two pages on the halls are not linked yet on the Halls website but on the comparison table you can see the spaces for them! Hope these links help.sgu03mbt

Mansfield St. Davids Hall Witan International College


I took off mansfield and st davids and this is why: I emailed the vc about these of halls of residences as they were omitted from a document i saw last week, this is his paraphrased reply 'They come under Gyosei or rather, I think, under Witan International College. As such, they are not quite 'ours', since Witan is a separate company - legally - from the University.' It doesnt look like the University has plans to open them at moment, so not really halls of residence. But if they do bring a medical school here, im sure they will be redeveloped.

Ive now decided to re-add mansfield + st. davids but will make clear they are not used. Ta! DaveLewis 00:28, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The bulk of this section is a sort of whinge-fest, apparently part of a campaign by a student with a grievance. Is Wikipedia really the place for this? Some if is so trivial it is actually funny. Example:

"Also new in October 2006, students will no longer benefit from having their rooms cleaned once a week by the Hall's cleaners, and neither will they be provided with the basic pots and pans, crockery and cutlery necessary in the self catered halls. The catering arrangements in the catered halls are also under review, and there is no guarantee that the University will continue to provide 19 meals per week as has been traditional in the halls. There is no additional storage space being made available to students for their own pots and pans. The kitchens in self catered halls will no longer be cleaned by the staff on a daily basis on Monday to Friday, but will be cleaned twice per week. Additionally the kitchen bins are only scheduled for emptying twice per week. The number of cleaning staff has been cut in half."

I have deleted to spare any other readers.

[edit] External Links

Wikipedia pages are not intended to be link directories. I think listing the University clubs is not appropriate, especially when, as it seems clear to me, that links are entered only to a user/editor's preference rather than listing ALL of the clubs. Links to hall JCR's should be moved to the appropriate hall wiki page. If there was a section in the main page content referring to clubs/societies, then maybe a appropriate links could be included then. Doctor Moley 08:48, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested merger of Spark into here

It has been suggested that Spark (University of Reading newspaper) be merged into this article.

  • I don't think this would be particularly appropriate, unless the quantity of information on Spark was considerably reduced to say a single sentence or at most two. Spark is a pretty small element in the whole that is the University of Reading, and anything more would unbalance the current article. -- Chris j wood 18:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Well there is clearly no consensus for this merger. Even the person who suggested it hasn't bothered to turn up here and justify it. Removing the merger templates. -- Chris j wood 18:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] University ratings

(I'm posting this to all articles on UK universities as so far discussion hasn't really taken off on Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities.)

There needs to be a broader convention about which university rankings to include in articles. Currently it seems most pages are listing primarily those that show the institution at its best (or worst in a few cases). See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#University ratings. Timrollpickering 23:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Closed Departments

The following departments have benn closed and the article dose not mention them.
Geology
Mechanincal Enginerring
Physics
Music
Sociology

Further to this, I'm going to add a mention of the considerable controversy department closures caused - I'm currently in the physics department as an undergrad. Sojourner001 15:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Closure of Bulmershe campus - is this true

On June 6, 2007, an anonymous editor at 134.225.11.189 wrote:

The University announced in May 2007 that it intends to close Bulmershe Campus over the next following five years and withdraw to Whiteknights. Some departments from Bulmershe & Whiteknights will also eventually be based on the London Road Campus, following the University winding down Witan Hall College.

I can find no confirmation of such an announcement. The Press Releases section of the University web site contains no such announcement, and searches on Google come up with nothing. I've therefore requested a citation, but I'm wondering if that is enough. It is possible that this a particularly subtle bit of vandalism, in which case it deserves immediate deletion rather than waiting a month for somebody not to come up with a cite before it gets purged. Thoughts?. -- Chris j wood 17:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I've not seen anything about it either. I would be quite surprised, given all the new hall buildings up at Bulmershe. But I suppose they could keep the halls and lose the departments. It doesn't sound right, but on the other hand it's a really odd piece of vandalism. Hmmm. Eve 20:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree that if it is vandalism, it is pretty subtle. On the other hand I can find no-one else who has heard this story. I've searched the University press releases, and there is no reference. Ok, it is not unheard of for institutions to try and bury this kind of info. But I've also searched the student's union web site, and the web sites of both local newspapers. Again nothing; and this would be a story they would cover if they knew about it.
The information is uncited, and by an anonymous editor. So there is no way of following up with the original editor. On reflection, I think the right thing to do is to remove the information until somebody can back it up. So I've done just that. -- Chris j wood 18:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah I think that's probably the best thing to do. There's no mention of it in the University's strategic plan either. Although there is a very interesting 'WHiteknights Campus zoning map', showing a proposed road link across the lake by Met. Eve 21:10, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I've now heard a rumour from a reasonably trustworthy source on campus that this might be under consideration at least, if not decided. But I've still not seen it anywhere verifiable. Keep your eyes peeled. Eve 20:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] University rankings - top 200, or top 50?

There seems to have been a small disagreement going on recently over the University's rankings in the UK/world, with statistics being changed backwards and forwards and the word 'leading' being added and removed. Neither figure were backed up with sources. I've found a source for both figures here, changed the wording to accurately reflect the source, and cited it. If you wish to change the figures or put in different ones, please cite a reliable source. I also agree with Logain2006 that the word 'leading' violates WP:NPOV and have removed it. Eve (talk) 13:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

In the most recent Times Higher Education edition, the university was ranked 180th, 10 positions up from last year. It seems reasonable to me to note it as top 200, not top 50. You can review the ranking for yourself here. Logain2006 16:57, 26 March 2008 (GMT+2) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Logain2006 (talk • contribs)