Talk:Harvard University

Archive

There is one archived discussion of this article. Please feel free to revive archived discussions as necessary and appropriate. --ElKevbo 15:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Harvard Extension School

Is it actually part of Harvard? How do the ALB and ALM degrees offered by the Harvard Extension School compare to the more traditional AB and AM degrees? Are they Harvard degrees?

COFHE Results in Views of Harvard

Clear bias against Harvard: The Boston Globe reported that Harvard student satisfaction with their undergraduate experience trails most other COFHE (Consortium on Financing Higher Education) schools. [10] In the survey, 25% of Harvard undergraduates described themselves as "very satisfied" with their education, compared to an average of 37% at other COFHE schools, and 21% of Harvard students described themselves as "ambivalent" or "dissatisfied", compared to to an average of 14% at other COFHE schools. Harvard students who participated in the COFHE survey rated Harvard below the average of other COFHE schools on faculty availability, quality of instruction, social life on campus, and sense of community. An internal Harvard memorandum obtained by the Globe noted that "Harvard student satisfaction compares even less favorably to satisfaction at our closest peer institutions" relative to the COFHE averages. The Globe also quoted Lawrence Buell, former Harvard Dean of Undergraduate Education, as saying: "I think we have to concede that we are letting our students down."

First, this is a newspaper article claiming to have obtained confidential information, and this has not been independently verified or publicly acknowledged by Harvard officials. It can not be considered reliable information until confirmed by Harvard officials. Because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it should not present speculations as fact. Second, there is no information on the sample size, response rate, and margin of error and it is impossible to determine how significant the alleged differences were in reality. For all that matters, if the standard deviation between the several dozen COFHE schools is 10%, then the error bars for most schools would overlap and the difference between 25% and 37% will be buried within the statistical margin of error. In other words, statistically meaningless. The same thing for the dissatisfaction rates of 7% and 5%. Also true for the claim that Harvard students rated their school below the average of others. What is that actual difference? 0.01 on a scale of 10? You should not make sweeping generalizations and assertions like this without adequate data to back them up. The original author claimed that Harvard students were more dissatisfied than students at other schools, when the actual percentages were 7% and 5%, almost certainly an insignificant difference. This clear discrepancy makes one wonder if the author knows how to interpret statistics correctly. "Ambivalence" or "neutrality" is not the same thing as dissatisfaction. By combining these two categories, you do your best to push your agenda and to insinuate that Harvard students are not as happy as students at other schools. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of Harvard students (79%) are satisfied with their experience, 14% are neutral or ambivalent, and 9% are dissatisfied. I still don't know if any of these numbers are real, but I suppose it could be believable. If you can find similar kinds of consumer reviews for any commercial product, you would call it an awesome review. As far as Lawrence Buell's alleged comments, again, it is impossible to verify the truth of this information, but his response seems to be out of line with the actual data, when the alleged differences are rather minor. To the person who keeps on expanding this piece, please do not try to manipulate the numbers to suite your agenda. As far as the Crimson article is concerned, it is a student newspaper that by its nature runs articles critical of the school. It also publishes many, many articles that you wouldn't hesitate to label "Harvard boosterism" and would never quote. By making some quotes here and there out of context, you are distorting the reality and doing a disservice to the readers. I'm sorry that you seem to harbor a personal resentment toward Harvard but remember that Wikipedia editors should be neutral.

Three independent sources, none biased against Harvard, have provided cited and documented evidence that there is a major problem with undergraduate student satisfaction, and this is certainly as appropriate to the "Views of Harvard" section as the #1 university rankings that begin the section. It is interesting that you can find all of these supposed statistical flaws in the COFHE data, but you have no problem with the data or methodology behind the #1 university rankings and other pro-Harvard boasts throughout the article - who really has the bias problem here? Regardless, it seems evident to me that your opinion of the data is less important than the multiple Harvard administration sources that are quoted in the Globe article, all of whom considered the COFHE data meaningful and a significant cause for concern. Are you calling Lawrence Buell and the other Harvard sources biased as well? And are the many Harvard students who authored the Crimson magazine article and who are quoted within it biased against their own school? This was not a minor criticism in passing. This was a sustained, two-part multi-faceted criticism of the Harvard undergraduate experience, written by Harvard students and backed up by quotes from other Harvard sources and other data. And what about the National Institute of Health data that shows a large percentage of Harvard students feeling overwhelmed and hopeless? Is the NIH biased against Harvard as well? Three independent sources, none biased against Harvard, and at least one of which should have a pro-Harvard bias, all painting the same picture of a serious problem with the Harvard undergraduate experience. This is certainly a valid entry in the Views of Harvard section, although I agree it can be shortened over time once pro-Harvard biased editors like you stop trying to propagandize and sanitize the clear story that emerges from the data. I'm sorry you don't like what the sources are saying, but three independent sources certainly have more validity that your personal opinion. By the way, it is also quite a stretch to argue that a published Boston Globe article is not a valid source of information because it can't be independently verified - by that logic, we should delete many of the claims in the Harvard article because many of them have not been independently verified by multiple sources. The Boston Globe is a major U.S. newspaper with a long record of journalistic integrity, and it has not retracted or amended the article, so to claim that they made the whole thing up is preposterous.

Please read my writing carefully and repeatedly if necessary as you clearly have difficulty understanding relatively straightforward concepts. I sincerely hope your job doesn't demand too much abstract reasoning skills. 1) my writing does not say that any of these sources are biased against Harvard; you are the one who's assembling pieces of information out of context and misrepresenting them. 2) I do not say that the Globe made up the whole thing; I say that its claims have not been verified to lend enough credence to the story. The Globe is a decent paper, but it does make mistakes on a regular basis (ever see the corrections columns?). I also seem to recall that several prominent journalists from the Globe and the New York Times have in fact been caught plagiarizing and making up phony stories in the past. Newspaper writers are always looking for stories and are prone to exaggerating, particularly when it comes to Harvard. This particular story was based on information that was apparently obtained through illegitimate means, if it really existed. The information itself is very sketchy and incomplete, as I detailed previously. The data taken at face value simply does not support the contention that Harvard students are more dissatisfied than others. At best, it might show that the number of satisfied students is slightly less (although it's not at all clear if this is a statistically significant difference), but of course this isn't too exciting so the writer exaggerated. It is this misinterpretation that makes me question the whole story. Even if you accept the information as is, what most people would notice first is that the overwhelming majority of Harvard students are satisfied. What you are doing is trying your best to suppress this absolutely crucial piece of information and put the study in the worst light possible. This reinforces my conclusion that you are biased (please see point #1 above in case it's already slipped your mind). 3) I did not refer to any ranking issues or "pro-Harvard" boasting issues in my comments above and it's irrelevant to the present discussion. Your reasoning seems to be that, since there's a lot of stuff here that makes Harvard look good, I must throw in some really negative stuff about Harvard, even if it's total garbage. Your comments betray your bias (please see point #1 above in case you've forgotten). 4) Who are all the "Harvard administration sources" that you mention? Why is Buell the only one who's quoted when he is not even the current Dean, only a former Dean? Where are the comments by other people present? Where are the comments by the Dean of Harvard College, the current Dean of Undergraduate Education, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the President of the University? If this is such a serious issue as portrayed, why was this supposed revelation totally ignored by everyone? Can you be sure that the writer did not pick the absolute worst-sounding comment from the selection to maximize the shock value? You can't, since you don't have access to the original and complete data. That's what I mean when I say that the information is not reliable because it has not been verified (please see point #2 above in case you've forgotten). 5) Please do not throw around phrases like "the NIH study showed that..." hoping to impress people. Most NIH researchers are a couple of notches below the level of Harvard professors, except for a handful. There are plenty of bullshit NIH studies, and NIH studies should be subjected to the same critical analysis as any study coming from anywhere on the planet. Having said that, can you give me the citation for the supposed NIH study? In which journal was it published and who were the authors and what was their study protocol? What was the sample size and standard error? The data itself is also not very meaningful if students at MIT and Princeton and Stanford are just as stressed and overwhelmed. This citation serves no purpose and provides no useful information, other than to advance your agenda, ie. to make Harvard look bad (please see point #1 above in case you've forgotten). 6) The "separately researched article" from the Crimson's throwaway magazine entitled "The Cult of Yale" that you present as an authoritative commentary on the university is a farce. It's written for enterainment purposes and is not some scholarly study you try to make it. For a balanced treatment, I offer you another scholarly article from the Crimson, but it actually contains more facts than you would like to see. http://thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=255288. I hope you got my points this time. If you are still in doubt, please go and watch TV or something instead of trying to edit this article. As I said before, you do a disservice to the readers.

I suspect I am arguing with "Andrew", the infamous Harvard undergraduate who turned the Harvard article into a massively arrogant propaganda piece two months ago, and received an NPOV flag for his efforts. This section is called "Views of Harvard", and we have presented a legitimate view of Harvard based on at least four distinct sources - 1) the COFHE study, 2) Harvard administrators represented by Lawrence Buell and a 21-page internal memo reflecting the views of "staff researchers at Harvard to academic deans", 3) a well-researched article written by five Harvard undergraduates quoting many other Harvard undergraduates, and 4) the National Institute of Health. And sorry, but these independent sources are not contradicted by your personal opinion of Harvard, nor are they contradicted by your personal opinion of the sources. I may be going out on a limb here, but I would suggest that in aggregate, COFHE, the Boston Globe, former Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell, the 21-page internal memo from Harvard's administration, multiple quoted Harvard undergraduates, and the NIH have a bit more credibility than an aggrieved Harvard booster who needs to prove to the world how his school towers above all others. And did I mention Matt Glazer, former president of the Harvard student government, who is quoted in the Globe piece criticising the administration's commitment to fixing the problem? In aggregate, the Wikipedia article on Harvard is very positive. There are two paragraphs in the Views of Harvard section that provide a serious, documented, cited, alternate view of the undergraduate program. Everything is documented from multiple sources. It may not qualify as a standalone summary of Harvard University, but it certainly is a legitimate "view of Harvard", which is what this section is all about. So I will keep reverting your outright attempts at censorship.

And by the way, the "contradicting" article you provided is an arrogant football rivalry puff editorial written by one undergraduate, Zachary S. Podolsky, who argues from the same misinformed perspective that Andrew does, by citing large endowments and National Merit Scholars. The issue here is student satisfaction and the major academic, residential and social problems with the Harvard undergraduate experience, not how "big, rich and famous" Harvard is. Harvard may have lots of resources and a very talented student body, but that does not mean that there aren't major problems with the undergraduate education provided by Harvard.

And if it is the same "Andrew" the Harvard undergraduate who is protesting so loudly to censor the COFHE section, I can't help but find some humor in his sudden change of heart since his discussion page comments two months ago, after he was hit with an NPOV flag for his Harvard boosterism.

In Andrew's own words: "I'm a current student at Harvard and authored most of the two paragraphs in question. A common misperception is that schools such as Yale, Princeton, and Stanford are pretty much interchangeable with Harvard, a notion that these other schools try very hard to propagate. So I think it's important for the uninformed reader to have access to the truth. The reason why the article is 'out of balance' is because there are so few factual data showing that these other schools are better than Harvard in just about anything. If you can find other reliable and relevant information that can 'balance' the picture, by all means, add it to the article."

Please don't change the subject. Needless to say, it does not matter how many articles you cite if none of them are credible. As always, you keep exaggerating and spinning - the number of "independent sources" increased from two to three to four now - when the other two are in fact only briefly mentioned in the first two. Hmmm, what does this say about your regard for the truth? The first, the Globe article, is highly questionable as I detailed above, but you are not willing to, or rather unable to, directly counter any of my very legitimate points. Rather, you keep increasing the number of sources in response. The second, the Crimson article, is an amateurish piece by undergrads written for a throwaway weekend magazine of the student newspaper. Since when do a couple of quotations here and there turn a student newspaper article into an authoritative source based on "extensive research"? My whole point above was that you are being biased in selecting these dubious sources to satisfy your not-too-subtle need to introduce something negative about Harvard into the article. Quite contrary to your claims, I am receptive to the inclusion of information critical of Harvard, provided that the sources are sufficiently credible. Your sources do not currently meet that criteria. Since you keep avoiding the real issue, I am compelled to revert back to the previous version until you provide answers to the following: 1) Why are you selectively deleting the fact that the COFHE study showed that nearly 80% of the student population is satisfied with their experience, an obvious and important piece of information? Why are you combining the "dissatisfied" and "neutral" groups to make the number look larger? 2) What is the exact citation for the supposed NIH study since you base much of your legitimacy on it and what is your basis for insinuating that the result for Harvard is any different from those of other leading schools? If there is no basis, the information is misleading and should be omitted. 3) What specifically are the "serious, documented" academic, residential, and social problems you keep harping on? I strongly suspect that when they are identified, they will not appear as sinister and troublesome as you would like. If you can provide satisfactory explanations and legitimate sources for all of these questions, I will not object any longer.

I have edited the COFHE section to address each of your stated concerns:

1) You believe that it is significant that 79% of Harvard students in the COFHE survey reported satisfaction. I believe that it is more significant that only 25% of Harvard students are "very satisfied" compared to the COFHE average of 37%, and that 21% are not satisfied (e.g. ambivalent or dissatisfied), versus the 14% COFHE average. We cannot resolve this dispute, so I have stated that the actual survey results are open to interpretation, and given the citation so that the reader can make up their own mind. I have also added a direct editorial quote from the Harvard Crimson stating that they believe the COFHE results are significant.

We should leave the numbers out of the paragraph, because it is clear they can be spinned in different ways. If you insist on building your case that "79% of Harvard students are satisfied, so there is no issue here", I will re-insert numbers showing the other perspective, and also add in numbers against the specific criticisms (quality of teaching, social life on campus, etc.) This will make the whole section unwieldy, so I suggest we both stand down, and leave interpretation of the results to the Harvard sources that are cited.

In addition, you keep focusing on the overall satisfaction number, while ignoring the subcategory results, all of which show Harvard lagging COFHE averages. You also ignore the statement by the internal memorandum that Harvard lags even further behind its closest peers (e.g. Yale, Stanford, Princeton) than the COFHE averages would suggest.

I believe the multiple quotes by Harvard sources - Lawrence Buell, Benedict Gross, Harvey Mansfield, the Crimson editorial board - establishes the validity of the numbers and the conclusions drawn from them beyond reasonable question.

2) NIH numbers have been removed while I look for the original sourcing. However, given that the NIH numbers come from a Harvard source, it is unlikely they are incorrect.

3) The specific problems reported by both the Globe/COFHE and by the Crimson articles (faculty availability, quality of instruction, quality of advising, social life on campus, sense of community) have been listed. Both the Globe article and the Crimson articles make convincing cases backed up by multiple Harvard and COFHE sources against each of these points. Also, I have added two new citations directly from the Harvard Crimson that should put to rest any question about the validity or bias of the sources themselves.

It is time to close the debate about whether this is a real issue. You are free to personally disagree, but you don't just disagree with me, you disagree with Harvard administrators (e.g. Lawrence Buell, Benedict Gross), Harvard faculty (e.g. Harvey Mansfield, Philip Kuhn), Harvard students (many quoted across the four citations, including the president of the student government), and the Harvard Crimson editorial board, all of whom believe this is a real issue that reflects both academic and social problems with the Harvard undergraduate experience.

On the contrary, it may not be at all significant that the Harvard numbers are lower than the average COFHE numbers. The respondents were asked to rate their schools only, not relative to other schools. Surveys like this suffer from the obvious problem that standards can differ from campus to campus. If Podunk University students rated their school library as absolutely amazing, and if Harvard students rated their library as OK but could be much better (better lighting, better hours, easier access, more computers, free coffee, I'm sure there are plenty that can be improved), it does not follow that Podunk has a better library than Harvard. Harvard has the world's best academic library by any objective criteria, and if you asked Harvard students to COMPARE their library to others, the outcome would've been quite different. Similarly, there is no evidence whatsoever that Harvard students would have rated the campus life at Yale or Princeton or MIT over their own school's (In fact, I would predict the exact opposite in each case). Harvard students are a very critical bunch of people and it's naturally reflected in student newspaper articles. If you scanned the Harvard Crimson articles over the past 50 years, I would bet that you would find overwhelmingly more articles that are critical of their own school than laudatory. Yet most Harvard students are quite happy with their school in the end, and most Harvard graduates are very happy with their choice years out of school. The admissions office brochure when I applied cited a figure of over 90% of graduates who would choose Harvard if they had to do it over again. You seem to be a very avid reader of Crimson articles and other books related to Harvard, and it seems to give you a false sense of having some important insight into what it is like to be a student at Harvard without ever having been one. You seem to feel powerful selectively quoting from various individuals out of context and claiming that these provide some kind of absolute proof of your claims. Hardly, and you can't "prove" something that's not even true no matter how many quotes you can collect. Who are you anyway, so eager to portray Harvard in the worst light possible, spending so much of your time editing this particular article? Do you hold a daytime job? Perhaps in the admissions office of one of the lesser schools that get crushed by Harvard every year? Since you've devoted two paragraphs doing your best to portray the absolutely false impression that Harvard students are unhappy with their school, it is not unreasonable to add two sentences just pointing out that, by the way, most Harvard students happen to be satisfied. This is just an issue of intellectual honesty, and I find it disturbing that you have so little regard for it.

• Jumping in... I don't know how to interpret the results, and indeed I don't really know how to compare colleges since most of us only get to attend one of them. The COFHE material has some degree of interest, relevance, and, at the time, newsworthiness. But it's way, way too long. Isn't it possible to boil it down... while still making short summaries of the competing points of view? Dpbsmith (talk) 21:58, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• • Let me jump in as well. I like the original wording in these paragraphs that says that "the actual number are open to interpretation" and then links to the study so that the reader can make up his or her own mind. The problem with the arguments of the anonymous poster above is that they are selectively presenting the statistics. By lumping in "very satisfied" and "somewhat satisfied", the anonymous poster is hiding the fact that a much lower percentage of Harvard students in the survey describe themselves as "very satisfied" versus the COFHE averages. By ignoring the "ambivalent" category, the anonymous poster suggests that student dissatisfaction is very low. But the question remains - if only 79% of students are "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied", doesn't that by definition mean that 21% are dissatisfied to some degree? That seems hardly insignificant, especially when compared to the averages across other schools. And to Dpb's comments, I disagree that the paragraphs should be shortened. This whole debate (by all of us laymen) over how to interpret the statistics suggests the importance of the quotes, which show how Harvard administrators, professors and students who are in a better position to know the truth interpret the statistics. In a way, the plethora of Harvard sources all saying the same thing precludes the debate over how the statistics should be interpreted. I think what I am saying to the anonymous poster is what I understand to be established wikipedia policy - for the purposes of this article, your analysis of the statistics does not matter - if you disagree with what is presented, then you have to argue your case with credible cited sources.Taravel 04:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

If the consensus is to keep the longer version, I think we need to think hard about creating a new article (Views of Harvard, Criticism of Harvard, or something similar) so we can summarize the main points and link to the longer article. This article is getting a bit long and we need to be mindful of its continued growth. I also think that there is more than enough material here to warrant a new article and I'm sure that much more could be added to such an article. I'd like to hear others views on this but I may go ahead and be bold and create the article. Just not this minute - my cereal's getting mushy. :) --ElKevbo 04:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Institution section?

Does anyone else here agree with me that the institution section is basically a summary of the whole article and should be incorporated into the rest of the article? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. Surely it is incorporated already? Or do you mean that it should be deleted altogether and its contents redistributed among the other sections? If so, are you referring to the whole "institution" section or just the top bit which doesn't fall under a subheading? If the latter, don't you think it's useful to have an intro before jumping right into things? (Not that the article is especially well-organized now; far from it. A major reorganization is surely needed. Oy.) Doops | talk 23:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was referring to the section under "Institution" and before and third-level headings. True, it's useful to have an intro, but not to cover the whole story and simply repeat items (and have links to the sections, which I've removed now). The lead section should do that. See Xiangqi as a way of how articles should be formatted - it's bad style to summarize the entire article after the lead - it should be removed and merged into the content. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Please see my reply below under "rearrangement reversion". Thanks. Doops | talk 04:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Nobel counts

...do not belong in university lead sections. All top universities have Nobel laureates "associated" with them; it's not anything that particularly characterizes Harvard, it's just one more indication that Harvard is one-of-the-best-if-not-the-best universities, a point which does not need to be hammered home more than ten or fifteen times.

Counts of Nobel laureates "associated" with universities seem silly anyway, since what I at least would like to know about an institution is how many Nobel prizes have been awarded for work facilitated by that institution. But even that wouldn't be lead-section material.

If Harvard had, say, double the number of Nobel laureates of any other university, OK, that would be something specially Harvard-specific, but Nobel Prize laureates by university affiliation seems to show that's not the case.

I moved the Nobel-count sentence to the "people," section but I'm not at all that it needs to be in the article at all.

By the way... why was the magic year "1974" taken as the starting point for the count? What's specially appropriate about 1974? Dpbsmith (talk) 13:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

That's easy. 1974 was the year chosen because the Harvard Guide on Harvard's website uses 1974 as a dividing point. I originally added the Nobel and Pulitzer counts to the lead many many months ago as a replacement for previous content which claimed such things as as "Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world." Adding these facts gave me solid ground to delete that sort of empty opinion. I fear that without them the boosterism problem will get worse, as people read the lead and feel that something is "missing"; but maybe it can't get any worse than it already is. Cheers, Doops | talk 18:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Well, we'll see. I've just tried to plug the gaping hole left by moving the Nobel headcount with a factoid which IMHO reflects rather positively on Harvard and also happens to be of some historic importance to the nation... probably won't work but at least I tried... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the move to the section. Also, regarding the sentence: "Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world." - couldn't this be incorporated into the lead section by saying "Considered as one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Harvard..." Thoughts on that? THanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:19, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

No that doesn't really solve the problem. "Is considered" still sounds rather authoritative, i.e. it's not weaselly enough. (And a properly weaselly version like "many people consider it one of the best, although others disagree" would of course be ridiculous.) [Also, as far as I'm concerned, "prestigious" is an icky word which should be avoided under practically any circumstances.] I've kept your sentence but changed "prestigious" to the more value-neutral "famous" and, in order to highlight the fact-based (rather than opinion-based) nature of the claim, changed "is considered" to "is." But I suspect that even that will be too much for dpbsmith. :) Doops | talk 04:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Since there's been no objections to incorporating the hideously long section below "Institution", which reads like a summary of the whole article, into the rest of the page, I'm going to be bold and do so. In addition, I'll also be bold and move some sections around for better flow. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's too long; but I think the best thing to do is just to trim anything that needs trimming. See my "rearrangement reversion" § below for more. Doops | talk 04:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

"Professor of religious symbology"

"The best-selling fiction book, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, has its main character, Robert Landgon, as a professor of religious symbology at Harvard"

Two points. I really think this comment should be followed by the note that Harvard does not recognize "symbology" as an academic discipline. I'm 99% sure of this, but of course it's hard to prove a negative, can anyone help? Can anyone find a Harvard-sourced statement that there ain't no such study as "symbology?"

CERN has a very helpful (and amusing) page describing what is true and false about CERN in Angels and Demons, but Harvard does not seem to be as helpful.

Second point. Although I see that our article on The Da Vinci Code also uses the phrase "religious symbology," IIRC Dan Brown simply uses the unqualified word "symbology." I threw my paperback of the Da Vinci Code away, I think I still have Angels and Demons kicking around somewhere, I'll check, but if anyone happens to know... Dpbsmith (talk) 12:55, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

A quick search of Harvard Divinity School (HDS) turned up nothing, and a Google search [1] of HDS's website for "symbology" also produced no results. It appears that most professors are professors of divinity. Anyways, on an unrelated tangent, I'm going to go ahead and be bold and remove the section under "Institution" and before any triple-level and merge it into the rest of the article soon if I don't hear any objections (see two sections above). Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:37, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops, thought I'd deleted my query... I found a Crimson article quoting a professor as saying there's no academic discipline called "symbology" and that the closest thing, semiology, is not represented at Harvard, and edited the article accordingly. Re my second point, in Angels and Demons Brown variously refers to "symbology," "religious symbology," and "iconology" so I was wrong in thinking he only calls it "symbology." Dpbsmith (talk) 19:14, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Harvard also has no professors of phrenology. Doops | talk 20:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

But since there are no recent bestsellers featuring "Harvard professors of phrenology" there's no reason to mention that. However, I'll shorten the note to "According to Karen L. King, Harvard professor of Ecclesiastical History, there is no such academic field as symbology." This should calm any fears that someone will add a sentence to "Views of Harvard" complaining of Harvard's lack of professors in symbology, phrenology, dianetics, chiromancy, ovonics, and pataphysics.  :-) Joke. Smiley. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:20, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Harvard's archetypic status

I nominated Harvard of the Midwest for deletion, and believe it well deserves it. During that discussion, someone called my attention to MIT in popular culture#"The MIT of..." which at that time was about two screensful of tabulated detail. I agreed that something needed to be done, but on mulling it over I felt that MIT does have an archetypic status, deserved or not, that should be mentioned. So I boiled that section down to what I thought was something reasonable.

It then occurred to me that something similar ought to be said about Harvard, so I've said it. I'll probably be sorry. Maybe this would be better in College admissions and ranking shorthands in the United States (home of HYP). Dpbsmith (talk) 16:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Harvard accent

Something ought to be said about the "Harvard accent," either in this article or in a separate one. I'm going to collect a few random thoughts and things here as they occur to me and as I find them. Not putting anything into the article yet; hoping someone else picks up this ball and runs with it.

What I haven't been able to find is a good, straight, serious, non-jocular explanation of its history, how it arose, whether it's the same as a Yale accent, whether all of 'em are really prep school accents, when they started, why they started, how they declined, etc. I believe that like many stereotypes the phrase "Harvard accent" has persisted long after the reality. I don't think it has existed for decades, but haven't been able to find anything yet that says so. (My guess is that the reason the article says nothing about it currently is that most of the editors of the article have never heard it!)

(It would be easy to compile a properly-sourced List of famous people reported as having had Harvard accents but let's not go there. And, yes, I think it is most frequently used pejoratively... with an implied "phony British" or "lah dee dah" or "hoighty-toighty...")

• Not the same thing as a Boston accent. John F. Kennedy's accent was not a Harvard accent. "this accent of Kennedy's is described as a Harvard accent. It isn't at all; it's an Irish, middle-class, Boston accent." --Kurt Vonnegut, 'Conversations With Kurt Vonnegut University Press of Mississippi, 1988, ISBN 0878053581

• 1906 reference: "He, rough in dress and manners and regarding "dudishness" as unfailing proof of weak-mindedness, had set down the fashionable Arthur, with his Harvard accent and his ignorance of affairs, as an unmitigated ass." http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11614/11614.txt. David Graham Philips, The Second Generation, 1906

• Earliest hit found in an online search of The New York Times: John Kieran, Sports of the Times, Mar 12, 1927, p. 11: "The Detroit Tigers have lost... Tiny Owens, who... said he preferred the society of his mules to that of the superior youths who are now engaged in the baseball business. The eccentric mule driver objected to golf knickers, white flannels, tennis shoes and ukeleles around a baseball camp. He accused one Detroit rookie of having a Harvard accent..."

• Dunlap, Orbin E, Jr. The New York Times, September 6th, 1936, p. X10: "A Study in Voices: Presidential Nominees Use Plain Words; Their Radio Personalities Differ." Long article on the voices of "Mr. Roosevelt" vs. "Governor Landon," including pen-recorder charts of their pattern of voice volume variation in radio broadcasts. "Landon's radio voice is described as 'plain;' Roosevelt's 'plain but lively, colored by a Harvard accent.'"

• Obituary of E. L. Thayer, author of Casey at the Bat: The New York Times, August 22, 1940, p. 19: Thayer was a Lampoon editor... Comedian Wolf Hopper, famous for reciting it, is quoted: "Thayer indubitably wrote 'Casey,' but he could not recite it.... I have heard many other give 'Casey.' Fond mamas have brought their sons to me to hear their childish voices lisp the poem, but Thayer's was the worst of all. In a sweet, dulcet Harvard whisper he implored 'Casey' to murder the umpire, and gave this cry of mass animal rage all the emphasis of a caterpillar wearing rubbers crawling on a velvet carpet. He was rotten." Hey, this is going into Ernest Thayer...

• Edmund Morris (1979), The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., New York. p. 153 in Modern Library, ISBN 0375756787 "[Theodore] Roosevelt's behavior on the floor, to say nothing of his high voice and Harvard accent, exasperated the more dignified members of his party.

• http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/hayward.html "During Hayward’s time, the faculty at Meadville consisted of Sydney Snow, James Luther Adams, and Charles Lyttle. Hayward likened Snow to Ralph Waldo Emerson—“with a perfect Harvard accent and a New Englander to the tips of his fingers.”

• ???? Sometimes called a Harvard/Groton accent? Really a prep school accent? Relationship to "received pronunciation" taught in British prep schools????

Dpbsmith (talk) 13:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparently there was a consciously cultivated Harvard accent. From a review of a book on 19th century Harvard:

Ronald Story shows how the privatization of Harvard turned it into an elite institution in which the socializing function became as important as teaching and research. And the goal of socialization was the cultivation of gentility in the style of Oxford and Cambridge in England. Under the leadership of Edward Channing, professor of rhetoric after 1819, the so-called Harvard accent was modeled on "the purity and simplicity of the English style."

From a review by E. Digby Baltzell of Ronald Story, The Forging of an Aristocracy: Harvard and the Boston Upper Class, 1800-1870 (1980), in The American Historical Review, Vol. 86, No. 2 (Apr. 1981), p. 462. (The Edward Channing link has the wrong target, but the one with the article is presumably a grandson or something.) Tupsharru 16:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Grandson seems to be wrong, as EB 1911 has somebody else in the role of grandfater of the younger Edward, but I guess there may be some relationship. Tupsharru 17:44, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

If it was traceable to a single person... were there similar traditions at Yale and Princeton, or is the "Harvard accent" actually a sorta-unique distinguishing feature of Harvard? Of course, Googling on "Groton accent" (in Books as well as the Web) turns up quite a bit... so it can't have been completely unique.... Dpbsmith (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've got my interlibrary loan requests in for the Ronald Story book and a relevant book by E. Digby Baltzell. I do hope there are some details. Just how did the young Harvard gentlemen become transformed? Did Channing literally correct their pronunciation? Were there actually classes and exercises in verbal speech, much as there are in written composition? Did this continue into the mid-1900s or was it just promulgated less formally, by imitation... or by instruction at prep schools that knew what Harvard had expected in the past? Dpbsmith (talk) 17:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I found that reference through JSTOR, which also finds an article describing Leonard Bernstein as having a Harvard accent. JSTOR gives no hits for either "Yale accent" or "Princeton accent". Judging from Baltzell's review, there is a lot of other stuff in there on the history of Harvard in the period. It would be nice with a proper history section in this article. Actually, I'm sure a separate History of Harvard University could be written. (I still can't figure out why all the Harvard students hanging about here are so preoccupied with rankingcruft and so uninterested in contributing anything substantial.) BTW, shouldn't the history section be moved to the beginning of the article, just after the lead? Tupsharru 19:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

rearrangement reversion

Hi, Flcelloguy. I'm sorry I didn't notice your Jan 6th reply to my Jan 4th reply. I reverted your rearrangement for two reasons: firstly, the history section is still exceptionally poor, being overly full on certain sections of Harvard's history and a mere stub on others. It's embarrassing to lead with something so weak. Secondly, and more importantly, I think that even once that's fixed, the "history" section still shouldn't lead off the article. The most basic facts should come first, and those are Harvard's size, location, faculties, budget, etc. The present-day status, in short, should come before the past or the future.

To your more general point about the top of the "institution" § (i.e. the stuff not under any third-level headers) -- I agree that it's bad form to have a redundant pre-summary. But looking at the content, it seems to me that much of it is stated there and only there -- i.e. it's not redundant. It's just the "general" stuff which doesn't fall under a sub-header. So why not just fix any individual problems by choosing the best home for each redundancy and trimming other occurrances accordingly? Doops | talk 04:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I was actually planning on doing that yesterday, but I got distracted. True, the section that we're discussing isn't so much a repeat summary as a summary. When I first read the article, it had links (i.e. "Please see [[[#THIS SECTION]] for more information." or something like that...) to other sections within the article, and those sections were only one or two paragraphs long with some links. The information should be moved to a more appropriate place, such as third level headings under other second level headings, and that's what I meant. (Sorry if I was unclear.) We shouldn't give a summary of the whole article in the very beginning, aside from the lead. Thoughts on that? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Student groups

Every Harvard man and his dog is adding their own group to the lists under "Student groups and organizations". Could we limit this to only groups with significant claims of notability (eg. oldest of the kind; have a Wikipedia article) and scrap the rest? There was a similar problem on the Harvard Law School page (see here). Thanks. Harro5 08:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• On a related note to cutting the article's size, I've deleted all entries in th external links section which are found through the parent http://www.harvard.edu website. Harro5 08:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Almost all of these groups are active and among the biggest at Harvard. It really isn't that big of a problem. I looked up other college wikipedia articles, and the do have lists like these. The more comparable universities, like Yale, also have such a list. I don't see the big deal?

Yeah, good point. I also looked at other college articles, and Yale's list does stand out as extremely long. Our is nothing by comparison, and our only lists official sites.Mancala 01:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links. Please do not assume that just because a university is a rival, everything in its article should be taken as a challenge and outdone. As it says in WP:NOT, "excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia."

The guideline on external links makes it clear that external links should be relevant to the general topic of the article. They should contain material that enriches the article. IMHO a single link to the Harvard Student Activities list would be highly appropriate. Essentially copying that page link by link into our article is not. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Definition of Harvard alumni

I would like comments on the definition of Harvard alumni. Please visit Category talk:Harvard alumni for a discussion. I'm mention this here, since probably seen by more people, who probably know more about it, than those in the bio article in question. --Rob 19:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Terrific

This is a terrific article, probably the only really balanced article on wikipedia about an academic institution that manages to avoid ridiculous self-aggrandizing hyperbole (perhaps partly because the facts speak for themselves). It should definitely be a model for other academic wiki articles. Congrats to all involved. Badgerpatrol 01:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Fuck Truck

Does anyone else find the link for Fuck Truck on this page a little bit offensive? I don't want that article to be removed, but I just wonder if it should be a link on Harvard's page. Rellman 00:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)Rellman

• See Wikipedia is not censored and Wikipedia:Profanity for why this link is needed. If something is encyclopedic, and this article is, then it needs to be mentioned no matter whether it is offensive. Harro5 03:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Recent developments section

The end of the Recent developments section reads: "The Undergraduate Council advocated for the students to stay or be allowed inter-year transfer rights, whereas the Crimson posted occasional op-ed pieces about the necessity of the students leaving to maintain integrity of contracts." Does anybody know what is meant by "maintain integrity of contracts"? This seems to be alluding to some "contract" that these displaced students had with Harvard. What were the conditions of this contract? Was the contract written, verbal, implied, ...? I think this requires some explanation.

I think "contacts" was meant, instead of "contracts", i.e. students who had adapted to harvard, and gotten to know other students, etc. wouldn't want to lose those contacts. I'm not exactly sure though --jacobolus (t) 09:25, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

References

Wow; this article's references need some fixing. We've got incorrect numbering, quite a few unref external links, and back links that don't work. Would anyone object to me fixing everything and switching the entire article to the Cite.php method? Barring any objections, I'll go ahead and do so soon. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I've done the first step, converting the article from {{ref}} and {{note}} to cite.php using the ref converter. I'll work on standardizing the references next and changing all the other external links left into refs. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:11, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Popular Culture

I deleted the following paragraph, as it seems rather tangential to the article.

In popular culture, "Harvard" can be an archetype for "best college," as "Cadillac" can be an archetype for luxury, or "Einstein" for intelligence. These archetypes exist, regardless of the literal truth of what they symbolize. Evidence of Harvard's archetypic status is that regionally, any venerable school is likely to be called "the Harvard of" that region; see Southern Ivies for specific examples of "Harvards of the South." (A college guide notes, "Ask a Duke student to compare his beloved school to the Ivy league and you'll hear 'Harvard, the Duke of the North'" ^[2]).

Of course, I realize that "the Harvard of" phrases exist, but given the history of this Wikipedia article and the strong opinions about academic boosterism and what not, it seems that it would be necessary to justify this phrase with a long-winded paragraph that most likely veers from what this article should be about (see above).

--128.103.29.10 00:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Grade inflation

Someone recently snipped the startling datum that "half of the grades Harvard issued in the year 2000 were A's or A-minuses)" with the edit comment "Harvard's anti-grade inflation tactics have come a long way since six years ago, and it is unfair to cite that statistic."

My response is that if it is outdated that should be put into context. I hadn't been following the grade inflation story; I'd vaguely heard about it but had no idea it was that... striking.

But.

On closer examination, I see that the supposed reference for the original sentence is actually a 2004 story about a Princeton's plan to ration A's which says nothing about Harvard's grades in the year 2000.

I think we need a two-or-three sentence summary, with good references, that 1) confirms the sentence "half of the grades Harvard issued in the year 2000 were A's or A-minuses" (I hope that refers to undergraduate grades, as graduate-course grades are expected to be high); 2) says briefly what "anti-grade inflation tactics" Harvard adopted in response; 3) says briefly what the results were, i.e. how the grade distribution in (say) 2005 compares with 2000.

There is certainly no reason to remove the topic altogether or remove specific facts illustrating if (if they are accurate). The presentation should be neutral. It should be mentioned that the problem was not specific to Harvard, but I don't think there's reason to go into that at great length. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll take a look at this soon and see if I can't come up with something. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:10, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If "the problem [is] not specific to Harvard" then why would we want it in the Harvard article? Keep it out, please. It's an interesting and important topic but it doesn't belong here. At the very most, it might be mentioned in passing with a link to a more detailed article about grade inflation. --ElKevbo 21:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

In fact, we have an article on grade inflation. I don't see a reason to say that grade inflation exists at Harvard and at other universities, unless there is some Harvard-specific information that can be included. However, I do think that this is relevant to the "Views of Harvard" section, as grade inflation is a pretty common criticism about Harvard. btm _talk 21:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

As long as someone can provide a quality citation (indicating this problem is particularly pernicious at Harvard) then I certainly can't argue with it. It should be a good source, however, and not merely one sniping at Harvard for having a problem which is widespread among many colleges and universities. I'm reading Bok's latest book ("Our Underachieving Colleges") right now and I'll see what, if anything, he has to say about grade inflation and if he has special words about Harvard (he's President Emeritus of Harvard). --ElKevbo 22:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

It turns out that the Boston Globe had an item about this just last month. The article does not support the idea that grade inflation is a thing of the past, and it does appear that Harvard itself regards it as a problem. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

AT HARVARD, MORE CONCERN FOR TOP GRADES

Boston Globe, The (MA)

February 12, 2006

Marcella Bombardieri and Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff

Four years after Harvard professors agreed among themselves to try to crack down on grade inflation, they seem to have made no progress. An annual report has found that grades are again at all-time high, although the upward creep has been small. In 2004-05, 23.7 percent of all grades were A grades, compared with 23.1 percent the previous year. (That doesn't count A-minuses, which were 25 percent in 2004-05, slightly below the 25.2 percent the previous year.) The dean of the college, Benedict Gross, sent out a letter to professors on the topic, saying that "grade compression continues to be a concern." The problem is that individual professors have no incentive to give lower grades and that some believe that Harvard students are so much stronger today that they deserve more A grades than did previous generations. The administration did sharply reduce the percentage of students who can graduate with Latin honors, but it has done little else. Gross said the college had made a strategic decision to put off grade inflation until after a review of the undergraduate curriculum. Perhaps as soon as next fall, Gross said, he would put together a faculty committee to consider what to do about grade inflation. He said he has been impressed by Princeton's new policy, which asks departments to limit the number of A grades they offer.

P. S. I was wrong about "half of the grades Harvard issued in the year 2000 were A's or A-minuses" not being referenced. It appears that someone removed the references from the body of the article. I hate it when people do that. Fortunately they left the citations themselves in place. this one turns out to be an interesting article, by the way. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

P. P. S. I don't want to give the topic much space in the article, so I'll dump some stuff here. Healy, Patrick, 2002, "Harvard to award more B's, Raise Honors Standards," The Boston Globe, May 22, 2002, p. A1. "The school's faculty yesterday committed itself to awarding more B's to students and voted to sharply raise academic requirements for honors, which went to a record 91 percent of graduating seniors last June. No more than 60 percent of seniors will be eligible, and cut-off scores will be raised to make honors harder to achieve.... [A] Globe study found that last year, the honors rate was 51 percent at Yale, 44 percent at Princeton, and 40 percent at Dartmouth, among other schools.... The honors change was made in tandem with a conversion of Harvard's 15-point grading scale into a 4.0 scale, which is far more common. Dubbed "archaic" by several Harvard professors, the old grading system included a numerical oddity between an A-minus (14 points) and a B-plus (12 points) that led some professors to prefer giving A-minuses when a B-plus was more deserved."

It would appear that Harvard did have a particular Harvard-specific problem with Latin honors, which may have been solved (I wish the 2006 story had mentioned the current percentage), but that apparently grades themselves have not changed much. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, Latin honors have gone down. They are capping the honors, which by definition means it's a fixed percentage and it will be 50% next year (http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=502775 there are also many more recent articles by seniors last year who didn't get honors complaining about the new rules).

The GPAs at Harvard are comparable to those at other Ivy League schools (and honestly Harvard's average GPA is lower than many of their GPAs), so it does not make sense to cite these statistics in a Harvard-specific context. The Globe article also included Grad students grades, which are of course higher and thus inflates the averages.

I'd like to boil it down. I'd like to avoid overprecise numbers and say that in 2000, about half of the grades were A's and A-minus and that in 2004-5 the situation was about the same, or had not changed. But if the number was 51% in 2000 and 48.7% in 2004-5 I don't want to hide the possibility that there was a tiny change.

The Crimson story says, "the fervor[sic] over honors and grade inflation that began in 2000-2001, after a series of stories in The Boston Globe focused nationwide attention on the alleged problem." (I assume they meant "furor.") But it seems to me that there was a Harvard-specific furor and that nationwide attention was drawn to an alleged Harvard problem, and that to me suggests that, whether deserved or not, it was Harvard that got the attention and therefore a mention in the Harvard article is perfectly appropriate.

I think the specific numbers belong, because, not having personally followed this fervor or furor or fervid furor, I had no idea it was that bad. Half A's and A-'s is, frankly, staggering to me. That would have been wildly inappropriate even in a graduate course just a few decades ago. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Does Boston Globe have something against Harvard?

This is idle chat and I do not want anything about this in the article until it's clear that it's been adequately discussed here and that consensus has been reached.

In looking through my public library's newspaper database (Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and, um, um, what are the two others? Worcester Telegram and Springfield Republican?) for articles on grade inflation, it was very noticeable that the Globe had a couple of dozen articles or so on this, and related issues, whereas the Herald had none or practically none. (I don't want to go back and search again just to be certain about the counts...) And I see that the Globe is also the source for the COFHE report claiming student dissatisfaction.

I personally regard the Globe as practicing reasonably legitimate and reliable journalism. Nevertheless, I almost get the impression that the Globe has it in for Harvard.

Do others share my impression, does it rise to the level of something for which good, neutral, verifiable sources can be found, and if so would it be appropriate to mention in the article? Just wondering. It of course is odd in the light of a later paragraph citing a Wall Street Journal article claiming that journalists in general are overly interested in, and deferential toward Harvard. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't read the Globe often or thoroughly enough to have an answer, but... maybe the difference between Globe and Herald coverage reflects their different focus. If the Herald don't think their readers are interested in goings-on at Harvard, they won't cover it as much as the Globe. Also, some opinion columnists at the Globe (Alex Beam for one) get snarky about Harvard, so that might affect your search results. FreplySpang (talk) 15:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

 

The Globe's coverage of Harvard tends (in my reading) to have a knock-them-off-their-pedestal tone to it, conspicuous in contrast with the corresponding stories in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. People also seem to go to them when they have material they hope will make a dent in that pedestal -- witness the COFHE story and the infamous Hopkins leak.

The later paragraph (in its present form, anyway) seems to have it right, though -- Harvard has a lot of graduates in well-known newsrooms, and this may get it more attention. It doesn't mean favorable attention, as anyone can predict who reads what those Harvard journalists say about Harvard when they're young, in the pages of the Crimson.

I'm not aware of any published commentary or the like on this subject, though, so I have nothing for the article.

Greg Price 15:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The Globe definitely has a bias against Harvard. They always run negative stories on the school. Last year they even tried to make it seem like Harvard was a haven for underage drinking. It would not take too much work to find substantial evidence for this bias claim.

How about, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States?

I was one of some editors tinkering with the wording of Penn's claims to venerability (and, more recently, with Columbia... Columbia claims on its website to be the "fifth" oldest without bothering to explain that it was chartered fifth, but founded sixth). And I like the the table in Colonial colleges that shows all the various relevant dates.

Colleges care deeply about their date of founding. It is apparently a significant point of pride because among other things it governs the order in which they march in academic processions. And it appears to me that they all, including Harvard, have a strong tendency to use rather strained arguments to support the earliest conceivable date of founding for which there is the shred of a glimmer of a scintilla of a trace of a vaguely plausible argument. And a whole bunch of 'em... well, three, anyway... were founded or chartered or began all at the same time, around 1750.

But, in Harvard's case, it doesn't matter what date you use. Even if you use 1650, the date of chartering, rather than the (in my humble and not very expert opinion) somewhat dodgy 1636, Harvard still has William and Mary beat by decades, and William and Mary implicitly acknowledges this by its claim to be "America's second-oldest college."[3].

If there were any doubt whatsoever about Harvard's claim to being the "oldest" you can be sure that the rival university would make this perfectly clear on its website.

So, I don't see why we can't just say Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. With, if necessary, an explanatory footnote (the University of Henrico and all that...) Dpbsmith (talk) 02:00, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Concur; the only reason that I changed it to "is regarded as" is because another user had revised it to "claims to be", which seems to imply that the claim is false. Instead of reverting, I changed it to that wording, but I agree that it should be "is". It is generally regarded as the oldest, and there is no notable challenge to this. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the use of the word "claim" implies a challenge to that claim and shouldn't be used unless the the challenger is identified and the grounds for the challenge given. I truly hate phrases like "generally regarded" because there's almost no way to support them without an utterly unreasonable amount of original-research-like work. What I guess someone still needs to do is find specific, verifiable sources that say in so many words that Harvard "is" the oldest, using the word "is," and cite them. I don't think that should be hard. Dpbsmith (talk) 11:07, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think I nailed it, particularly with the Frederick Rudolph reference. (No, I have no idea why I thought it was worth bothering about). Dpbsmith (talk) 15:23, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, the Crimson...

...is one of numerous college newspapers founded at about the same time, following the Civil War. Its nuanced claim to be the "the nation's oldest continuously published daily college newspaper" rests on a number of interpretations and is certainly not in the same category as Harvard being the oldest college. The Yale Daily News claims to be the "oldest college daily" which is not necessarily a contradiction to the Crimson's claim. One source, Brubacher, John S.; Willis Rudy (1997). Higher Education in Transition, Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1560009179., p. 137, says: "After the Civil War... on almost every campus a publication was established which modeled its form, content, and purpose on regular daily newspapers. The Yale Daily News, first to be founded, is still in operation. The Harvard Crimson began in 1873 as a more newsy rival of The Advocate. Ten years later, it merged with a competitor to become a daily."

To say that the Harvard Crimson is the "oldest continuously published daily college newspaper" assumes that the Crimson has institutional continuity with the Magenta and the non-daily, not-so-newsy Crimson that preceded it, and assumes that it was still the Crimson during the World War II period when it was called the "Harvard Service News" and had very different content.

So, I think a slight qualification of the wording is in order, from is the oldest continously etc. to "describes itself as" the oldest etc. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

size of library system

Please reconcile the Unversity of California article's statement:

"At 32 million items, the University of California library system contains the third largest collection in the world, after the Library of Congress and the British Library."

with the statement here:

"The Harvard University Library System, centered in Widener Library in Harvard Yard and comprising over 90 individual libraries and over 15.3 million volumes, is the largest university library system in the world and, after the Library of Congress, the second-largest library system in the United States."

Changes/clarifications could be made to either page, but as it stands the two articles are somewhat contradictory on this question. I'm posting this to that page as well.

Thank you.

I would tend to think this has something to do with the fact that the U of C library system has libraries on dozens of different campuses spread all over the huge state of CA, and it might be a stretch to call it a single "library system" in the general sense of the phrase, as the U of C system is hardly one big university. Harvard's books are more or less all in Cambridge or its environs, and they all "belong" to one university - Harvard.

Cool! I love it... yet another academic rivalry. For what it's worth... the American Library Association's Library Fact Sheet 22, The Nation's Largest Libraries: A Listing By Volumes Held puts Harvard second in the U. S. because it does not choose to lump the University of California's holdings. The University of California system has six libraries that make the ALA "Top 100" list, and I don't feel like doing the math but it does appear that Berkeley + UCLA > Harvard. I think this probably does deserve a pair of footnotes on the respective pages. It all starts to get a little weird, though, because from U. C. Davis to UCLA would seem to be about four hundred miles. No doubt there are expedited interlibrary loans between University of California branches, but, gee, if interlibrary loans count then the Islington, Massachusetts public library is bigger than Widener. But, wait, you can probably get interlibrary loans at Widener...

Isn't it amazing how hard it is to count "volumes" in a "library," or "years" since a "university" was "founded," or "feet" in a "skyscraper..." once people start making it a competitive sport? Which library was it that was counting digital volumes... Dpbsmith (talk) 20:35, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I suggest a footnote solution to the problem of fairly presenting the degree of superlativity of the Harvard libraries. I think the current wording spins things too much in the "no big deal" direction. I do not like lumping all of the California campuses together and comparing them against Harvard, since it's a four-hundred-mile drive from one end of "the" University of California to the other. The ALA's list of libraries, which represents a judgement by librarians and is presumably relatively uncontaminated by academic boosterism, makes Harvard the second biggest library in the U. S. and the largest university library by a fat margin. How much any of this means in practice to the average user is hard to say, since I'm sure once you look at the individual subject areas you happen to be interested in, the picture probably changes enormously. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Adding the number of volumes in each UC school is misleading too because it's reasonable to assume that there is a huge overlap of the books available at each university. If each school has one copy of book X, then book X is counted ten times when figuring the size of the UC 'library system'.

Hasty Pudding Theatricals

Is already mentioned under notable student organisations, with a link to its own article. I think that's plenty. (A note to explain my recent rollback). --woggly 17:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)