Talk:Claremont McKenna College/Archive 1

Archive 1

Lack of Sourcing

For many sections of this article, there is not one single source to back up any of the content (ex. Housing). We should begin either finding or promptly removing unsourced content ASAP for this has gone on for too long. Lacmaboingo (talk) 19:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Notable Alumni

Michael Alexander Wilner (soon to be)

This should be given context.

This person was just doing some shameless self-promotion. There was no need to entertain it at all. --chemica (talk) 22:24, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Rape Allegations

What is the point of the rape allegations section? It really should have some context, if it is relevant to the school.

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"alleged rumors, and nothing else i don't think it is relevant, despite whomever's personal biases against the college are listed above. three "rapes" (especially only non-prosecuted rapes, date rapes, etc.) in a period spanning over 10 years is not terribly uncommon for a US college or university. i think the section should be taken out, as it only serves as an attack on the school's reputation. (This is coming from a female student's point of view.) 24.199.117.240 23:50, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

alleged rumors, and nothing else Please be more specific. Do you believe that the statistic provided by the Dean of Students is an “alleged rumor” and “nothing else”?

i don't think it is relevant Relevant to whom? I think most people would find the Rape Allegations section more relevant to their lives than, say, the Dropouts section.

three "rapes" (especially only non-prosecuted rapes, date rapes, etc.) in a period spanning over 10 years is not terribly uncommon for a US college or university. The section (before you deleted it) listed three excerpts--not three rapes. In the interest of time and space, the excerpts were kept to a minimum. Apparently, that didn’t stop some people from merely glancing over them.

i think the section should be taken out, as it only serves as an attack on the school's reputation. I know this might be hard for you to understand, but CMC does not own Wikipedia. People are allowed to post information that reflects negatively on CMC. It’s okay. It’s perfectly natural. Some might even say it’s healthy.

(This is coming from a female student's point of view.) Oh, okay. That changes everything.

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The rape section does sound like an attack on the school's safety, when in fact the annual crime staticstics reports, which all colleges are required by law to provide, show that crime at the school is pretty normal for a school its size. And while 'People are allowed to post information that reflects negatively on CMC,' that information must still meet the requirements of NPOV, and the section as it stands does not. -- Vary | Talk 05:44, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

The rape section does sound like an attack on the school's safety… Only the Claremont Port Side excerpt concerns the quantity of acquaintance rape cases. The other excerpts concern the handling of acquaintance rape cases.

when in fact the annual crime statistics reports… The Department of Education does not vouch for the crime statistics, as the “crime data reported by the institutions has not been subjected to independent verification.” … The crime statistics available do not differentiate between acquaintance rape and stranger rape.

which all colleges are required by law to provide… The CMC administration does not abide by all laws. (Two words: underage drinking.)

show that crime at the school is pretty normal for a school its size.

The CMC administration does not report all "incidents" as offenses. For instance, the burning of a stolen 11-foot-tall cross by four Claremont Colleges students in 2004 was not classified as an act of arson, theft, or hate. “I don’t call it a cross burning,” said CMC President Pamela Gann. “I call it burning a piece of outdoor sculpture that was in the shape of a cross" (St. Petersburg Times 6/6/04). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.13.145.210 (talk • contribs) .

I think the sections on sexual assault and gay and lesbian issues is unnecessary. when looking up Claremont McKenna in a true encyclopedia, i doubt that a school newspaper article written in 1982 (over 20 years prior to the encyclopedia's publishing) that included the word "faggot" would appear. Furthermore, I agree with Vary that the section on sexual assault should not be included.Geltoorch 07:56, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the sections on sexual assault and gay and lesbian issues is unnecessary.

Those issues might not be important to you, Gelt, but they are to some people. That’s why The Princeton Review (which you love so much) also has lists like “Gay Community Accepted” and “Alternative Lifestyles Not An Alternative.” … Did you forget to mention the “2004 Hate Crime” section? Since the incident was revealed to be a hoax, I guess that makes the section okay. Otherwise, it would also be “unnecessary.”

• • • Did the section on sexual assault and gay and lesbian issues disappear on this page? A similar issue was recently discussed on the page of Ohio Wesleyan University where one user opposed mentioning that Ohio Wesleyan was gay-friendly when in fact both the students and the administration actively recruit among the LGBT community.

when looking up Claremont McKenna in a true encyclopedia, i doubt that a school newspaper article written in 1982…that included the word "faggot" would appear.

Most "true encyclopedias" would not have an entry for CMC. Should we delete the CMC Wikipedia page? … The 1982 item provides historical perspective. It shows that recent use of the word “faggot” at CMC is not isolated—indeed, that it can be traced back over time. Isn’t it interesting how history repeats itself? Not to some people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.13.145.210 (talk • contribs) .

The full text of the article you cited [1] makes it clear that the burning of the sculpture was not a hate crime. The students vandalized the object because they were bored. It was a stupid, childish thing to do, but it was not a hate crime. The quote was entirely accurate - it was not a cross burning. The object was not a cross, but looked like one.

The cited article centers around the discovery (mentioned in this article) that a visiting professor who had spoken extensively on the subject of hate crime vandalized her own car to make it seem as if it had been an attack by intolerant students.

Underage drinking is a problem at all colleges, so I'm not sure what that is meant to say about the administration. Can you give specific support to allegations of law violations by CMC administration? And the statistics include all reported crimes, not just those that resulted in charges, so it doesn't matter if the accused students were ever prosecuted. Otherwise, crimes by unknown assailants would not be included at all.

The only current example given is from 1992, and a point is made of the fact that at that time, there was no specific sexual assault section in the student code of conduct. There is now, and so far as I can tell, has been ever since the cited case - it appears to have been added specifically because the student couldn't be charged with sexual assault by the CMC disciplinary system, because that charge did not yet exist. The student in question was instead charged with physical assault, which has happened in other cases at other universities, especially in the 1980's and early 90's, when young women stopped keeping quiet about sexual assaults, and charges were brought against students for the first time at many institutions.

The references to anti-gay activities in the 1980's and early 90's are give more importance than they deserve relative to attitudes on campus today. Unfortunately, these sorts of problems were common all over the country at that time, and listing these incidents mixed in with current ones again gives the reader the impression that incidents of that same severity are occurring today as 20 years ago. That's not saying that the things that happened in the 1980's were acceptable; they were terrible, but they weren't unique, and I don't think that's a good reflection of the campus today.

Rather than another revert, which I don't think would be productive, I'm tagging the article as POV until the issue is resolved. But IP 66.13.145.210; all in all, you seem to have very strong personal feelings about CMC, which is never a good thing when editing a Wikipedia article. If you must continue to add material, please try to make it meet the NPOV criteria. -- Vary | Talk 04:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Well said. I think it's clear that there is a strong bias against the subject of the article by one user. Unfortunately, CMC is a very small college and I doubt many of the students, alumni, and people with extensive knowledge of the college know little about this article and therefore will not contribute to this consensus. I'm relatively new to wikipedia, but I think Vary has covered everything necessary to revert the article back and take out the controversial/biased sections? Geltoorch 19:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

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—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.173.160.113 (talk • contribs) .

New Sections

Are any of the publications cited in the new text that was just added by IP 66.13.145.210 available online? If so, they need links. -- Vary | Talk 14:33, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I've gone on a CMC student message board and requested some additional student opinions on the problem we're having. They already had a thread discussing the article, and there were a few negative comments about its accuracy. Hopefully a few more people who are familiar with the college will swing by and help us round out this article. -- Vary | Talk 16:34, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Vary, please check your phrasing and your link [2]: “According to the American Association of University Professors, the same is true of most college [higher education?] professors [faculties?] nationwide. [1]” [Incorrect link? Link does not verify statement.] -- Threestates 20:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Tyra Banks?

What I know of Tyra Banks' life, it dosen't seem possible that she was ever associated with CMC. The other internet sources don't seem very reliable, or are based on this article. Does any have a source to back-up her inclusion on the Droupouts section? (I am very concerned since I'm a CMC student.) --chemica 04:51, 29 June 2006 (UTC) (edited by chemica 23:52, 5 August 2007 (UTC))

There doesn't seem to be anything proving that she came to CMC. I have a feeling that it started as a joke and just hasn't been edited since now. I'll error on the side of caution until someone can come up with proof that seems more reliable than some webpages that seem to be getting their info from here.Kimun 23:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Controversies

I made some changes to the controversies section that I thought I'd explain:

1) I removed the part about the school expanding since it was outdated. CMC has already decided to expand, while the section said that CMC was considering expansion. The section also contained unsourced statements of criticism stated in a weasel-word way ("Critics of the plan say...").

2) I removed the sentence "Like all colleges, CMC is not without controversy. For example:" as unnecessary.

3) The section on the $200 million Day gift contained unsourced criticism and didn't include the criticism in the articles it cited. I removed the unsourced criticism and added the sourced criticism.

MrVibrating 04:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Note: I forgot a </ref> tag in my edit, and so I apologize for the confusing history. All that was going on there was me trying to fix it. MrVibrating 04:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

External Links

I recommend leaving The Claremont Conservative as it is a blog that has well over 50,000 unique visitors, more than some of the publications mentioned.

Another perspective: Charles Johnson writes the Claremont Conservative, and as user Heinleinscat has tried to edit the CMC page to support his causes. He is also a former editor of the Claremont Independent. I think his account was recently suspended for his addition of his personal investigation into a professor on campus to this page. None of his claims have been verified or acted upon; I am suspect of using his personal blog as a source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.173.173.90 (talk) 00:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Selective

I am removing "selective" from the lead as it is an imprecise and subjective weasel word. There is a broad consensus based on the fact that almost every American Association of Universities, Ivy League, and Annapolis Group institution makes no mention of this in the lead of their articles. Madcoverboy (talk) 15:19, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted your edit and added sources. In this instance, it is appropriate to refer to this institution as "highly" selective as both US News & World Report and The Carnegie Foundation have classified this institution with their highest categories of selectivity. Neither use the modifier "highly" but they both use their strongest modifiers, "more selective" for Carnegie (they only have a handful of categories and they're very conservative) and "most selective" for US News & World Report. --ElKevbo (talk) 16:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

External Links

Many of the external links were destroyed by a vandal. Recommend locking them down... —Preceding unsigned comment added by CJohnson11 (talk • contribs) 05:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

User:ElKevbo is a respected editor, not a vandal. He was just cleaning out the multitude of links per WP:EL. Alanraywiki (talk) 05:36, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I intend to clean them out again as Wikipedia is not a collection of links and our external links should be kept to a minimum which are directly relevant and useful to readers. Many of the current links, particularly the many links to various publications, do not qualify and move this encyclopedia article closer to being a mere directory of links. --ElKevbo (talk) 12:54, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Respectfully disagree as the publications are widely read on campus. Chuckwalla1022 (talk) 19:42, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

It would be more helpful if you could reference our policy regarding external links. I don't doubt that many people read the publications; what is in question is whether we should provide a listing of those links in this Wikipedia article. In my view, that clearly violates our policy as the publications do not significantly add to readers' understanding of this institution but instead are included as an attempt to make part of this article a directory of links. --ElKevbo (talk) 21:21, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

It is completely appropriate vis a vis wikipedia policy to include those links. Also, would appreciate not having my new pages deleted before I finish writing them! §Chuckwalla1022 (talk) 00:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I would still appreciate some sort of argument referencing our policies. --ElKevbo (talk) 01:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The existence of the links doesn't affect the existence of the articles they link to. How about creating the links after the articles are created? --MrVibrating (talk) 23:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's your argument. I quote,

What should be linked Shortcut: WP:ELYES

1. Wikipedia articles about any organization, person, web site, or other entity should link to the subject's official site, if any.

2. An article about a book, a musical score, or some other media should link to a site hosting a copy of the work if none of the "Links normally to be avoided" criteria apply.

3. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons.

4. Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews.

See 4. Please stop deleting links. The interviews alone are worthy of linking to the Claremont Independent and Claremont Conservative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chuckwalla1022 (talk • contribs) 20:34, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Please note that those apply to links in an "External links" section, not in the main body of the article. Sayeth the guideline: "External links should not normally be used in the body of an article. Instead, include appropriate external links in an "External links" section at the end and/or in the appropriate location within an infobox or navbox." --ElKevbo (talk) 21:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, external links go at the end of the article per WP:EL#External links section. For some reason that minor layout change was reverted without an explanation. Alanraywiki (talk) 20:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll have to check again but last time I looked the precise order of the "mess o' things put at the bottom of articles" was not mandated by the MOS short of "put these things at the bottom." I hope that has changed as (a) it was a cop out in the MOS and (b) nearly every article seems to have EL at the very bottom following references. --ElKevbo (talk) 21:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The External links section is also recommended to be placed last under WP:LAYOUT#External links, although I do like your technical term "mess o' things put at the bottom of articles." In any case, the edit moving the External links section to the end should not have been reverted without at least an edit summary. Alanraywiki (talk) 21:34, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

ElKevbo appears to be a vandal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:647:4100:DA55:10D5:B545:6ED4:6C4A (talk) 02:32, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Faked SAT scores

Sadly a senior administrator has been faking SAT scores for the school in order to influence USNWR & The Princeton Review rankings. See: [3]. With this in mind, I think I'll add editor's notes to obscure the current article rankings. --S. Rich (talk) 17:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Done, along with an Update tag for the section.--S. Rich (talk) 18:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The faked scores affected the 2012 rankings. Now that 2013 rankings are available, I've restored USNWR's.98.234.109.54 (talk) 22:54, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

2015 flap

Does the recent flap and resignation of an administrator over ethnic-discrimination issues warrant entry? http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-how-racial-tensions-boiled-over-at-claremont-mckenna-20151113-story.html 64.53.191.77 (talk) 19:08, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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March 9, 2004

Seems to be undue weight to have a paragraph about one night appear in a History section for a school that is 70 years old.--MattyMetalFan (talk) 23:22, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

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Proposed addition to notable alumni

Hello! For purposes of disclosure: I am an employee of S&P Global and I have been asked to edit this page on behalf of Douglas Peterson, President & CEO.

Doug has requested that he be added as a notable alumni of this university. I do not believe this would be an uncontroversial edit -- Doug is a respected industry thought leader and and S&P Global is a major publicly traded financial information/analytics company.

Recommended text for the bullet point: "S&P Global President and CEO Douglas Peterson (1980)"

I am not picky on positioning, but as the alumni look to be in order of graduation Doug should probably be after "Founder of Perella Weinberg Partners and former head of European Markets at Goldman Sachs, Peter Weinberg (1979)."

References supporting change: His own Wikipedia listing his affiliation is here: ; Doug's bio on the S&P Global website listing his affiliation: ; and his listing on the Claremont McKenna website as one of their Board of Trustees:

Thank you so much for your consideration! Tracy at S&P (talk) 14:32, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

References

Sounds fine to me; the CEO of S&P is at least as notable as some of the other people listed (e.g. VP of Starbucks). Done! - Sdkb (talk) 16:18, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

I also added him to List of Claremont McKenna College people. - Sdkb (talk) 16:21, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

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Recent rankings additions

Cntrbtrs (an SPA, possibly with COI) recently made a large edit to this page, which contained some useful contributions but also many rankings listings and some other POV concerns. I partially reverted, after which Contrbtrs restored some of the edits, ElKevbo did another partial reversion, and GreaterPonce665 undid and then un-undid. We're left with two major changes:

1.) In the history section, the paragraph on the Robert Day School being changed from this:

On September 27, 2007, the college announced a $200 million gift from alumnus and trustee Robert Addison Day to create the "Robert Day Scholars Program" and a master's program in finance. CMC literature professor Robert Faggen sent a letter signed by several other literature professors to CMC president Pamela Gann, saying they were concerned that the gift will "distort the college into a single focus trade school."

To this:

On September 27, 2007, the college announced a $200 million gift from alumnus and trustee Robert Addison Day to create the "Robert Day Scholars Program" and a master's program in finance. There was differing opinion from faculty regarding the donation. CMC literature professor Robert Faggen sent a letter signed by several other literature professors to CMC president Pamela Gann, saying they were concerned that the gift will "distort the college into a single focus trade school." Government professor Andrew Busch, who is an associate dean of faculty, said most people are grateful for the money and think it fits well with the college’s overall mission. In June 2020, RePEc ranked the College's economics department, the Robert Day School, as #4 in its list of top US Economics Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges.

2.) The addition of this paragraph to the lead:

Claremont McKenna is ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal/ Times Higher Education, and has one of the lowest acceptance rates of any U.S. liberal arts college or university (9% for the 2018 admissions cycle). CMC was listed as tied for the seventh-best liberal arts college in the U.S. in the 2020 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

For both of these, a key guideline is the recent RfC on mentions of higher ed reputations.

Regarding (1), from the RfC, I don't think we can just link to the RePEC rankings as justification for including them. Regarding (2), I think it'd be appropriate to include some mention that CMC is a selective college, but the added text crosses well over the line into boosterism. What do you all think? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:07, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I have been making some formulaic edits in the field but I'm still kinda new around here, and with so many RfC guidelines on this issue, I tend to not get involved in lead boosterism related edits (FTR, I'm against rankings in lead). While there's no place for ranking in the history section, I think the dean Busch statement should stand (as an internal contrarian viewpoint). I hate the "Top uni in such and such.. + citation bombing" trope. Regarding the selectivity numbers, I did remove/re-add that as I wasn't sure if that should stay in lead; I feel that should be moved to admissions section. I'll go along with ElKevbo's opinion on this matter. GreaterPonce665 ^(TALK) 06:49, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

References

I think that some of the new material about the Robert Day School is unnecessary. We don't need to say that the administration and some of the faculty were in favor of the renaming; that is implicit in the fact that it happened in the first place. Nor do we need to that there was "differing opinion from faculty" as that is obvious from the next sentence that describes one of those opinions. The ranking stuff is ok; it's well-cited and the ranking is published by the Fed in St. Louis who I hope we can consider to be experts in economics.

The most recent RfC didn't provide us with any good guidance on this issue except that there wasn't consensus to ban rankings and superlatives from the lede altogether. However, I think the ranking information that has been added is way too detailed for the lede. The lede is supposed to be a summary of what is in the body of the article and should be such a clear summary of what's already in the article that it doesn't need separate citations. ElKevbo (talk) 23:50, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

That all sounds reasonable; I'll remove the "differing opinion" sentence and take out the rankings information from the lead for now until it can be better sourced. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:35, 28 July 2020 (UTC)