Category talk:Academics

CFDs on Academics category
Why exactly do we need a category for "Academics"? I think it's far too vague to be of any use, as it would seem to subsume everyone who has ever studied/taught anything in an institution of higher learning. And we already have categories for philosophers, economists, etc. --zenohockey 02:51, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it's too vague as well. Shawnc 10:58, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

it s clear enough - those who are active in post-sec education teaching and/or peer-reviewed research (in academia) Mayumashu 03:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I would like to second the first opinion here. A category for academics is unnecessary. Academics who have a public profile (Simon Schama, for example) will have articles in any case. Those who do not (the wife of the author Mark Haddon, for example) do not belong in an encyclopedia. Holding an academic post and publishing academic works that do not reach beyond a specialized audience is not sufficient distinction to justify inclusion in a general public reference work. There are just too many such people. Moreover, such articles could only be written by the subjects themselves, or by friends of the subjects. (Nobody else would be that interested.) This is not the way to produce a representative guide to a category.


 * Erm is "those who are active in post-sec education teaching" really a qualification to be an "academic"? The term doesn't seem to get used for those teaching in further education and there are numerous lab assistants, trainers, doctoral students teaching undergraduates and so forth whom would never be referred to as "academics". Timrollpickering 15:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The academic category is, whatever its merits, too difficult to distinguish from the broader category "scholars". And I'm not convinced of the merits of the category anyway -- basically, an academic as defined is both a scholar and a teacher. This seems to unnecessarily distinguish between academic scholars and non-academic scholars.  Unnecessary, because it rests the type of scholarship (academic scholarship) on a particular affiliation.  Are retired / emeritus professors who no longer teach, therefore no longer academic, and should get moved to "scholars"?  ... This is one case I think it will be just better to use both categories (scholars and teachers) rather than the more specific intersection. --lquilter 15:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, after looking at this a bit further, it's apparent that "Category:Academics has survived numerous CFDs on a couple of different grounds: (1) as a container for University teaching staff (Category:Academics by university) (see 2006/4/15; (2) a merger for Category:Professor (deleted multiple times; see 2006/9/19 and 2006/10/29; and (3) full discussion of Academics vs. Scholars on 2005/11/10. (I'm writing all this down here so nobody else has to re-do this work later on.  Why did the CFD notices get deleted, I wonder?) Still, it's apparent from the subcategories (lots of "X scholars" categories in Category:Academics) that the terms are used both synonymously and inconsistently.  Thoughts about how to clean up this mess? --lquilter 15:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * User:Lquilter, maybe this is an indication that the wp:CfD process is causing more harm than benefit at Wikipedia? XOttawahitech (talk) ??? 9 June 2013 (UTC)

academics, scholars, and teachers
Hi all -- there is a new CFD discussing this issue at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_November_28. I'm posting notice here; if that discussion closes without consensus perhaps we can arrive at a good solution here & go back to CFD when we have consensus. The relevant facts:
 * Academics are employed at universities/colleges; they have both teaching and scholarship/research duties
 * Some people who teach at universities do not also have scholarship/research duties; adjuncts and lecturers, for instance; these may or may not be considered academics by everyone.
 * Some people who have scholarship/research duties at universities do not also have teaching responsibilities; fellows, for instance; these may or may not be considered academics by everyone.
 * Other folks work at academic institutions who have neither teaching nor scholarship duties; e.g., academic administrators, provosts, chancellors, etc.; these may or may not be considered academics by everyone.
 * Some fields are particularly prone to have scholars who are in practice and not in academia, or who go back and forth; Legal scholarship (I recently nominated to rename Category:Legal academics into Category:Legal scholars) and journalism for instance (I tried to get Category:Journalism academics renamed to Category:Journalism scholars, seeing that it had similar issues as legal scholars, but that nomination didn't make consensus.)
 * We have two subject breakdowns, largely non-overlapping -- Category:Scholars by subject and Category:Academics by subject
 * Category:Scientists are yet another category: Academic scientists usually have teaching duties.
 * Since some scholars go in and out of academia, if we have two separate trees for academics & scholars, those scholars logically would have both.

Some things that are more my opinions than facts:
 * It is my belief that most academics are known for their scholarship, not their teaching; this is true for academic scientists and most other fields of academia.
 * Teachers and educators have a category tree (Category:Educators) of which Category:Academics is a subcat.
 * It is my belief that maintaining two category trees for each subject to accommodate Category:Scholars in that subject and Category:Academics separately is confusing to WP readers looking for the "scholarly experts" in that field who won't know to go to both categories.
 * I think that we can clean this up considerably if we maintain Category:Scholars and Category:Scientists for people who known for their scholarship/research in the field; Category:Teachers for people who are known for their teaching in particular fields (there are plenty of academics who win teaching awards and they should have teacher categories); and Category:Academics should exist but largely contain (a) academic administrator categories; (b) university faculty categories; and (c) links to scholars & teachers.

Thoughts? --Lquilter (talk) 01:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Six years later and we still have no solution. I just happened to see this after posting this. XOttawahitech (talk) 15:04, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

proposal
Johnbod proposed a solution for Category:Journalism academics that I believe could work well here as well: Category:Scholars and academics. Including both terms in the overall category name has the following benefits:
 * 1) it is in accord with Category:Lists of scholars and academics (already existing);
 * 2) it still permits subcategorization of academic-specific categories such as Category:Academics by university (the various university faculty cats), Category:University and college presidents, and so on;
 * 3) it is more accurate for the categories such as Category:Members of learned societies which often include a mix of academic and non-academic members;
 * 4) it will permit simple categorization of the many scholars/academics subjects in which there are a substantial number of practitioners who do scholarship or academics who practice, such as law, journalism, medicine, etc.
 * 5) by capturing both scholars & academics, it recognizes that wikipedia editors frequently use these closely-related terms synonymously;
 * 6) by capturing both scholars & academics, it recognizes that wikipedia editors sometimes think it important to explicitly distinguish someone as "academic" or a (impliedly non-academic) "scholar";  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lquilter (talk • contribs) 03:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 7) by capturing both scholars & academics it deals with hiring & scholarship practices that vary globally;
 * 8) it does not require duplicate category trees for both scholars and academics, which would require line-drawing that might be complex depending on field, country of practice, era, or individual; and is simply difficult to police.
 * 9) it recognizes that the core of what most "academics" are notable for is their scholarship, tying academics with "scholars" rather than with teachers;
 * 10) it permits cross-referencing with Category:Teachers and Category:Educators so that people who are defined by (renowned for) their teaching (few academics are) can be specifically categorized there.
 * 11) this can be propagated down through Category:Scholars and academics by subject cleanly. If some field really works better with a split between the two then this category structure can accommodate that.

I'm not quite sure how it will relate to Category:Scientists; maybe Category:Scientists is just a subcategory under this one as well as listed parallel to it. But I believe it would be a vast improvement to the current unnecessarily bifurcated tree. --Lquilter (talk) 23:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

... Discussion continuing at Category talk:Journalism academics. --Lquilter (talk) 16:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

academics, scholars, teachers, educators, scientists
i think there are only two main categories for all five of them: scientists and educators.in Category:Scientists, all academics, scholars and scientists can be listed. for those whoever contributed to their fields. therefore, we need those new subcategories:


 * Category:International relations scientists
 * Category:Engineering scientists
 * Category:Engineering scientists by subject
 * etc.

in "scientists by subject" category. These subcategories use "academics" or "scholars" as a last word in stead of "scientists".

other academics and scholars who have been full time academics in universities should be listed in the educators category. but not in the teachers category. teacher means and educators who practices in K12 schools. therefore academics are not teachers. in education sciences, people who practice education in universities in an "academic" understanding are called Higher Education Professional. Therefore I suggest :Category:Higher education professionals as a subcategory in educators category and create another subcategory Category:Higher education professionals by subject, Category:Higher education professionals by nationality etc. within Category:Higher education professionals

As aresult, in a neat and beautiful way of classification wich is meaningful and consistent with the education science literature will be achieved. therefore:


 * Category:Higher education professionals
 * Category:Higher education professionals by subject

are needed.

regards.

--Polysynaptic (talk) 14:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Doctorate
I would like to mention in the category description that an academic does not necessarily have to have a doctorate degree. User:BrownHairedGirl suggested to me that a doctorate requirement is really not a good idea for categories such as this one, and that requirement needs to be removed from the subcats. An academic is a person who does peer-reviewed academic research and/or teaches in a place of higher education. Those posts have often been held by people without PhDs, who should not be excluded from the categories. So, category descriptions like the one in Category:Canadian academics ("An academic is a person who holds a Doctorate degree and does peer-reviewed academic research or is a Chancellor /Vice-Chancellor/President of a college or university") need to be changed, and mentioning the matter here will deter repetition of this type of error.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that we can simply remove all reference to particular degrees, as I have just done to this category. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:58, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I went and got rid of the particular degrees in:
 * Category:Croatian academics
 * Category:Namibian academics
 * Category:Cuban academics‎
 * Category:Hungarian academics
 * Category:Canadian academics
 * Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:20, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Good work, but the category introductions are still too verbose. The sentence "For the sake of convenience, noted scholars who lived prior to the 20th century are also listed here" is at  best superfluous, and at worst silly; does anyone seriously think that academia began only in the 20th century? I know that you didn't add this sentence, but it should be removed. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:01, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That line is in six Wikipedia categories. I agree it is unnecessary, and will remove it.  I guess us old-timers have run out of more useful things to do.  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:09, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Just a note to say that I agree with BHG. --Randykitty (talk) 13:50, 13 January 2014 (UTC)