Talk:Vanderbilt University

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Good article Vanderbilt University has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
May 29, 2007 Good article nominee Listed
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[edit] Good Article?

Has any thought been given to submitting this article to the good article review process? It seems (to my biased mind, at least) to fit in with the "Good Article" criteria. Esrever 16:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Since no one voiced any thoughts one way or the other, I went ahead and nominated the article myself. :) Esrever 21:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
The article has just three citations in it. That is likely to cause problems in the GA process. I strongly suggest that you firm up the cites if you want to pass. Majoreditor 04:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
There are three footnotes, yes. However, the article itself has 24 citations. Esrever 05:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
No, those are references, not notes. The 24 references aren't proper citations. A citation is a note referencing a specific page in a specific work which supports the assertion of a fact. The lack of citations may very well cause this article to fail GA review. The article is well-written and certainly meets GA standards on all other points. It deserves GA status -- once it's properly cited.
I'd suggest taking the time to hunt down citations. Cheers, Majoreditor 13:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree. In fact, I took the time to go ahead and put in the framework for this article. Decent GAs have a lot more (inline) references than this. Oddly enough, not all of the sources at the bottom of the article seem to be used in the article. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 15:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I disagree (that they weren't proper citations), but I'm glad you decided to switch from the embedded HTML citations to the <ref> tags, since they're neater anyway. I also removed any of the sources listed under References that weren't actually being cited.
I do agree that the number of citations seems lower than some other GA-class university articles, but I'm curious as to what facts still need to be cited. That's not to say that there aren't any, just that it would be useful for those of us who contribute regularly to this article to have a better sense of what still needs doing. :) Esrever 16:34, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Esrever, thanks for adding in the inline citations. Wow, you got that done very quickly! You've done a great job. Good luck with the GA review! Majoreditor 16:48, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The alumni section would probably be better as prose; featured school articles typically have a large list of alumni, and a select few are described in prose in the main article. See Duke University#Alumni, Cornell University#Alumni, Georgia Institute of Technology#Alumni for examples. Also, you need a separate page for your athletics teams. Most schools have them, and it gives you a place to put all of that athletics cruft. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 17:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Took care of the alumni list already. I've certainly got no objections to splitting the athletics section off, either. Esrever 18:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Elite School

Is Vanderbilt really an elite institution? Is it on par with the ivies or ivy like? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.141.126.17 (talk) 06:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Define "elite." What frame of reference should be we using to judge the relative success of Vanderbilt? It is a highly selective school with bright (as measured by SAT and ACT scores) students and gobs of research dollars? Yes. Does that make it elite? I don't know. It's verifiably a good school, but beyond that, you'll have to refine your question. Esrever 16:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok. Well then is it a school where one can get a degree from and it can open doors? Does it command prestige? Is it on par with an ivy league school in that regard? It's a pretty simple question. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.248.172.10 (talk) 18:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC).
Yes, you can get a degree from Vanderbilt and it will "open doors" for you. I don't buy the idea, though, that the Ivies are any more or less "prestigious" than a lot of other schools, merely more selective. Yes, Harvard and Yale are good schools, but so are Stanford, MIT, Swarthmore, Grinnell, UNC, Michigan, Berkeley, and, yes, Vanderbilt. Heck, most of your flagship public schools are perfectly fine places to get an education. Does that answer your question? Esrever 18:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
One more question. Which is slightly better and commands more prestige; Emory or Vanderbilt? Thanks.
I'm not sure you're really getting me. Emory and Vanderbilt are different schools and offer drastically different experiences. Neither is "better" or "worse" than the other. One is ranked higher by U.S. News, but those rankings are, quite frankly, total bullshit. Each is going to offer better and worse programs and experiences than the other depending on what you're looking for. Esrever 21:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, well I was referring to rankings. So if you think that they're all BS then you really cannot answer my question. But thanks anyways.

Anyone else care to add something?


[edit] American Economic Association

Every time I click on the Associations website I find Vanderbilt in its web address. Is the Association housed at Vanderbilt, and if so why isnt it mentioned on this page or the AEA's page?

The AEA is indeed hosted by Vanderbilt's Department of Economics, and a Vanderbilt professor is always the executive director of the association. Their offices are just off-campus. As to why it's not included on either Vanderbilt's page or the AEA's page, why don't you be bold and fix it? Esrever 20:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA on hold

I am very impressed with the way this article is being put together, but it seems to me that the nomination for GA was put in too soon. There are a few main things that cause me to hold this article rather than fail or promote it. Mostly, the article's formatting is unappealing. The abundance of tables and lists don't appear to me like much work is put in those sections. Images clog the top half of the article, but the lower middle is devoid of any. The formatting is what causes me, personally, to reject an article, so the editors may get a second opinion if they wish.

  • The lead is short. The most important function of a lead is to summarize the article. The way I look at it, you should be able to tell your friends everything they want to know about the subject by reading the lead, and they should have some questions based on that reading, which you should answer by looking into the article. Expand the lead by giving a sentence or two about the major points and headings.
  • I can see that the notable people section was revised from a previous list, but it is still very long. You will see that if you read through it out loud, and quiz a friend on who you listed, they will probably only mention a few—the few that you should include. The names that jumped out at me were Al Gore, Amy Grant, Allen Tate, and James Patterson.
  • The aforementioned image clog strangely misaligns the article. I work on a widescreen, and at a high width the space between the bottom of the Greek life section and the Fraternities is huge. The tables throughout should definitely be converted to well-written sections, especially the Chancellor table.
  • Several of the "See also"s have changed names, so please update the links. Also, some should be incorporated into the text (the last three).
  • The references here use the proper formatting—good!
  • The infobox could use fleshing out. And consider creating a navbox for the pages directly associated with the university.

That's all. It's on hold because it looks like the history thus far is not that active and it seems like it could be achieved with a little work. Congrats you one (and a half) editor who is working arduously on this, but a little less editing and more content!

PS I'm going to stick around this article because I think it has potential. So please reply here (and do it!) ALTON .ıl 01:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. Most of what you've suggested is easily doable, and I'm glad to hear that you're sticking around. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Wikipedia's more technical aspects (and I include images in that) is rather limited, so any help you can provide in that regard would be most appreciated. I can move images around, but as far as fixing any misalignments goes, I'm not sure what good I'll be able to do. Esrever 19:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I must comment that although I am willing to help the article, I cannot do so until judgment is passed on the review. I know it sounds morbid, I am not going to pass it if these concerns aren't met. ALTON .ıl 03:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
No, that's certainly understandable. We'll all muddle through somehow. :) Esrever 04:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Historic images reverted

I restored the images in the History section deleted/rearranged by Vandymorgan. We need the Old Main/Kirkland photos side-by-side for comparison. The photo of Old Science is important because it is the only one of the original lecture halls whose architecture has not been substantially changed on the outside. It should stay. The photo of Kissam is interesting to show that even very large buildings from the early days of Vanderbilt have been lost, and for a humorous note about the inconvenient conveniences. Memorial Hall should stay because it illustrates the text next to it and represents an interesting controversy on which both sides have reasonable positons. Finally, as the founder, the photo of Commodore Vanderbilt should stay. --Zeamays 17:04, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I have to disagree. One of the primary concerns of the reviewer above was that the top of the article was too clogged with photos, and I agree wholeheartedly. Particularly Old Science and Kissam really should go ... there is no mention of them anywhere in the article at all. If you think those two photos are important for the reasons you described above, you should change the captions on the photos to reflect what you said. Right now they're just taking up space and not really providing anything useful. Vandymorgan 17:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Vandymorgan. As the GA review noted, there are too many pictures throughout the article. Keeping the two pictures of Old Main/Kirkland makes sense, as does keeping the picture of Memorial. They're all mentioned in the article proper. But the pictures of Benson and the old Kissam Hall don't really add anything to the article in my opinion. They're nice decoration, but it's too "cluttered" with them all crammed into that one section. It's probably worth removing a few more of the pictures down below, too, like the Stevenson Center picture for example. If you are determined to keep the pictures of Kissam and Benson, perhaps find a place for them in the article where they won't be bunched up with so many other pictures. :) Esrever 20:30, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The two writers above differ with me on a matter of taste. Some people are more visually oriented than others, and I am visually-oriented. I think that Wikipedia articles generally have too few photos, and these are all relevant to Vanderbilt history, whether they are mentioned in the text or not. They are useful in capturing a sense of Vanderbilt's history. The Victorians at Vanderbilt deserve to be seen. --Zeamays 00:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The issue is that there are too many pictures for the amount of text you have there. Some of them need to go until you've got more to say in that section. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 00:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's a thought: why not move either or both of the images of the 2 dorms (old Kissam and Memorial) to the section on Student Housing? Alternately, perhaps move the image of Memorial to the mention of the Peabody campus under Layout? Esrever 02:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bring back the Crest

I like the crest better than the V logo. It gives Vandy more of a prestigous vibe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.248.172.10 (talk • contribs)

Perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn't. However, the logo that appears in the article now is the Vanderbilt logo. Given the policies at WP:LOGO, I don't think it's fair use to continue to use a logo that is copyrighted but isn't official or accurate. Esrever 20:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] navbox

I took a stab at adding the suggested navbox to the page. The template for it can be found here. Thoughts? Esrever 02:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

WOW, if all navboxes can look that nice, Wiki would be a more pleasant place! However, policy says fair use doesn't cover use in templates! Meaning you can't have the Windows icon in the Microsoft navbox. You can recreate it though with something like:
VANDERBILTUNIVERSITY
But less ghetto. The content itself is great. ALTON .ıl 02:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. I'll have to see what I can do. The problem is that not only is the logo itself trademarked, but so is the wordmark. I'll fool around with it to see if I can come up with something that's not a violation of the fair use policy, though it may have to wait until tomorrow. Esrever 03:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
You're right. Anyways, I've went ahead and listed this article. It's in great shape, and although not that stable, the edits are only your tireless effort to improve it. ALTON .ıl 03:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! I appreciate the kind words. Now that you've passed it, of course, I hope you'll be sticking around to help . . .
As for tonight, in a spate of hyperactive editing, I reorganized big chunks of the article, mostly by amalgamating short sections together under a larger heading (like "Students and faculty" with "Admissions and rankings" and "Faculty research"). I also moved student publications information up to the section on student orgs., and then deleted the information about The Register and the alumni publications, which struck me as non-notable really. Obviously, people are free to disagree. :) Esrever 04:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Myths

I restored the Furman Myth text to agree with the referenced information. There is no evidence Furman was deliberately intended to "look different." Rather, papers in the Vanderbilt archives and models that I have seen in the Chancellor's office in Kirkland Hall in the 1960s when I was a student show that Vanderbilt has repeatedly hired architects to design "comprehensive plans" over the years. Each new comprehensive plan featured new buildings of a new and distinctive style. The result was generally that limited funds allowed construction of only one or a few of the desired buildings. The construction of the architecturally similar Buttrick, Garland and Calhoun Halls, was one of the greater successes, as the Rockefeller Foundation gave a large amount of money at one time for their construction.--Zeamays 21:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC) [1]

[edit] GA comment

For the article to maintain its GA status, the copyrighted images need detailed fair use rationales. Look to other passed GA/FAs for examples. Let me know on my talk page if you have any questions. --Nehrams2020 07:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removed two pictures (the image of Dinah Shore and the image of Gordon Gee) from the page because I don't think an adequate fair use rationale can be found for either. Thoughts? Esrever 21:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Gee's photo is a media kit photo. --Ttownfeen 02:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of the fair use policy. Despite the fact that a free image could be obtained (I'm not saying it'd be easy or of the same quality), is it okay to use a media kit photo? Esrever 04:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I used a press photo tag when I uploaded the photo. Unless you can find somebody to take a decent picture of Gee and relinquish ownership of it, this is the best option. --Ttownfeen 04:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, certainly feel free to rv what I did and add it back, along with the fair use rationale for its use on the Vanderbilt University page specifically. Esrever 15:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chops

What's a chop? The link there under the mascot section doesn't go where you want it to, I think. I would fix it, but I don't know where it's supposed to go.Vandymorgan 17:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It's short for mutton chops, so I pointed it to sideburns. Esrever 02:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment regarding Chancellors

By consolidating the sections about the administration of the university into one, you have rendering the the information regarding the previous chancellors of the university awkwardly-placed. A historical prospective is placed in a section that is decidedly about the the present. I suggest moving the history of the chancellor's office to its new obvious home: the history section. --Ttownfeen 02:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I consolidated those sections (along with a couple of others) because in my opinion the article had too many too-short subsections (e.g., the one on the BOT) that made it a bit cluttered. I can see your point about the chancellors section being out of place here, but I think it "flows" well from the text that was already there about Gee. Just my opinions, of course. Everyone's welcome to change it around. :) Esrever 16:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Size and Athletics

The information about Vanderbilt being the smallest school in the SEC is based on the number of undergraduates, which the sentence clearly implies. When you read the MSU and Ole Miss articles, the sources cited there indicate that MSU is smaller based on the number of undergraduates. Please stop changing this in the athletics section. Esrever 06:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Party image or Academic Powerhouse

Is Vandy considered a good regional school or is it on its way of becoming an academic powerhouse? These issues aren't really addressed in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.245.78.168 (talk) 07:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the reason it's not addressed is because that's a hard thing to be NPOV about. Do I think Vanderbilt's an academic powerhouse? Yes, but I'm also an alum. I think the article does a good job of assessing what the reliable sources say about Vanderbilt in the objective sense (i.e., that it's ranked #19, etc.). If you find other things that objectively address this issue, feel free to add them. Esrever 18:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I think Vandy is an academic powerhouse but it is stinted by the negative misconceptions that northerners have of it. They tend to harbor a bias against Vandy and assume it's a bastion for good ole' boy southern elites. They neglect the academic side of the school that's on easily on par with it's academic equals: Rice, Emory, Notre Dame. Surprisngly I think its international rankings are higher of that than Brown, Dartmouth, Emory and Rice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.245.75.17 (talk) 19:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm glad you feel that way. If you can find reliable sources that talk about those things, feel free to add it to the article itself. But that's what this talk page is for: improvements to the article, not discussions about the article's subject.  :) Esrever 20:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, should there be a small section on here about the bias against it for being both a socially vibrant school and an academic powerhouse? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.64.40.184 (talk) 18:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but what bias do you mean? Esrever 20:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


It is just something that I have noticed when ranking Vanderbilt. It is academically on par with Rice and Emory yet it is sometimes downplayed because of its southern roots and traditions. Some people view the other two schools as being northern schools in the south and tend to percieve them as better. Vanderbilt's traditions seem t obe minimal at best to me and when I visited the campus it seemed to be no different than Rice or Emory in student body or academics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.101.41 (talk) 23:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

The picture of Memorial Hall is terrible and should be removed. It makes the campus look cold and deserted which isn't accurate. Also -- one more alumni picture should be added for an even eight. There are some beautiful Vanderbilt pictures on the Mac Screensaver available on their website (the Windows version has older pictures) but the pictures may be copyrighted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.152.157 (talk) 11:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

If you don't like the photo of Memorial Hall, please fix it. I agree that it's not a great shot, so if you've got a better one that's freely usable, upload it. Same thing with the alumni pictures. The photos for the Vanderbilt screensaver are almost certainly copyrighted (see Wikipedia's policy on copyrighted images). Since it's easy enough to take pictures of existing buildings, we won't be able to use any copyrighted images in the article. Alumni are a different story, especially if they're dead and there are no free versions available. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that you're welcome to make any changes you like to the article. Esrever 11:54, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NRHP infoboxes

Einbierbitte added infoboxes for the two buildings on Vanderbilt's campus that are on the National Register of Historic Places. While I think these boxes are helpful, I think they look out of place at the very top of the article. Is there any objection to moving them somewhere else? Perhaps down near the bottom with the other templates? Esrever 03:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and placed them in the campus section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ttownfeen (talk • contribs) 05:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images: sizing

I removed the forced image sizing in the thumbs in the article. I was directed to the Manual of Style when this came up in the Duke talk page. The issue will come up again if we ever get to a point of going up for FA status, so it's best to just deal with it now. --Ttownfeen (talk) 23:53, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Faculty and Alumni

Hello everyone, I just finished a Communication Studies class here at Vandy and we studied an influential scholar and rhetorician named Richard M. Weaver. I was very surprised to see he wasn't here. Definitely should be included in the Notable Faculty section, or at least list of Vanderbilt people. Thanks! 129.59.99.114 (talk) 03:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

So fix it. Esrever (klaT) 04:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I would have if I knew how. That is why I asked about it. 98.169.188.112 (talk) 01:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)