Talk:Cornell University/Archive 3

Bonanza of Awesome Cornell Pics
Maybe we can use this website for pictures, after all it does say for the "general public", thus releasing all the pictures to the use of the general public. These pictures are awesome!! --Cornell010 02:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC) http://www.asergeev.com/php/searchph/search.php?test=&keywords=cornell&mode=&year1=1996&month1=1&day1=1&year2=2006&month2=12&day2=31&lum=&hue=&order=AUTO
 * They can be used!!Look at this quote from the website: "For better exchange of information, Sergeev's files are allowed for copying, modifying, and distribution for any purpose." Nice--Cornell010 02:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Good stuff. Make sure you upload the high-resolution ones. -Mercuryboard 04:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The whole snippet from that website is: "For better exchange of information, Sergeev's files are allowed for copying, modifying, and distribution for any purpose. Pictures are expected to be used according to commonly accepted rules and regulations." I don't really know what he means by this, except he obviously asks that some kinds of "rules and regulations" are used here.  --C S (Talk) 04:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Too much clocktower?
It seems like nearly every image features the clocktower and/or Uris Library. There's a lot more on campus, can we make the page a little more diverse? -Mercuryboard 21:01, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I tried to change it up. How's it now?  By the way, does anyone have a good picture of the Weill Center?  Otherwise, we will need to find one. --Cornell010 22:34, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I concur. Also, the campus seems shrouded in woods from many of these photos.--Xtreambar 05:50, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, we have nothing else. Let's just fix the article (i.e. text) first, and then we can search for a greater variety of pictures.--Cornell010 22:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Disambig
Obviously, Cornell redirects to Cornell University. This is how it should be. But do we really need to say "you've been redirected!" when most people would be at their correct destination anyway? Why not just this:
 * For the unaffiliated liberal arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, see Cornell College. For other uses, see Cornell (disambiguation).

-Mercuryboard 06:50, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Hotel School Rankings
I'd like to say the Hotel School is tops but I can't find any sources to support it. I know there are quotations out there but that's not really solid enough evidence; I'd rather have a ranking. Anybody know of anything? -Mercuryboard 16:10, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, please, let's not go overboard with rankings. Just say that in 1979 Conrad Hilton called it the greatest hotel school in the world, copying the citation from Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, and let that stand until someone finds something better. Don't say it's tops, just say Hilton said it was tops. If anyone thinks Hilton was joking, or didn't know what he was talking about, or that between 1979 and now it might have been overtaken by the Rosen College of Hospitality Management of the University of Central Florida, let them think that. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The rankings section is getting much too long. In my opinion, we should keep rankings of specific colleges, fields or departments on more appropriate, more specific pages.  This article used to be quite a bit more restrained when it came to the pissing contest that is the college rankings.  The rankings are useful; people are interested in them.  Indeed, some people coming to this page will come to this page looking for information about how Cornell ranks.  If they want such specific information on the Hotel School, they should look for it at the Hotel School's article.  By presenting only those rankings in which Cornell is near the top, we're not providing a neutral view.  It's certainly fair to point out things that are unique or unusual about Cornell, but I don't think we acheive this vary well by using rankings. btm talk 06:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Amen, brother. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's pretty relevant, considering that a lot of people who wish to look up Cornell want to also find out about its rankings. By making these rankings more accessible, we are simply making the page more user friendly.--Cornell010 17:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's getting too long. The prose could probably be condensed, but I don't think the content itself is too broad. As Cornell010 said, a lot of people are going to look at the article and expect to see rankings. If you can find some other rankings that promote npov, go for it. It is also possible that Cornell is ranked more often than some other universities, so there is more content. See FAs Michigan State University and University of Michigan for some ideas on where we might want to go from here. -Mercuryboard 18:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Rankings about Cornell are relevant here, but rankings about the Hotel School and other fields are not particularly relevant on this page. There are much more effective ways of pointing out particular strengths of Cornell — what are the major contributions that Cornell has made in particular fields, what have its alumni gone on to do in particular fields, etc., etc.  Cornell makes contributions in as broad an array of fields as just about any other university you care to choose.  As alluded to by Dpbsmith, using quotes from respected sources is not only a more effective way of demonstrating Cornell's particular strengths, but also a more neutral way (if just in appearance).


 * Yet, I do think that presenting specific and complete information about the major rankings for Cornell as an institution is completely fair for this article; this way, people who are looking for rankings will get the information they want. Of course, this means that if Cornell falls 5 spots in ranking X, ranking X doesn't suddenly disappear from the page.  So, I don't dispute Cornell010's argument that rankings are relevant.   The point I am trying to make is that most people are generally not coming here to look for rankings in AEP or architecture, etc.  For the few people who do want to know that stuff: (a) I think they should be looking for it on a different page anyway, and (b) an encyclopedia article should be a concise summary of a topic, it shouldn't include such marginally relevant, potentially skewed information, anyway.


 * MSU's ranking section isn't particularly good. IMO, it reeks of bias.  UM's is better: it doesn't "bury the reader in facts" trying to make a point about its prestige.  There are three rankings in total and the only ranking about a specific field is one where UM has ranked number 1 for over 10 years in a row.  We're not seeing an example of something where UM is among the leaders, but an example where UM is the clear leader.  Even so, I don't think it could be argued that this ranking is necessary for a complete, FA-level article. btm talk 01:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I cut it down and organized it. Now we have three short paragraphs on rankings: university, notable graduate programs, and notable undergraduate programs. As it stands, I don't really see any problems with it. It's fairly concise, npov, cited well, and organized. -Mercuryboard 04:59, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Johnson School of Managment
I just wanted to bring out that we also need to really work on this school's page, it's atrocious.--Cornell010 17:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Main Article Links
Do we really need all these links to main articles. Almost 70% of them are short, and the same information is covered here on this article. For example, we do not need the main article for Qatar campus, it's pointless.--Cornell010 22:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Good call. Merged Qatar. -Mercuryboard 22:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Research section
There has already been some discussion on how this section should look (look in archive 2 under Cornell Safety Car). I believe there was some agreement among several editors that the research section should be more of a broad overview, with one line mentions of various things like the Cornell Safety Car, Mars rovers, etc., with links to the main articles on this stuff. I think one problem with this approach is that it relies on editors having this great overview of all of Cornell's research. It seems a tremendous task, which I think explains the lack of expansion.

As another proposal, let me suggest that it is not so bad to have these little subsections. I think there's always going to be a lack of energy in creating them, so there's little danger of getting overloaded. We can always snip and tighten things up if things get too long. We should just make sure to give a nice cross-section of research so as to avoid giving a narrow view; right now, we have computers/internet, space exploration, particle accelerators, car safety. Some stuff from biology/medicine would be good here, maybe veterinary stuff. --C S (Talk) 04:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, I added it back because I'd rather see a quick summary with examples than just a quick summary. Still, it's not right. Looking at the style of the alumni section could help here. Lots of Wikilinked examples, following a broad summary of research expenditures, undergraduate research opportunities, some statistics on research output, etc. Until that gets done, what we have isn't terrible. I just don't know enough about research at Cornell to do it right. -Mercuryboard 05:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

West Campus
given that so many of the individual dorm articles seem to be one line repetitive stubs, I created a new article for West Campus at Cornell West Campus. It would seem to be more logical to organize all of the information about the West Campus intiative in one article instead of in each residential college's article, but that might just be me. The article is still a rough draft. The hyperlinks for Cook and Becker in the article are currently pointing to external links, as I'm not sure if they should just point to stubs or not, feel free to change those to inter-wiki links if you feel that it is more appropriate.--Moki80 17:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * This is good. You might be best off just copying all the information out of the residential college stubs and The Gothic Halls and consolidating it on the West Campus page. From there, we ought to expand each of the sections. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 17:17, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

City Haters?
I found a link to a Newsweek listing of "25 Hot Schools"--Cornell the "best school for city-haters." :D

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5626574/site/newsweek/

Adds some support for being "well regarded for scenic beauty," if anyone wants to incorporate it?
 * I don't think this is particularly truthful or relevent. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 20:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

North Campus
Should we merge the North Campus stubs as we have with West Campus? We could always branch off with for Risley Hall. - mercuryboard talk ♠ 04:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Good idea. We should do it.--Cornell010 04:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Get to work. Cornell North Campus - mercuryboard talk &spades; 04:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Alright, I did some work. However, a lot to still needs to be done.--Cornell010 19:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Can we add North Campus to the Cornell box at the bottom of the page.--Cornell010 23:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I already posted this to the template:cornell discussion page, sorry to repeat it, but maybe we should remove the residences section from the template, as with the assimilation of the dorm stubs, the only things left in that section would be North, West and Sage. --Moki80 00:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Need to work on articles about various colleges
We need to really work on the articles about the various colleges. I've tried to work on them, however, I don't really know much about them, and so we all need to get together and work on them.--Cornell010 03:54, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Solution for Weill Med College Picture
Alright, if anyone knows anyone in NYC then tell them to take a nice pleasant walk by the Weill Medical center and snap some digital photographs. I would have tried mine, but they're in Florida. BTW, did anyone see the collegeconfidential posting about weill, it seems the word is spreading, perhaps now we will finally succeed at obtaining a Weill photograph!!!--Cornell010 05:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah I saw that, who posted it? - mercuryboard talk &spades; 06:03, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Modeling picture layout after University of Michigan
They have this continuous layout approach which looks really good, maybe we should try it.--Cornell010 05:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Please elaborate before we change anything. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 05:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


 * For example, in each section the first picture is on the right, however, if there is a second picture in the same section then it is on the left, and so on. Therefore, this keeps the layout constant, and makes the page more appealing.--Cornell010 05:45, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Give me a few minutes to play around with this so we don't have edit conflicts. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 05:47, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I tried, and this is what I came up with. What resolution and browser are you on? I'm on 1280x1024 and tried IE and Firefox and this is the only thing that looked decent. We can't go with that pattern completely because the images would overlap and push each other in strange ways. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 06:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I use internet explorer, however, the format looks a lot better now. Good Job!--Cornell010 06:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Some pictures



 * I am still hoping for a better picture of weill, this one looks kind of grainy.--Cornell010 03:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Two citations left
In the article we have two unsourced facts. Search for 'citation' in the article to find them. The statements are: Not only are they unsourced, but they're vague. We need to find a list of the country's largest university presses, or something that states exactly where Cornell fits. We also need to find the annual SAFC budget, or how much they give out. We are so close to FA, let's just get these last issues ironed out. - mercuryboard talk ♠ 20:14, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Today, the [Cornell University] press is one of the country's largest university presses.
 * [The Student Assembly Finance Commission is] a student-run organization that gives nearly $1,000,000 per year to clubs and organizations.
 * Okay, now we just need to find a clear source that says Cornell is one of the largest university publishers, or at least that it's a major one. Or we can just delete that sentence. Discuss it here. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 06:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Cornell010 found an article that cited this source. It's similar to what we need but it's too specific. This is a ranking of presses by quality in the field of political science. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 02:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The SAFC gets $75 of the Student Activity Fee per undergraduate, per the SA website (which, according to our numbers, works out to $1,021,875 per year); the SAFC page of that site states they fund "over 350 student organizations a year," in case you want to throw a figure in there. Cheers, JDoorj a m     Talk, former SAFC Commissioner, 06:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC).


 * Excellent, I did not know about that site. What is the current Student Activities fee, in total? I want to talk a little about Student Assembly and how they fund student life, and then mention the $1 million for student organizations in particular. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 19:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * $200.59 per undergraduate, $2,733,038.75 total, per the summation of the figures at the first link I provided, above. There's also an effort underway to make an SAFC endowment, but I don't have a citation handy for that.  Cheers, JDoorj a m     Talk 02:57, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Are we ready to be featured?
Discuss.--Cornell010 00:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Can anything more be said about university history? It seems a bit 1860-1870's heavy.  Well, not necessarilly "heavy", but lacking  in everything else.  Take a look at the UMich article.  Many congratulations to all of the great work in the past few weeks.  I am certain that we are good enough for a GA status, so I am going to nominate CU again for that.--Xtreambar 00:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No, but nearly. See the todo at the top of this page, which I update often. Good work on Athletics, now find some sources for those facts. this will have a lot of them. - mercuryboard talk ♠ 00:49, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I just submitted to FAC. Stand by to fix any objections... there's not much more we can do to this article without some fresh criticism (or FA promotion!). - mercuryboard talk ♠ 15:50, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

GA
I recently passed this article. I could tell that a lot of work had gone into the article's development and it closely follows the most important wikipedia guidelines. While I was slightly concerned with this article’s use of boosterism, I did not see this as a fatal flaw. There are significant obvious attempts to maintain a NPOV and avoid uncorroborated phrases of praise. It is definitely no worse than FA University of Michigan. In regard to boosterism, my biggest concern is the "Do not bury the reader in facts" portion. After reading this LENGTHY article as well as some linked articles, I can assure you that my brain did not successfully soak up all the information. I acknowledge, however, that most readers won't read these in their entirety and thus can soak more up. However, it might be helpful to create new articles and shorten some of the sections. Additionally, there may be some other minor issues, but the major issue (that can be easily remedied) to me was the flow of the article. The ordering of the sections seems illogical to me, particularly the alumni section. After reading about academics, as a reader, I expect to learn about the other aspects of Cornell life besides academics (i.e. research and student life). Talking about graduates before finishing up on what students and faculty do while at the university seems premature. Personally, I’d put the alumni section after research. In general, this article is well-written, follows a NPOV in the vast majority of cases, has properly tagged and helpful images, and is verifiable. Thus, a good article indeed! --Bluedog423 03:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I moved the alumni section down to the end. However, I disagree with the arguement that the article is too long.  Cornell's history is very rich, and if anything were left out it would only detract from the article. I agree with Mercuryboard in that we can still add some history, however, I feel that this article has truly become awesome, and that it's qualified for featured status!--Cornell010 04:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that deleting things from this article would detract from it as a whole (and would be a loss for wikipedia). I was merely saying that reading all of it for the first time was overwhelming (but I guess learning everything important about Cornell should be overwhelming!).  Yet, I take back my "create new articles" comment because, as I look back, there are several sections that have their own main article.  I don't see a clear cut case where another one should be made. If the research section, however, continues to expand, I'd expect that be next, although it doesn't merit its own article in its current state. --Bluedog423 14:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Yea, the research section's growth should be slowed.--Cornell010 14:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Add this information to the history section
On April 19, 1969, during a parents' weekend, over eighty members of Cornell's Afro-American Society took over the student union building, Willard Straight Hall. The takeover was precipitated by increasing racial tension at the university and the students' frustration with the administration's lack of support for a black studies program. On April 20, the takeover ended, with Cornell ceding to the Afro-American Society's demands. The students emerged making a black-power salute and with guns in hand (the guns had been brought into Willard Straight Hall after the initial takeover). James A. Perkins, president of Cornell during the events, would resign soon after the crisis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.11 (talk • contribs)


 * Alright we've added this to the history section, however, we need to make the history section flow a bit more.--134.67.6.11 20:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Everyone get to work on the Alumni section

 * What sort of references ought we use? I know the people to whom these accomplishments refer.  --Xtreambar 21:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yea, I was kind of wondering about that also. Mercuryboard, any answers?--Cornell010 21:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I suggest finding existing lists of notable alumni (from other non-Wiki websites) which include these people, and use that as a single reference for all of these statements. In terms of prose, we need to clarify vague statements such as "contributed to." If there is any doubt as to which person we are mentioning, add the Cornellian's full wiki-linked name. This might clutter the prose a bit, so we need to watch out and split long sentences too. I like the section's style, and the changes we need to make are not very substantial. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 23:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Would something like this be the prefered direction? Or perhaps footnotes--Xtreambar 01:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Additionally, Cornellians are noted for their accomplishments in a variety of fields. Though no Cornellian has been an American president, they have been the heads of state for Iran (Jamshid Amuzegar '1945, Ph.D. '1951), the Republic of China(Lee Teng-hui Ph.D. '1968), and Cuba (Mario García Menocal '1888). Also in government have been numerous Cabinet members (e.g. Janet Reno '1960) and Congressmen, and one Supreme Court justice(Ruth Bader Ginsburg '1954).

This might take a few days and a few editors. Rather than making intermediate steps public on Cornell University, or duplicating work that somebody else may be doing, let's all work on /alumni sandbox until it's ready to go public. - mercuryboard talk ♠ 05:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Idea for more negative attributes
How about if we mention how Cornell is known for giving out little financial aid, this might be a rumor, but it's worth a try. Also, we could talk about how people have complained about Cornell's rank being in the teens instead of in the top ten for USNWRs.--134.67.6.11 14:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Both of these may just be negative POV (not toward neutral POV). The first is no good unless we find a source, and the second is clear enough in Rankings. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 18:29, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess then there really isn't that much. Maybe, the University of Michigan just has a lot of bad things (lol).--134.67.6.11 19:29, 21 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Given the reputation that Ivy League schools have for strong need-based financial aid and also my own personal experience, it's difficult for me to take such a rumor seriously. Yes, I heard some complaints as an undergrad... however, the only people I knew that would complain about "poor financial aid" were those who were demonstrably not in serious need.  I can see that in the case of multiple children it could be a burden...but paying for college is a burden a great deal of many parents face, with much more limited resources (even with lower tuition) than many of those whose children go to Cornell.   I was quite often surprised at the number of people who got financial aid even though they were quite well-off, so I believe the multiple children thing (or similar factors) were taken into account in those cases.  --C S (Talk) 20:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It's a university, not a fascist government. It exists to do good, and is good at what it does. We've hit every major negative point, and almost anything else would be extraneous. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 21:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I concur. Also, I think that we have pretty much exhausted our efforts to obtain any new information.  This article is as close to done as it can get.  The only problem I can think of is the article's length, other than that I think we are done.--User:Cornell010 21:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for the introduction
I think we should scrap the last line, it's already established that it is a "private research university", thus we don't need the money figures.--User:Cornell010 01:57, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * There are a lot of research universities, Cornell makes a particularly big deal about its research, so we should note it. We have an entire top-level section devoted to it. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 02:06, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yea, but maybe we could mention the library system, or athletics; it just seems that we could include other things. Maybe by tommorow I'll get an example together (oh wait..maybe by this morning).--User:Cornell010 04:30, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As a side note, I think the alumni section is perfectly fine. In my opinion it's better than that of the Univ. of Michigan, and the pictures do not crowd the writing, they add to it, especially that of Toni Morrison’s.--Cornell010 04:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

What Now?
Are we ready?--User:Cornell010 17:55, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ready for what? What are you talking about? We still have a pending FAC. Take a few days off. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 18:43, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * lol, I just want to get this over with.--Cornell010 19:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Nitpicking
--ElKevbo 18:16, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) In the "Activities" subsection of the "Student Life" section, it is stated that there are 886 registered student organizations.  For what date is that number valid?  It seems to be a number that changes over time and should be either generalized ("nearly 900") or the date for which the number is valid given AND the source cited (which appears to already have been done).
 * 2) The first sentence in the "Research" section sounds empty and relatively meaningless: "Research is an integral fixture of Cornell University."  What does that mean???  It seems to be something that should not be stated but proven through other statements, facts, and figures.  You've already done a great job at that so I would recommend removing the sentence altogether as it doesn't add anything (and, in my mind, detracts from the section).
 * 3) I don't like the organization (or lack thereof) in the Alumni section.  The vast number of wikilinks make it difficult to follow the large blocks of text.  Has there been any consideration or discussion of dividing the section into subsections?  The paragraphs are already divided into theme-based subsections; all that would be necessary would be adding the subsection labels.
 * Well done. I addressed the first two and I'm reluctant to change the third because it makes the section look too segregated, for lack of a better word. It is also a summary, so anybody looking for more definition may see the highly categorized main article. - mercuryboard talk &spades; 18:32, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge from History
It's been proposed that the history article be merged into this main article. It would make the article (which will be an FA in a few days) far too long, and violates WP:SUMMARY. See also History of Michigan State University. Oppose. — mercuryboard talk 00:40, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose merger, as it would make the article too long. Also, being days away from FA is not the time to start doing major organ transplant to this article. JDoorj a m     Talk 02:13, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose. If anything, the History of Cornell article needs to be expanded. --Xtreambar 02:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Titles of contract colleges
The titles of the 4 contract colleges begin with "New York State" and do not mention Cornell University. Not only are their affiliations with Cornell far more important than their affiliations with New York State, but none of the official college websites use the New York State designation in their names. The university website lists the colleges alongside their endowed peers, with an asterisk denoting the New York-supported ones. Google searches indicate that generally, NYS is not mentioned in the college names. I say we should change the page names, i.e. New York State College of Human Ecology -> Cornell University College of Human Ecology, and mention additional affiliations (such as with NYS) on the college pages. — mercuryboard talk 20:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

New Motto
On the cornell website the motto is simply "any person .... any study"cornell010 04:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * No. Just... no. — mercuryboard talk 04:37, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The main webpage has that caption below a picture of the seal, but I don't believe they've actually changed the motto (not to mention the seal obviously remains the same). If you look around the rest of the website, the "old" motto is still pretty frequent.  --C S (Talk) 12:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Featured Article of the Day
I'm requesting that we ask that Cornell be the Featured Article of the Day on Friday, September 8, so that the Sun can run a little blurb about it and Cornell students can take a gander at our handiwork. I know, it's a ways off, but for both Wikipedia and for getting interested eyes to come and help improve the article, I think it's better to wait until school is in session. I've appended the request for Featured Article of the Day status to reflect this. JDoorj a m    Talk 06:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Good idea, but why that date? — mercuryboard talk 13:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's the Friday after the first full week of classes, so everybody's back on campus, and because it's a Friday, if the Sun runs something about it, it's in the paper Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (hm, though by that logic, perhaps it should be on Thursday, so they can report on it Friday?). JDoorj a m    Talk 13:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * We can write to the Sun and let them know what day it will be on the main page. — mercuryboard talk 14:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yea, that's a good idea. I was originally thinking about an earlier date, but September 8 seems to be much more effective.--Cornell010 02:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Add a section on future developments
I think that a section on future developments would add a great deal to the page. However, we could just relegate it to the separate sections of each college. What are your thoughts?Cornell010 17:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Outline some ideas here for discussion before adding something like that. To the individual colleges is more relevent, unless it's a huge deal or is a university-wide thing. — mercuryboard talk 17:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

SA Resolution
(taken from my userpage) Hello- I am extemely offended by the insinuation that my edits to the Cornell wikipedia page were in any way biased. If anything, I was extremely purturbed to come accross the entry that I have been trying to edit as it originally was. If you are going to talk about that Resolution by the Student Assembly (which I don't find necessary as it has nothing to do with Cornell's history, or the Student Assembly's current or future initatives), then at least qualify it as what it was-- a very unique piece of legislation that PASSED with FLYING COLORS and set a tremendous precedent for other student governments across the country. I don't see what it has to do with the SA's money management, and don't recall that coming up at all during the last few months. As such, please respect my edit, as it is not misrepresenting the resolution of university whatsoever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.87.25.15 (talk • contribs)
 * Sorry to be a tad cynical here, but I'm not clear that this "highly controversial" resolution is really that article-worthy, wording 1 or wording 2. Is there a non-student, non-Ithaca paper that picked this up and ran with it as a story?  And even if there were, did Iran or The U.S. State Department care? JDoorj a m     Talk 03:05, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I added it when FA nom editors complained about the lack of negatives about Cornell. I figured this was a decent enough controversy to add. — mercuryboard talk 03:08, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree - it doesn't seem particularly noteworthy if the best (only?) source we can find is the student newspaper. --ElKevbo 03:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 67.87.25.15, no offense was intended. However, speaking as someone who was pretty active with the SA back in the day, the fact that a non-binding sense-of-the-body resolution from a student government sets a precedent for the passage of other non-binding sense-of-the-body resolutions from other student governments contributes little to an understanding of Cornell. If you want to go there, the nuclear freeze resolution (1982?) was probably more prominent, the gay living center resolution (and subsequent veto, ca. 1993) more controversial, ande the NYPIRG fight (ca. 1998) more bitter and with a lot of real money at stake. And this all pales compared to the days of the University Senate, which had real power over the administration. -choster 14:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Bad link style
I just made some minor edits to clean up the linking on the Student Activities section. It's probably not perfect, but you should definitely decide what should be linked in context and not. For example, in a sentence like "Cornell students enjoy playing sports like basketball and hockey, and also golf" you don't want to end up with "Cornell students enjoy playing sports like basketball and hockey, and also golf." Please see |Making good links for more information. Elliott C. Bäck 07:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Graduates vs. Alumni
The way the current section "alumni" is written, it seems intended to focus entirely on graduates. Recently, someone removed Huey Lewis because he did not graduate, although he would technically be an alumnus. Perhaps this section is only meant to include graduates in which case the section heading should be changed to "graduates". --C S (Talk) 09:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, according to the MW dictionary, an alumnus is "A male graduate or former student of a school, college, or university." No diploma means you're a dropout, not an alumnus.  Elliott C. Bäck 21:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * A former student without a diploma is still an alumnus by that and Cornell's definition. — mercuryboard talk 21:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think you are reading the entry correctly; I would agree with Mercuryboard's reading. For instance, Merriam-Webster online says: "a person who has attended or has graduated from a particular school, college, or university".  --C S (Talk) 11:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I would add Huey Lewis back but... while he is an alum, I'm not sure if he is a "Cornellian". I believe "Cornellian" refers only to graduates, although I may be mistaken. That's one reason I thought the section heading of "graduates" may be more appropriate. --C S (Talk) 11:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Endowment?
Is this figure correct?--Cornell010 18:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Are you questioning the validity of the source cited or do you believe there was a mistake in how the source was interpreted or...? --ElKevbo 19:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The latter option, and I was wondering if a new figure had come out as UPenn's has recently been adjusted to $5.1 billion. Also, I have never seen anyother place except for wikipedia state that Cornell's endowment is $4.171 billion, everyone else maintains that Cornell's endowment is $3.3+ billion.--Cornell010 19:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * $3.2 billion in 2004, $3.8 billion in 2005, the most recent figure is $4.171, see this source and the one cited in the article. — mercuryboard talk 19:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * So, is the $4.171 billion just Long Term Invesments (LTIP), or is it a conglomoration of the entire endowment? Does Cornell have any short term investments that are not counted as part of the LTIP value?--Cornell010 19:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The LTIP Market Value is the endowment. See page 10. — mercuryboard talk 20:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * When are they going to update their endowment?--Cornell010 22:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Quarterly reports... I don't know... — mercuryboard talk 22:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Alright, now I'm confused. Pages 2, 5, and 6 of the source we've been using say that the endowment's total net worth is $4.8B.  Then later on it says the value is $4.171B.    What gives?
 * I'm a CS major, this stuff is out of my domain. I just recruited my Wharton Finance major friend to take a look. — mercuryboard talk 23:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * In the absence of the advice of a financial expert, it appears that we can either (a) stick with the current figure and cite the NACUBO document as the source or (b) increase the figure to 4.8 billion dollars as that appears to be the value of the long term investments at the end of the most recently reported quarter. I would prefer option a as it the more conservative option as the NACUBO document is unequivocal in asserting the value of the endowment.  Further, use of that figure also allows for a enhanced ability to compare institutions to one another (assuming other Wikipedia articles use this document or one from the same time period as their reference).  I can't state with confidence that what we refer to as the "endowment" is the same as what the Cornell document refers to as the "Long Term Investment Portfolio."  The only thing that really confuses me in all of this is why the NACUBO document only reports the endowments of less than 800 institutions.  --ElKevbo 23:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Those numbers are self-reported anyway. We would be best to find a more recent figure. There's some more here. The endowment section explains the discrepency between the Investment Portfolio and the actual Endowment. — mercuryboard talk 23:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Maybe, we should email someone at Cornell and ask them.--Cornell010 01:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I found this Cornell news article and it confirms that Cornell's endowment is above $4 billion, but it does not specify the exact amount. http://www.news.cornell.edu/pressoffice1/Jan06/Fehrs_resign.html

Here is something to look at: >

Big help needed

 * I just made a ton of edits to improve List of Cornell University people. Please help... just adopt a section and ensure the information is complete and organized well. All you need to do is open the alumnus wikilink in a new tab/window, run a quick search for 'cornell' and fill in whatever's missing from the list. Alumni need majors, colleges, years, and degrees... whatever details you can find about their specific connection to Cornell. Professors need titles, chairs, and what years they were at Cornell. Reduce the number of links in the "Known for" column to only very relevent contextual links. All this stuff is very easy to find, on Wikipedia itself, so grab a section and get on it. — mercuryboard talk 02:55, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Wow. Good Job.--Cornell010 03:31, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes
I think we have the finest presence of any university on Wikipedia. — mercuryboard talk 03:17, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Graduate Admissions
Does Cornell admit anyone with less than a first class honours degree into their graduate programmes? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 136.206.1.17 (talk) 22:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

Gap between the history section title and section content
Is there anyway we can fix this problem? I believe that the root of the problem is the footnote section in the university info-box.Cornell010 03:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Just dealt with it. Please comment on the List of People page, about images. — mercuryboard talk 04:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The history section has a rather glaring change in scope. The paragraph about the 1969 incident is fitting for a longer and much more detailed listing of historical incidents that have shaped Cornell policies. In its current location, it's been shoehorned in between "the first students were admitted" and "over the twentieth century, many changes", which seem to go together much more smoothly but at a much vaguer level.

Could this be rearranged to either minimize/outlink the incident or make it part of a longer and more detailed timeline? Right now it breaks the flow something awful. (Yes, I know, "fix it yourself", but I know nothing about Cornell and I'm thus poorly qualified for this task.) Mana Gement 14:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Gallery Section?
See Penn's gallery section at the bottom of the article. I think it adds a nice touch and with carefully selected images the section can showcase Cornell's beauty as well as prestige. Some photos of Cornell have a way of exuding prestige and accomplishment.

--angelrendon 15:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

^ Good idea. Princeton's section is also an example.

Endowment Numbers
There is a loose reference to "5 billion dollar endowment" in the article on the new investment chief. This would mean that the endowment grew from 3.77 to 5.0 billion (~33%) in one year, which smells of error. Nevertheless, rabid alumni post the number everywhere, inserting it in lists of numbers otherwise referring to 6/2005 values (and falsely inflating Cornell's rank). In contrast here is a specific reference to 4.4 billion in investments under Cornell's control as 0f 8/20/2006 (from Cornell itself). This seems like a more expected, reasonable growth of the endowment. It's clearly from Cornell and it's more precise. Why not use it? Or at least acknowledge it in a footnote? Or should we pick and choose what information to show to make Cornell look strongest? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.225.68.223 (talk • contribs)


 * My only question about this comes from an earlier discussion of endowment. I'm no economist or investment specialist, so when "long term investment fund" (or whatever the exact lingo was) is used, I don't know if that exactly translates to the same thing mentioned by other college endowments.  What we need to know, it seems to my ear anyway, is exactly what is included in the $B 4.4 number... and whether this same number is reported for other colleges, or they use a different number in THEIR discussion of endowment.  Anyway, I only submit that it is really hard to tell whether we are comparing apples with apples, or some other fruit. Isoxyl 11:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I'm ok with keeping the 5.0 on this page; but I have a strong feeling the 4.4 is correct, and we'll see this come out in a month or two as schools start leaking their year end values. Anybody else?

Dear Uncle Ezra
Would Dear Uncle Ezra be worth mentioning in the article? --Kjoonlee 05:52, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Not the main article, but it might be worth its own separate article. I believe Columbia's equivalent service has its own article.--Xtreambar 06:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Annual Endownment
Execuse me. What is the annual endownment. To be precise: What amount of money does the university spend in a year on their expenses. I think this a more interesting figure than the whole endownment. Please add it to the page.
 * Cornell pays out 4% of the current value of its endowment each year. The payout rate is set by the Board of Trustees in a manner to assure that the endowment will grow at a rate to cover future inflation.  However, endowment income is only a small portion of the annual budget.  There are many funds besides the endowment.  The current fund invests income (such as tuition) until it is spent.  Also, a number of donors have retained an income interest in their gifts (Cornell gives them an annuity back in exchange for their gift.)  New York Insurance law requires Cornell to separately invest these funds in very safe investments (bonds, not stocks.) Racepacket 05:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

A couple things before it goes on the main page
I'm not sure about the notable alumni section... its a lot of linkage and, when read all together (i.e. not just from a copyediting or writer's perspective), is pretty dry. Anyone else agree? Someone should find a friendlier picture than Wolfowitz, but that's just personal taste. ;)

The other thing is, has anyone ever heard of Cornell notes? Perhaps it's not significant enough for the already-extensive article, but this note-taking format is widely used and to my knowledge has been adapted to many academic programs, one of which is used throughout the state of California, so it should probably get a mention somewhere IMO. Paliku 16:29, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The article will go up on the main page in the next 24 hours. I encourage people to read over the page again. Though little has changed in the past couple months, a once-over wouldn't hurt. --Xtreambar 02:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Too late - it's on the main page already. Great job folks!  I've watched this page for many months now and you've made excellent progress.  --ElKevbo 04:24, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Cornell Sun mentions FA status
The Daily Sun wrote about the FA-of-the-day-status of the Cornell University article. Again, good work, everybody! JDoorj a m    Talk 07:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Impressive. Raul654 14:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Coordinates
How does one get the coordinates to appear at the top of the page? I would like to add them for another university page I am working on. Thanks! --Daysleeper47 15:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The   line at the bottom of the article adds the coordinates to the top of the page in addition to the geolinks at the bottom of the page. ~Kruck 22:08, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Any word on the legality of posting coordinates? Does this violate privacy laws and put students at potential risk of a terrorist attack? Are these being posted by members of rival institutions? I wonder if it might be best to take them down until we are safe again. Mwahcysl (talk) 14:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Industrial Revolution?
The article says that Cornell was conceived after the American Civil War in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. According to the Industrial Revolution article, that was over, by the most liberal interpretation, by 1840. Am I missing something here? Right now, this rather jarring statement is on the front page of Wikipedia!--Wehwalt 15:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I would dispute the "fact" that the Industrial Revolution was over by 1840, at least here in America. The Industrial Revolution can't be measured in years alone -- it differs for each nation.  It might have been over by 1830 or 1840 in England, where it all started, but it took longer to get started -- and thus finish -- in other places such as the U.S.  From the U.S. perspective, the Industrial Revolution probably didn't get underway until at least the 1830s or so and probably didn't "end" until well after the Civil War (perhaps even to the turn of the century).  Thus, Cornell University's founding "in the midst of the Industrial Revolution" is a reasonable statement.  Now, why the Industrial Revolution is relevant is another question ...  --CPAScott 16:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Public or Private
As it now stands, the article does not adequately explain how a university that was originated by the New York State Senate as a land-grant school came to be a private institution. Sylvain1972 16:51, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Public versus private isn't as black or white as you make it out to be. My school (the University of Delaware) is public, but privately chartered, although I don't know all the legal implications thereof. Raul654 17:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Components of the University are public (e.g. the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations) while parts are private (e.g. the College of Arts and Sciences). --128.84.217.166 19:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's all private. Several of the units are contracted with the State of New York to provide services on their behalf, but the University is wholly private.  See the archives for a very thorough discussion on this point.  JDoorj a m     Talk 20:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Some private but state-funded colleges inside the private university, exactly. &rArr; Bayerischermann   [[Image:Flag_of_Poland.svg|18px|]]  -  21:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You're right, there is a very helpful discussion in the archive, thanks. It would be nice if it could be incorporated in the article itself. However, I am still curious as to how a land grant school came to be private. Sylvain1972 14:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The land grant status does not actually have anything to do with whether a university is public or private, and in Cornell's case is only tangentially related to its state-supported colleges (the statutory colleges are not the "land-grant" part of the university). The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act was intended to foster teaching of agriculture, engineering and military tactics; each state was given a grant (30,000 acres of land per representative) on the condition that these fields were taught at the land grant colleges.  The grant could be split between different institutions or used in one place; it could also be used toward establishing a new university (or universities).  Most of the state legislatures used the grant to establish or strengthen a public school, but I don't think there is any reason to infer that the institution receiving the federal grant was necessarily a state university — it just happened that the states decided to give the money to a public institution.  btm talk 22:45, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to make some clarifications, but they were deleted by someone who does not understand the subtle relationship between the endowed and statutory colleges. If you don't know what you are talking about, please don't delete. Racepacket 21:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Since it's best to keep the discussion in one place, I will copy over here what you wrote on my talk page, and my response to it:


 * This has already been discussed extensively in the talk archives for the Cornell University article. The consensus has been that Cornell is in fact a private university, not a "mostly private" one.  That phrasing would appear to be your original research.  Your recently inserted material about "state employees" also appears to be your conclusion, contrary to recent legal proceedings.  Your suggestion to use the primary source materials is fine up to a point, but one ought to be careful of original research by synthesis, which I expect you are falling prey to.  You will need to provide a reliable source for your claims, particularly that of Cornell as "mostly private", and your conclusion that employees of the contract colleges as "state employees".  If you cannot, your edits will be undone.  Sorry, but that is the policy.  --C S (Talk) 23:35, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that the statutory college article is a balance presentation of the facts. The public/private dicotomy is vague and has no significance.  I agree that the Cornell is a non-profit separate corporation.  However, the court cases address whether Cornell employees are covered by the NLRB or the New York PERB for labor organizing purposes, which has practical significance, but does not address the emotional "status" issue which seems to be at the core of what the editors here are working through. The Holden v Cornell case which I added in the footnote (which you deleted) does discuss and address the fact that because the Cornell Board of Trustees performs a "governmental function" much like the SUNY Board, is subject to the NYS Open Meetings Law.  I suggest you compare the tone of the discussion of the relationship on the SUNY website (www.suny.edu) with that on the Cornell website and read the Sections of the New York State Education law cited in the footnotes (which you deleted) and you will see that the current presentation after your edits lacks balance.  I agree that "mostly private" is a judgment, but all of the facts recited are accurate and relevant to the Organization of Cornell. Racepacket 13:21, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Cornell statutory college employee benefits are described at: http://www.ohr.cornell.edu/benefits/programs/statHealth.html They are covered under the SUNY/State plans
 * In 2006-07, the average Endowed faculty salary was $118,422 compared with the average statutory salary of $104,112. So in the rankings, the endowed salary is just above Duke's while the statutory salary is just above the University of Maryland.
 * The statutory college buildings and facilities are owned by NYS. Any construction is managed by the State Construction Fund. Of the $2.5 Billion in capital spending budgeted for the next 10 years on the Ithaca campus,  $721 Million will be funded by New York State.
 * A useful document is http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000380.pdf, the 2007-08 Cornell Financial Plan which takes key metrics and compares them to other universities. Even Cornell's internal analysis uses "public" universities to compare the Statutory colleges and "private" universities to compare the Endowed colleges.
 * The striking statistic is that Cornell's endowment per student is only $222,204 compared with Harvard's $1.5M. However, if you add in the annual NYS support assuming a 4.4% payout rate, Cornell's effective endowment per student is $373,095. So, State support is a very important factor in Cornell's quality and scope.
 * A prospective student who is selecting between a private or public school will care about (1) is the management/funding subject to the whim of the state legislature, (2) is the faculty well-paid, (3) is the tuition affordable, (4) are the buildings nice. A categorical statement that Cornell is private is misleading regarding its dependence on annual NYS appropriations, the statutory faculty pay, the relationship between the NYS budget process and statutory college tuition, and the state ownership and funding of the statutory college buildings. So it is fair to state that Cornell is mostly private, both private and public, hybred, or avoid any conclusory categorization.Racepacket 09:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Please look at the formulation on: http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/cu_facts/read_more.cfm?id=32 regarding the differences between statutory and endowed colleges. Again the problem I have with the "contract" analogy is that a contract usually involves mutual agreement.  Here, we have unilateral action.  The legislature enacted laws to charter Cornell as a whole as the land grant university and later to create five statutory colleges.  They unilaterally pulled the plug on the NYS College of Forestry, and could do the same on the other four.  The annual appropriation process is by no means locked in as a contractual entitlement.  I think that the current version of the Cornell main article is misleading the reader. Racepacket 16:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Jbacu1985 01:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC) The private/public distinction is not really relevant today - in my view it's meaningless. The more accurate description is that Cornell is substantively independent from the State of New York in setting its strategies and policies, and the use of land and endowment assets. The Cornell Board of Trustee's is 'vested with "supreme control" over the university. As NY State's Land Grant university, Cornell's mission - both in theory and in practice are as 'public' as most any university, however the state legislature cannot directly control how the mission and programs are delivered upon.
 * The SUNY "trustees shall maintain general supervision over the requests for appropriations, budgets, estimates and expenditures of such [Cornell statutory] college." Cornell must consult with SUNY before setting tuition for the statutory colleges. All buildings and equipment financed by New York State remain NYS property and not Cornell property.  It is a complex, hybred situation.  For example, Wing Hall belongs to NYS, but a later addition to it belongs to Cornell.  The old Comstock Hall belonged to NYS, but when CALS didn't want it anymore, it went to Cornell for a computer center.  The parking deck of the North wing of MVR belongs to Cornell, but the classrooms to be built above it will belong to NYS. I don't see how CALS is any different than the University of Oregon or the University of Maryland other than CALS 's campus life aspects are embedded into a separately State-chartered land-grant institution, which received Federal support under the Morrill, Hatch and Bankhead Jones Acts.  Racepacket (talk) 08:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

user racepacket changed the name of all the statutory colleges to say NYS; the truth is that the colleges have not had NYS in their name since 1971. Here is the proof http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/about/overview/index.cfm check "our roots." Quote: The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences evolved over the past century from the Department of Agriculture (1874), to the College of Agriculture (1888), to the New York State College of Agriculture (1904), to the present name (1971). These changes reflect our dedication to meeting society's ever-changing needs." Lastly, in cornell's website, it has all the names of the schools http://www.cornell.edu/academics/colleges.cfm which do not have NYS on them - mojojojo69 9:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I just found your note. In 1971, the State Legislature added the words "and Life Sciences" to the name, it did not delete the words "New York State."  Please read: http://www.cornell.edu/trustees/cornell_charter.pdf  The "present name" is the "New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences" See Section 5712.  I agreed to the move of these pages from NYS College of X to Cornell University College of X to help people find the pages, but Wikipedia should accurately recite the full official name in the lead paragraph of each article. Racepacket (talk) 08:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Lack of Continuity
The section below demonstrates a disturbing lack of continuity: There is a detailed account of the situation of the university in the middle of the 19th century immediately proceeding a description of racial strife one hundred years later.

Is there nothing noteworthy (at this level of detail) to report over the interveening hundred years?

I am reluctant to modify the text myself. (It is currently the article of the day). Better I let those who produced the article take charge of surgery.

''The university was inaugurated on October 7, 1868, and 412 men were enrolled the next day.[9] Two years later, Cornell admitted its first women students, making it the first coeducational school among what came to be known as the Ivy League. Scientists Louis Agassiz and James Crafts were among the faculty members.[8]

In September 2006, David Skorton formally became Cornell's 12th and current presidentOn April 19, 1969, more than eighty members of Cornell's Afro-American Society took over the student union building, Willard Straight Hall.''

--Philopedia 22:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I concur. I have wondered why no one else is bothered by the sloppy history section. I wrote the first two paragraphs and took the last one from an old version of the lead paragraph. What's up with the WSH takeover taking up half of the history section!?--Xtreambar 18:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I support the comments above. The WSH takeover "takes over" the history section. We need to trim it down to a more succinct and appropriate length.--Parenthetical Guy 22:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with those above who believe detail in the section overall is lacking. Much has happened between the Ezra vision and founding and today. That stuff's gotta be here!

Recent Edits
I have been comparing the current edition with that of the September 14th (last before the September 20 editions), and found some differences... The reference to the "Sylvester Lloyd" incident is newly added. Almost the only source I could find for this was the one cited (http://www.deltasigmatheta.com/hazenews/haze01.htm), with less than a dozen other webpages citing the source mentioned. Nor could I find any mention of one Sylvester Lloyd on the Cornell website (page search and people search), so I'm slightly skeptical about whether or not this actually took place. Would someone please confirm it with an independent reliable source? The founding date has been changed from "April 27, 1865" to "April 27 1865"; is the deletion of the comma appropriate? The caption of "Big Red Planet" has been changed to Mars. I think I prefer the title of "Big Red Planet" because it ties in better with the context. What's every else's opinion on this? Mimson 00:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Endowment (again)
Cornell has made public its endowment stats for fiscal year ending 6/30/2006, and the value is 4.3B as noted in http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/endowment.htm.


 * Is that an official figure? The alumni association doesn't seem to give a source and in particular does not say it is the NACUBO figure. This source says $3,777,092,000 Do you have access to the 2006 NACUBO study? Dpbsmith (talk) 14:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


 * You win. It's not nacubo and I was not being strictly rigorous (not intentionally: I was just sloppy). The source is only an official Cornell release, and there is no stated connection between this release and the data from Cornell's business officers. If the Cornell alums think in good faith that the 5.0B value is still a more reliable source, then place the number back on the page.


 * Actually, I don't think the $5B figure is that trustworthy. I feel like that figure almost seems made-up.  It's the least reliable figure I've seen quoted, as it has one significant figure, and the way it's quoted, its accuracy is not even that relevant to the article.  I fear it's quoted simply because it's the biggest, and I'm not entirely comfortable with its use.  On the other hand, the $4.3B figure is the point of the source in question, and I feel more comfortable using it, though I do wish that they'd listed their sources for that figure.  JDoorj a m     Talk 18:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

mars rover picture
Cornell helped make it, why can't its picture be on this page?

Alumni
I've removed Huey Lewis from this article for the second time. Please note that he definitely does not belong in the Alumni section since he dropped out before graduation.

Overall, the alumni section has some paragraphs that seem very sloppy and disorganized (especially the paragraphs on authors and entertainers). This needs to be cleaned up.

Bill Maher is mentioned in two seperate paragraphs. He is probably best categorized as an entertainer/comedian than a journalist (by his own account), so I have removed him from the list of journalists. User:keammo1 11:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * You don't have to graduate to be an alum. Please see the previous discussion: Talk:Cornell_University/Archive_3.  --C S (Talk) 09:29, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that Ratan Tata is worth mentioning in Cornell Alumni list. He is one of the most influential business figures in India. I saw his name here a couple of days ago, but it's not there any more.

Ratan Tata is on the List of Cornell University People under Business. He certainly seems worthy of being listed on the main Cornell University page. If you want him there, put him there. --Cjs56 03:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

-Well I tried, but it keeps getting deleted for some reason.

I still don't see why Huey Lewis needs to get mentioned. The article is long. Make room for other alumni who actually graduated. Is anyone with me on this? Against? In any case, it's extremely confusing to start the section with "Graduates of Cornell are known as 'Cornellians'." and then go on to mention people that did not graduate! Huey Lewis should either be out, or something needs to be done to make it clear that he is not a Cornell graduate. My feeling is to just take him out. Yes, I know it's a fun fact that he attended Cornell for a while, but does he really need mention in the Alumni section? Let's please settle this - User:keammo1 4:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The alumni section is waay bloated and lacks coherence. It's jammed packed with moderately-notable grads.  I think cutting Huey "not a grad" Lewis is a great start towards cleaning this section --Cjs56 21:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The first sentence defining "Cornellian" in that way was probably a mistake. Usage of "Cornellian" can include alumni, faculty, etc.; this is the definition used on List_of_Cornell_University_people. It's a bad idea to weed out the section, keeping only graduates. Then we would have to take out Kurt Vonnegut. If your issue is notability, there are very notable former students more famous than some of the graduates listed. So keeping only graduates is not workable. If you have some other scheme in mind, please describe it on this talk page. At this point, removing one name (Huey Lewis) is rather pointless. --C S (Talk) 06:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Wolfowitz Pic
Is there a reason that the Wolfowitz pic keeps getting deleted?

Methinks perhaps vandalism? I've had to put it back the magical three times --Cjs56 03:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It's an insult to all Cornellians to have his picture on this website...much as the same as any Cornellian is ashamed to admit that Anne Coulter is a graduate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.84.85.57 (talk • contribs)


 * So the picture keeps getting removed because you feel he's embarrassing? Metros232 22:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
 * You kiddin'? I talk about Ann Coulter having gone to Cornell all the time. It's a great conversation-starter. Except that the alumni section is rather crowded as it is, I see no reason for the Wolfowitz photo to be kept out of the article.  JDoorj a m     Talk 18:19, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Not all Cornell alumni would agree with your view of embarrassing.

NRC Ranking
National Research Council is the only official agency which ranks universities based on their long-term research achievments. It basically averages the perfomance of schools over a period of ten years and because of that, it is more robust (despite USNEWS rankings which could change every year).

Ten years is chosen because the time constant of change in universities is more than 10 years and hence the data is valid even if it is 10 years old (look at sampling rate and bandwidth according to Nyquist!). for more information, please look at their homepage.

The last ranking goes back to 1995 and the next one will be out in September 2007 (one year delay). Again, because of NRC method, the 1995 data is not considered old and is still the most relavant ranking among schools. Although some college students or their parents might pay attention to USNEWS because of its publicity.

It seems to be fair to have both rankings in wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.84.225.153 (talk) 00:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC).
 * Please define "official agency" and "official rankings." Those appear to be meaningless terms invented to support your argument.
 * I agree that the USN&WR rankings are deficient in many ways but the current paragraph gives 10 year old NRC rankings undue weight. It should be drastically shortened or deleted altogether.  --ElKevbo 01:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * By official I meant that it is related to National Academy of Science and also National academy of Engineering as opposed to a magazin like USNEWS, and I guess the difference between these two is obvious.


 * Let's simply provide the date of issuance and then wait for the new ranking to come out and update it. There is no newer NRC information; let's let the readers decide the relevance of the statistic. JDoorj a m     Talk 02:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. In fact, if you look at the history of the page (about two months ago), initially I had the date, but someone insisted that we should not put 1995 there. let's have all information and give all readers to decide for themselves.

The NRC methodology is flawed, and this has been remarked upon and supposedly fixed in the new ones coming out. In my experience these rankings have drawn fire in the academic community particularly because of the appearance of being "better" or more "respectable" than US News rankings. I don't see any evidence that they really are so though. But this is all beside the point. They are well-known rankings and deserve mention just as much as any of these other rankings. --C S (Talk) 21:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * All the rankings are deeply flawed. And all of them are using different measurement criteria. And most of them are fairly irrelevant, because even undergraduate students usually have some idea of what they're going to major in, that the quality of their major department is more important than the quality of the school. And what's more important than that is the highly chance event that they happen to encounter just one or two professors that happen to strike a spark in them. How the heck do you measure whether the probability of the spark being struck is higher at Reed College or at Colorado State?


 * If we must have them, then the NRC rankings are certainly as relevant as any. (The one I object to is the Washington Monthly rankings, because they're explicitly trying to prove a point, and the measure what people should care about, but not what people do care about).


 * I haven't glanced at the article yet, but let me take a guess: by any chance does someone want to throw out the NRC ranking because it happens to give a lower number than U. S. News? Dpbsmith (talk) 22:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Nope, I was wrong. I'm too cynical, I guess. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I heard there are all sorts of delays on this NRC -- someting about being overbudget. I think they are coming aout > 2007, although I cannot give an exact date. I like the assumption that only ugrads would use this page to select a school. Makes sense. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.225.82.32 (talk) 02:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC).

Glee Club
Might not be the proper forum to post this, but the article on the Cornell Glee Club is somewhat problematic and I'm wondering if there are any Cornell-affiliated people who might want to take a look at it - particularly (but not only) to see if the huge list of "Cornell Songs" might be whittled down to just the ones people today are actually aware of.--Dmz5 21:51, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Alumi Picture
I just want to see some consensus on this. I believe that the alumni pictures should be diverse (ex: 1 government and 1 something else). I was just wondering if anyone had ideas of what types of people should have their picture in the alumni section.

I like the current two pictures, however, if there was a Toni Morrison picture I would put it up there.

thanks.--Cornell010 05:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I think other alumni need to be represented in picture form here too. Bill Nye (the Science Guy) is a good candidate for starters.

Somebody better take some pictures of Cornell
The pictures will look awesome, since Cornell has all this snow. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cornell010 (talk • contribs) 18:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

Individual College Articles!
[edit: i admit it; i'm a wiki/html/etc noob...how do I get this to be a normal looking topic like all the other ones?]

Some of the articles for individual colleges, especially College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Arts and Sciences, Human Ecology, and even Weill Med. College seem to be lacking. Chose to insert this topic in overall university discussion rather than in those colleges' pages because their discussions are virtually dead :P But seriously, i think these pages need some work. Anyone willing to pitch in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.89.167 (talk • contribs)

Club Sports
I was wondering if anyone would be willing to make pages concerning the club sports in Cornell such as Ultimate Frisby, Squash, Table Tennis, Karate, Taekwondo, and the like. I would be willing to make contributions but can anyone else follow me up on this?

Request for some help at Georgetown
I am hoping that some of the fine editors who have worked on this article could lend their eyes to my Georgetown University article. In working on Georgetown's article, I look at Cornell's often for inspiration, so I was wondering if I could get advice. I put it up for peer review, but more important would be the thoughts of the editors of a similar university. I am here because Cornell, like Georgetown, is a historic, private, well respected, research university, and should have basically similar article styles. Besides any advice on article content, such as what's missing or what's unnecessary, I'm looking for ideas on how to better move up the wikipedia foodchain to FA status like Cornell. How, at a smaller school, can I get more people involved? Who/where is good to ask for assistance? What should I avoid doing when posting it as a featured article candidate? Thanks for any time you can share.--Patrick 19:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Cornell Crest

 * double take* All instances of the Cornell crest were speedily deleted?! --Xtreambar 16:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I've asked for an explanation from the deleter. Apparently they failed the 'fair use' criteria.  cOrneLlrOckEy 16:51, 25 October 2007 (UTC)


 * This is what he explained on my talk page:

''Sorry, I was just in the process of replying (I had to dig the exact page name up first...). The only FU rationale on the page was the following:''

Fair use rational: Illustrates the logo in question.

''This doesn't describe how the logo itself contributes to the reader's understanding of the article(s) in question, et cetera. Also, could you give me a list of what articles/templates this was used on? Thanks, ^demon[omg plz] 18:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC) '' SO where did the logo come from? cOrneLlrOckEy 21:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * See here: Talk:Cornell University/Archive 1 --Xtreambar 01:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't understand, every other school page has their crest, why haven't those been taken down. The lack of the crest makes this page look strange, and almost un-related to Cornell.  Removing the crest is like removing every picture in reference to the clocktower, or removing a link to the atheltic page.  It just makes no sense???  And yes, it contributes to the user's understanding, the university's crest is one of its most important images??? This decision makes no sense. Cornell010

Here's what ^demon deleted:


 * 10:47, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);)
 * 10:47, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) User:Pinecar/sandbox/Universities‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:47, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University Department of Applied Economics and Management‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:47, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:47, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University Department of History‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:47, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University School of Hotel Administration‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:47, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) List of Cornell University people‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);)
 * 10:47, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University Graduate School‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:47, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:46, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:46, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University College of Engineering‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:46, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:46, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:46, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:46, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:46, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)
 * 10:46, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell Law School‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);)
 * 10:46, 25 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Cornell University College of Human Ecology‎ (Removing instance of image Cornell emblem.png that has been speedily deleted per (CSD I6);) (top)

--Xtreambar 19:36, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Plantations & Waterfall Pictures
There is no need to have a picture of the water-fall and the picture of the plantations, I think that we should choose one or the other ;having both pictures results in over-crowding in that part of the page.Cornell010

NY State College of Forestry at Cornell ???
I just stumbled across some information about a briefly lived college at Cornell called the State College of Forestry at Cornell. Apparently it existed from 1901 until June 17, 1903 when the Board of Trustees voted to dissolve the college due to lack of state support. See NYT June 18, 1903 "Cornell School of Forestry Suspended" perhaps someone wants to take a crack at an article about this since defunct college at Cornell.--Xtreambar 01:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It is already covered in a sentence in Statutory_college and Statutory_college. Just another example of the exercise of political power. Cornell's loss was Syracuse's gain. Racepacket (talk) 02:05, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Cornell in the Media
I thought an interesting section to have would be to mention characters in movies, tv shows, or other media that feature a Cornell connection. I know off the top of my head the short lived TV show "Over There" had a US soldier that was a Cornell graduate. Life Time Movie network also had some movie called ""When Innocence Is Lost" that featured a character that gets accepted to Cornell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.65.230.193 (talk) 01:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Probably this is not worth mentioning. Such mentions go with Cornell's general reputation.  Having said that, I was always very amused by the jerk character in Dirty Dancing being introduced as a graduate of the "Cornell Hotel School".  --C S (talk) 23:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Both of these are mentioned here > List_of_Cornell_University_people cOrneLlrOckEy (talk) 14:38, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Highest suicide rate not mentioned
Cornell has the highest suicide rate of any university in America. WHY isn't it mentioned in the article? Come on, people. --Ragemanchoo (talk) 09:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).    --ElKevbo (talk) 09:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't know enough about the university to feel qualified to do it. --Ragemanchoo (talk) 09:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not mentioned because it's not actually true. Here's an article discussing college suicide, for instance, which actually calls out Cornell as having a lower average than Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Duke, and the Big 10 (every other school mentioned in the article), and having 24% fewer suicides than the U.S. average for colleges and universities. Just an ugly rumor (thankfully).  JDoorjam     JDiscourse 20:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Does that include the ones that it's rumored the administration doesn't talk about, though? (I am a Cornell student, so I'm not just pulling rumors out of nowhere. And obviously, rumors aren't encyclopedic, so it shouldn't be mentioned.)--YixilTesiphon TalkContribs 21:13, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If you're talking about deaths in non-university housing, yes, I believe in general those are not included in the statistics. I remember when a classmate's TA suicided in her apartment and the Daily Sun mentioned her suicide would not be included in the reported suicide stats by the university.  Nonetheless, this is standard practice everywhere, apparently.   Cornell's would go up a couple more every few years, but in general the average would go up even more for all universities.  I recall reading in a local newspaper about these statistics and was rather surprised at how many students died off campus at the local state university.  Because Cornell has a much higher on campus student population (about 50%) than a lot of these state universities, I don't think their statistics are as affected.  --C S (talk) 02:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Greek Life? Historic Sites?
Why are these on the main page. They should be linked to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.28.159.108 (talk) 21:15, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Featured article review needed
This article is in bad need of cleanup and no longer complies with WP:WIAFA; I will check back in in a few weeks to see if a featured article review should be initiated, or if cleanup and citation has been accomplished. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 20:38, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

West Campus Housing
Now that the West Campus rehab is complete, shouldn't we cut down on the level of detail in the main article and move this to the Cornell West Campus article? Racepacket (talk) 05:07, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No complaint here.--Xtreambar (talk) 20:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Location changed from Jackson Maine to Ithaca NY!
The location of Cornell was incorrectly identified as Jackson Maine. I changed it to Ithaca NY. At least...I hope it's still there... —Preceding unsigned comment added by GibbonsRUs (talk • contribs) 06:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

June 2009
I am editing the page as per Featured Article removal suggestions. Things need to be improved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.107.245.248 (talk) 15:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Endowment Shrink
Cornell's Endowment at the end of the June 30, 2008 fiscal year was $5.39 Billion. The Bloomburg reference says it shrunk 27% which would put it at $3.93 Billion. One editor changed the figure and added the Bloomburg article as a footnote, but another editor set it back to $5.39. I think that the $3.93 is more accurate, but I can't find any other sources for it. The Sun merely quotes Bloomburg.

Writing about the endowment size is always tricky. Cornell has at least four different funds which collectively could be viewed as its "endowment." The "endowment" strictly defined is the assets which have been donated to Cornell limiting the use of the principle but with the earnings going to support a University purpose. Other funds are the current fund (in effect, Cornell's money market account), funds where there is no legal restriction on the use of the principle but as a matter of policy Cornell wants to invest it, and funds given to Cornell where the donor keeps the income for life.

Years ago, most colleges reported their endowments as the marketable securities which they held, but now so many schools invest in hedge funds, real estate, and other less-liquid assets, so it hard to value them and hard to draw the line between endowment and non-endowment assets. Racepacket (talk) 13:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That's why we generally rely on NACUBO numbers even if they're sometimes a little bit dated (but never more than a year). The current economic situation makes that a bit difficult and some variation from that practice can be expected and supported but given the complicated nature of "endowments" it's hard to remain accurate and standardized between articles.  --ElKevbo (talk) 15:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Article Lead
Lead is gigantic!129.105.19.151 (talk) 20:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * A gigantic institution needs a gigantic lead paragraph. Racepacket (talk) 21:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion: By devoting most of the first paragraph to mention of the contract college and land grant system, I and several other alumni feel we are foregoing an opportunity to make a more elegant lead-in. I remember that when researching the university and trying to decide between Cornell and UC Berkeley, I was quite put off by this paragraph. I did not understand what a land-grant school was, and upon learning about the designation, I did not see how it was relevant enough to be in the very first paragraph. We agree that the land grant status is unique and deserving of mention, but we do not understand why this mechanical fact needs to be at the forefront of Cornell's image. Thank you all for your consideration. -Blake Anderson et al., Class of 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.74.165.3 (talk) 01:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you make a good point there. &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 13:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I concur. Anyone want to rewrite the lead?  NotYorBroom? I've copied the lead over to here: User:Xtreambar/CornellLead for editing.  Once it is acceptable to all, we can put it back into the article.  --Xtreambar (talk) 21:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The goal should be to accurately describe the institution, not to hone Cornell's image. If you consider how Cornell connects with the most people, the land-grant mission, with cooperative extension agents (employed by Cornell) located in every county of New York State is still a "big deal."  No other Ivy League school has a comparable outreach effort. Racepacket (talk) 09:10, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Statutory College Names
As you know, a Wikipedia editor had interpreted the web page at: http://www.human.cornell.edu/che/About-Our-College/More_About_Us/history.cfm to somehow imply that in 1969, the New York State legislature had deleted the words "New York State" from the names of the four statutory colleges. I am please to announce that the Human Ecology webmaster has now corrected that page to reflect the current full legal name of the school and to avoid any further confusion. Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 21:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Hear hear! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.85.247.51 (talk) 19:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

If you need a chuckle...
...Forbes ranked Cornell the 207th-best college in the United States here. Something tells me the methodology of their ranking system is a bit off... &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 01:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * As some of you know, after I posted the original talk page message regarding the Forbes ranking, has repeatedly added that ranking to the article. I reverted the first one based on the fact that we rejected Forbes' methodology last year and it hasn't been substantially changed in the meantime, and  reverted it the second time, pointing the aforementioned IP editor to the talk page. I considered this following edit to be vandalism not because of the ranking (which is up for discussion) but because of the unencyclopedic snark which was posted along with it. &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 00:54, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Forbes admitted the flaws in last year's methods, and has changed it for 2009, although one can debate whether they changed it sufficiently. Racepacket (talk) 12:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * For the record: I've reconsidered my position on this. Due to Wikipedia's position as a tertiary source, we owe it to generally-reliable secondary sources to give their analyses a fair airing, regardless of the errors in methodology we may perceive. It should be obvious that a 200+th ranking is an extreme outlier compared to the generally top-15 sort of rankings the school usually gets, so if anything, it ought to draw the readers' attention to judging Forbes' methodology for themselves. &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 17:36, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the only legitimate basis for a particular college article offering a cautionary gloss on a Forbes rating is if the school has a robust system of on-campus course evaluations that would negate the use of the RateMyProfessor.com data. Racepacket (talk) 10:22, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * My good friend User:PassionoftheDamon (who has since disappeared from Wikipedia) added back the Forbes rating, and now I see that someone (not me) has deleted it. Technically, it should be included along with all of the other ratings, but I am not going to be the one to edit it back into the infobox. Racepacket (talk) 13:01, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Legacy Admissions
DEAR EDITORS,

I recently added, under 'admission', a sentence on the lines of "Cornell uses legacy admission" followed by a reference. This was deleted; i.e., it was a breach of the wikipedia rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.215.163.99 (talk) 05:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your interest in contributing to the article. Please see the comment I left in my edit summary for the reversion. Saying that "Cornell uses legacy admission" is a pretty vacuous statement. "Legacy admission" is not a process or even a philosophy; legacy status is simply one of many criteria examined in the admissions process. Saying that "Cornell uses legacy admission" is meaningless in the same way that saying "Cornell uses SAT admission" or "Cornell uses GPA admission" or "Cornell uses recommendation admission" would be. It would be defensible to write a sentence to the effect of "one of the factors Cornell admissions officers consider when evaluating candidates for undergraduate study is whether the candidate is descended from a Cornellian or is related to a current employee", but the phrase "uses legacy admission" is rubbish, stylistically speaking. (Full disclosure: I was a Cornell student, but I was not a legacy student.) &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 05:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Pic of Falls
I added a picture of a water fall close to campus. Feel free to move to a better spot in the article, but the International section was empty, and something is needed to illustrate how big a part the outdoors scene plays at Cornell. ("Ithaca is gorges," anyone?) —Eustress talk 02:56, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The Motto
Upon all the college brochures and papers, the motto has been shortened to "Any person, any study." Should a change be made, or a note added to the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.4.61.85 (talk) 03:56, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The official motto remains as the full quotation from Ezra Cornell's speech given at the opening ceremony for the University. I can not imagine Cornell ever changing it.  The shortened "Any person, any study" quotation refers back to the main quote for emphasis of the two key elements, but it is meaningless without the main quote.  Fortunately, Wikipedia does not have to document the latest fads in Cornell's public relations or webmaster preferences. We can focus on the authoritative facts. Racepacket (talk) 10:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * "Any person. Any study." is a marketing slogan like "Elite. Not elitist." from about 7 years ago. *shudder* --Xtreambar (talk) 18:00, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced Sentence?
Under the Academics>Financial Aid section, there's this sentence: "Even after the decree, all Ivy League schools continue to award aid on financial need without offering any athletic scholarships." Is this true? And did I miss seeing a source for this, or should it be deleted? Woken Wanderer (talk) 02:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * If I understand your questions correctly...yes, it is true that Ivy League schools do not offer athletic scholarships (citation added). —Eustress talk 17:59, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

"Media References" and "2009-2010 Suicides"
I don't like either of these recently-added sections. I'll split my comments into two parts and sign in three places. &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 20:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Media References
Although I consider myself to be primarily inclusionist in philosophy, this article is already significantly too long, and so I don't envision the equivalent of "in popular culture" being a germane or helpful addition to the article. edited to add: This does not preclude the possibility of someone founding an article on the topic (if there isn't one already), but I don't think it's a good idea to clutter up the main-topic article with ancillary information like that. &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 20:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC) Revised: &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 20:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

2009-2010 Suicides
I don't want to bury these, as they've certainly been newsworthy. However, at present, it's just tacked onto the end of the article as a main-heading addendum. The information could be incorporated into the article somewhere (I haven't dug through to pick out possibilities yet) but it's stylistically very clumsy to have postscripts like that one added to articles. &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 20:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As the one who wrote this originally, and as one with multiple family connections to Cornell, I felt this could not be ignored. Stylistically clumsy, maybe, but so were the deaths of 6 undergraduates.  I also was accused of "recentism".  Like it or not Cornell does have a history of being a place for suicides.  Burying this deep in the article reminds me of the NYTimes putting the Tutsi genocide on page 18 in a mid-week issue.  You are basically hoping no one notices, like Clinton hoped with Rwanda.  Do me a favor, put it back where it belongs, under a separate heading.Mwinog2777 (talk) 07:58, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't move it. When it was deleted outright, I restored it and defended its inclusion. After it was moved and shortened and then deleted, I restored it again, while also fixing it up a bit to provide context that had been lost. So for the future: if you're going to rant at someone, I suggest you check your facts before equating their actions with covering up a genocide. &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 17:00, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As was done with the "suicide epidemic" at MIT, I recommend merging a neutral, duly weighted account of the recent cluster along with some historical context into either the history or student life sections of the article. Mwinog2777, this is not "burying the lead" and your arguments from outrage or authority are inappropriate for discussion and ultimately assume bad faith on the part of other editors. Check your outrage and motivations at the door, Wikipedia isn't a memorial or advocacy site. Madcoverboy (talk) 04:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe you're right, I'm guilty of outrage; then again, maybe not. Don't feel any, though.  Sadness is what I really feel about the suicides.  Can't get past that feeling; no outrage.  I assumed no bad faith.  All I did was raise the issue, nothing more.  Maybe I raised it too trenchantly.  I never went back to the section for a personal re-edit.  I left to others to deal with it.Mwinog2777 (talk) 01:09, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Fraternity System
Hi, the statement:

"Cornell hosts the second largest fraternity and sorority system in North America, with 70 chapters involving 33% of male and 24% of female undergraduates."

I believe is pretty untrue. I did some of my own research, enough I believe to remove the "second-largest" part, which is all I'm concerned with. I go to Cornell and find it an irritating urban legend.

The references to the statement are both nonexistent. Presumably, the reference for the "second largest" part is from a web page from a fraternity at Cornell.

1. ^ "Go Greek!". Scorpion TKE. http://www.scorpiontke.org/rush/greek. Retrieved 2006-06-09.

US News seems to support, independently (which actually seems to be drawn from a now-nonexistent webpage on Cornell's website) the percentages. (Also, US News's numbers for sororities are completely wrong and just seem to be a copy of the fraternity numbers.) But the original source seems to be Cornell, but that link is of course broken.

^ a b c "Fraternity & Sorority Advisory Council Annual Report 2004–2005" (PDF). Cornell University. http://www.dos.cornell.edu/FSA/PDFs/OFSA_AR05_smaller.pdf. Retrieved 2006-05-22.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/most-frats

Cornell students in the Greek system: Roughly 3,990

So, it just always seemed to me that it was unlikely that a school with 14,000 students in the Greek system would have more than these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_United_States_university_campuses_by_enrollment

Just taking the two biggest party schools, using numbers from a couple college information websites:

Arizona State:

15 percent live on campus in a dorm or fraternity/sorority house.

An old Wikipedia article claimed without citation that 9% of Cornell undergraduates reside in Greek housing, so even only using 15% for Arizona State, it should safely be an underestimate.

>7,000 using generous rounding

University of Florida:

Undergrad Men in Fraternities - 14% Undergrad women in sororities - 20%

7,200 using generous rounding

So these are 80% larger than Cornell's estimated number. It has been suggested that they meant the second-largest number of chapters, which is pretty much the last way anyone would interpret "second largest," and there's no reason to believe that's accurate, anyway. It's not by students and it's not by percentage. This should be enough evidence to at least remove "second largest" until someone can find a real source.

And don't worry, I'd already done the research for an unrelated reason, so I didn't do all this just for two words in a Wikipedia article. Fitzgerald (talk) 17:56, 29 June 2010 (UTC)Fitzgerald
 * You are assuming that all fraternity members live in fraternity housing, when at least at Cornell only a small portion do so. For example, at Yale, there are fraternities with no living accommodations. Racepacket (talk) 12:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Coeducation
The new history section includes the dubious claim: "No other coeducational institution of higher learning existed in the United States at the time [1873], so this was a revolutionary step in the development of modern higher education in America." Besides the peacockish framing (the entire second phrase), the first phrase is simply factually wrong: women were admitted to the University of Wisconsin in 1863, Northwestern admitted women in 1869, women were admitted to MIT and Michigan in 1870, and certainly Mt. Holyoke, Vassar, and Wellesley were all founded before 1870. See to it that this claim is removed. Madcoverboy (talk) 21:08, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I did make an error in relating the source, as on revisiting it, I see that it says "in the eastern United States" (emphasis added). If your assertions are correct, then the source is inaccurate. &mdash;Bill Price(notyourbroom) 21:18, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * To be as clear as possible in identifying the source of the error in my prose, here is the full quote from the source: "For nearly 125 years, historians have assumed that a letter written by Cornell founder Ezra Cornell and placed for posterity into the Sage Hall cornerstone concerned the university's coeducational status. After all, the campus building was to house the Sage College for Women at the only coeducational institution of higher education in the eastern United States." (emphasis added) &mdash;Bill Price(notyourbroom) 21:31, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * See revision here. &mdash;Bill Price(notyourbroom) 21:25, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

New History section
To be frank, I still think the history section is in extremely poor shape. The current revision preserves or reinforces the already disproportionate weight assigned to Cornell's not-entirely revolutionary vision for coeducational education. However, there is no substantive discussion of its changes in response to industrialization at the turn of the 19th century, the impact of the World Wars and Depression, post-war growth, student protests in 1960s & 70, etc. Madcoverboy (talk) 21:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

In-line citations
I apologize for the clutter between 22–26 July 2010. My most recent overhaul was to ensure that every single &lt;ref&gt; tag contained a template rather than a URL or other bare/periphrastic citation. I did not generally check other references (i.e., those using a template) for completion or accuracy. At present, the only "nonstandard" in-line citation is the footnote in the introduction that says "The other is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." There's no reason to modify that, as it's just a footnote and not actually a citation. I ran the error-checker of RefToolbar_1.0 (the "refToolPlus" version, I think?) and it can detect no other errors or concerns. &mdash;Bill Price(notyourbroom) 19:44, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry! I take responsibility for a large number of those improper citations from when I wrote a large chunk of this behemoth back in 2005-6.  We were just kids and didn't know any better! --Xtreambar (talk) 20:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * My favorite part was how there were two different named references called "princeton" for The Princeton Review ratings&mdash;one defined for 2006 ratings, one for 2009&mdash;plus a third place in which a "princeton" reference was used in citing data ostensibly from a 2007 rating (see below). It kind of reminds me of that old saw about laws and sausages. &mdash;Bill Price(notyourbroom) 21:55, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

&mdash;Bill Price(notyourbroom) 21:55, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, let me clarify: when I said "My favorite part..." up above, I was not speaking ironically. I just realized that it can be given a sarcastic reading, but that wasn't my intention- I really laughed when I realized how tangled those three references were, and was glad to untangle them.&mdash;Bill Price(notyourbroom) 22:45, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Splitting "footnotes" from "references"
See this edit. For future reference, parenthetical footnotes (or whatever they're called) should be added &lt;ref group="note"&gt;like this&lt;/ref&gt; while in-line citations should follow the normal &lt;ref name="..."&gt; &lt;/ref&gt; format. As long as that standard is adhered to, the two will remain properly sorted from each other at the bottom of the article. (I noticed this was done in the Atom article and thought it'd be worth copying.) &mdash;Bill Price(notyourbroom) 07:14, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Universities Collaboration of the Month! Compare against Good Article Criteria.
Good Article Criteria can be found here: Good article criteria

The criteria are as follows (taken from the above link).


 * I usually try to lend a hand on cleaning up and improving UNI/COTM articles, but I was disappointed to see that a former featured article was chosen despite many other articles are in substantially greater need for editors' attention. As such, I'll be contributing elsewhere this month. Madcoverboy (talk) 03:31, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The above user nominated Cornell University for delisting as a Featured Article. Racepacket (talk) 13:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

What is a good article?
A good article is&mdash;  :
 * (a) ; and
 * (b).

:
 * (a) ;
 * (b) ; and
 * (c).

:
 * (a) ; and
 * (b).

. .</li> <li>:</li>
 * (a) ; and
 * (b).

</ol>

Does this article meet Good Article standards?
Please edit with yes or no, and if no, please explain why is does not meet good article standards. Please also sign each line as you fill it in.

1
1.
 * (a)
 * (b)

2
2.
 * (a)
 * (b) Needs work. The entire Alumni section is in dire need of citations. To this end, I have solicited help at WP:JOB, and I will assist myself when time permits. Citations are needed elsewhere as well. —Eustress talk 15:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * (c)

3
3.
 * (a)
 * (b)
 * (c)

4
4.

5
5.

6
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 * (a)
 * (b)

Okay, let's shoot for Good Article ASAP! Adavis444 (talk) 00:12, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

2010 Forbes ranking
Added the 2010 Forbes ranking to the template. The template still generates citations for 2009 rankings, though, so it will need to be fixed eventually. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 21:14, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Private university or not?
I notice a recent edit by Notyourbroom that tries to clarify Cornell's status in the lead, private or public. I agree that the footnote which is linked to gives a good explanation, but it makes the lead more sluggish when it has a lot of footnotes. It would be better to make the same information visible in the lead, even in a reduced form, right in the prose itself. At present the lead consists of four paragraphs, and the first paragraph is just one sentence. How about adding a second sentence which would clarify the private/public stuff? My suggestion is to change the first paragraph of the lead to the following:"Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York. It is a private land-grant university which receives funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions."The explanation of the second sentence follows in the Organization section of this article so no additional note machinery would be needed. EdJohnston (talk) 17:14, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * All reasonable points&mdash;as I said in the edit summary, my edit was just preliminary work. Feel free to make the changes you think are appropriate. (When my time is limited, I sometimes do very "clunky" things like adding placeholder section headings or "expand-section" templates to prompt other editors to take a stab at correcting an issue, but I understand other folks prefer to keep such preliminary work and suggestions on the talk page.) &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 18:24, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I just noticed that the revision didn't make its way into the article yet. For copyright purposes, I'm declaring here that this edit ported in prose from this talk page message from this version of the article talk page. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 00:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Further changes needed
I've begun to reorganize the article to comply with WP:UNIGUIDE and add some missing substantive content (Carnegie Classifications, accreditation, academic calendar, etc.). Further work needs to be done in the following areas:
 * Organization and administration: Spitzer memo & Graffeo decision need to be further summarized; missing background information about senior administration (who is the president, chair of board of trustees, provost, etc.?); missing information about the endowment & fundraising activity
 * The "Spitzer & Graffeo" stuff is actually trying to explain statutory colleges to the average reader. It is a very difficult concept and some IP/undergraduate editors have botched it over the years, so please be careful.
 * It still comes across as undue weight. I think a lot of this could be footnoted if readers wish to know the legal intricacies and simply assert the current consensus about the relationship. Madcoverboy (talk) 22:46, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think that who is the President, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Provost is as important at Cornell as it is at some other institutions. Some schools, like University of Miami hire a big name former US cabinet member to give gravitas to the institution. Other schools, like Liberty University, the college is the alter ego of the President.  Cornell is far more diffuse, with strong Deans and a strong faculty.  Cornell has a much larger size Board than most other colleges.  (It is 49 members now, but was up to 63 members in the 1971-1978 period. A lot of these are covered in List of Cornell University people. I could write a PhD dissertation on the subject of Cornell's governance, but I have spared the article all of that detail. Racepacket (talk) 03:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The president, chairman, and provost are all important offices regardless of their stature relative to other universities. It's certainly the case that there are many universities where schools and their deans have considerable autonomy, but I don't see how excluding any mention of the senior administration necessarily follows from this fact... Madcoverboy (talk) 22:46, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I took a stab at both these things. Madcoverboy (talk) 00:12, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * President, Provost and Registrar in infobox Racepacket (talk) 21:19, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Why is it essential for readers to know the institution's registrar??? ElKevbo (talk) 23:00, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Academics: This is always a difficult decision to discuss the academic organization in "organization" or "academics" sections, but when it comes to degree requirements & so forth, I believe this type of content should be in the academics section. I would actually encourage editors to have a subsection for the undergraduate program to describe the Carnegie classifications specific to that level, total number of degrees offered, academic requirements, most popular degrees, etc. and then another subsection for graduate and professional programs' Carnegie classification, funding, and popular degree programs.
 * Admissions There is far too much repetition of old statistics (classes of 2009-2013?) and detail about particular admission dimensions. This section needs to be summarized to a paragraph and merged someplace such as the "student body" subsection I mention below.
 * Financial aid: I believe there is undue weight on this topic relative to its overall importance and would suggest it be summarized and merged with the undergraduate academics subsection.
 * This is a very unique aspect of Cornell, which was one of the first Ivies to address affordability in such an aggressive way. Financial aid applies to all schools, including professional schools, not just undergraduate schools, although the formulas are different. Racepacket (talk) 03:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Rankings: Again, a surfeit of out-dated/historical rankings from various sources and about different programs; those which cannot be summarized in the infobox should only report the most recent and up-to-date rankings. University-wide rankings should be emphasized over rankings of particular programs. The section as a whole needs to be substantially summarized.
 * People: A "student body" subsection could also be added here to discuss demographics, admissions, and financial aid statistics rather than under the academics section. Again, a potentially difficult decision to incorporate this content under "academics" or under people.
 * Under the guidelines, "admissions statistics" goes under Academics and the other section is for "Notable people." So this suggestion is contrary to the guidelines. Racepacket (talk) 03:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Cheers. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Housing: All those red links need to be piped to subsections on other articles or unlinked as they are almost certainly not notable in of themselves.
 * Again, the WP:UNI Guidelines are just guidelines. Racepacket (talk) 03:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Content dispute regarding Sage Hall letter
Just documenting this stuff that I see unfolding... I'm not making any accusations or recommendations&mdash;I just have a feeling that this information may be beneficial in the future. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 20:34, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't have that much of a problem with the block quote but the GA reviewers of both Cornell University and History of Cornell University had concerns. It is a lot of verbiage to make the point that Ezra Cornell considered sectarianism to be a larger potential problem than was later appreciated. Given that sectarianism proved not to be a big problem over the long term, is the quote worth fighting over? Racepacket (talk) 04:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Seconded. It's an unnecessarily large block of text that doesn't add enough substance to the article to justify its size. --Xtreambar (talk) 15:32, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Notyourbroom's talk page

 * IP editor 1
 * My response 1
 * IP editor 2
 * My response 2

Cornell University article

 * Quote addition 1
 * Quote deletion 1
 * Quote addition 2
 * Quote deletion 2
 * Quote addition 3
 * Quote deletion 3

History of the New York State College of Forestry article

 * Quote addition 1
 * Quote deletion 1 by Yllosubmarine

Sage Hall article

 * Quote moved from History of Cornell University

Great image resource
Please note a great series of Cornell-related images at asergeev.com (#474-479), which are freely licensed at Commons through Commons:Template:Alex Sergeev permission.--GrapedApe (talk) 01:13, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Largest gift ever?
Someone added that the $80 million gift to fund the sustainability center is the "largest". However, in 2007, Sandy Weill pledged $250 million, resulting in the Medical College being named after Weill. Racepacket (talk) 03:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Misleading photo
Cornell's west campus has changed enormously in the past five or six years. The thumbnail to the right is pasted exactly as it appears in the article. This photo dates from 2005 and is not at all representative of housing on West anymore. I'll change the photo to something else in a bit. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 01:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I prefer the quality of the incumbent pic; however, in an attempt to assuage the matter, I have inserted a sample of housing pics. —Eustress talk 04:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This particular view of the Baker Dorms has one of the new dorms in the background. Racepacket (talk) 04:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * My point is that it was cherrypicking verging on boosterism. The Gothics are idyllic and absolutely iconic of British-influenced ideals of prestigious higher education. They're more Ivy League than ivy itself. But crucially, they account for only a tiny portion of total student housing, even within the housing system of West Campus. It's a fact that a large supermajority of students will never live in a Gothic hall, regardless of whether they might want to do so, so putting this photograph as the sole representative of campus housing was misleading. I much prefer the present solution of having several exemplars of residential architecture in a larger gallery box. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 17:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone considers Cascadilla to be West Campus. 192.31.106.34 (talk) 17:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Anon's point is valid. According to this Cornell website, Cascadilla is in proximity to West Campus but located in Collegetown. I've replaced it with an ADP House pic, which adds another dimension to the lists (frats/sors). —Eustress talk 19:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * By the way, the official name is "Baker Dormitories" the "the Gothics." I agree that the newer buildings do not have the architectural quality of the 1920s buildings. Racepacket (talk) 19:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Aerial photography
I just rediscovered these photos, which were improperly categorized. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 01:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Cool. I like File:CornellCentral2.JPG... I'm not sure it would be the right fit for this article, but maybe for one of the campus ones? —Eustress talk 04:14, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Alumni years
The list of alumni in this main article give the year of graduation without indicating whether it is an undergraduate or advanced degree. The Cornell Daily Sun style prints the school and year, which may be too much. Perhaps we should just indicate the graduate degree. For example, Jimmy Smits earned an MFA, but the article suggested that he got an undergraduate degree in 1982. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 22:05, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Given the size of this section, I suggest years only for all degrees earned (e.g., Jane Doe '94 & '97, John Doe '04). Readers can learn more about the alumnus through the source or through the alumni list (which, when the overhaul is complete, will be comprehensive).—Eustress talk 13:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem is that readers link class year with age and undergraduate degrees with primary affiliation. Adrian Fenty happened to attend Howard University Law School after attending a historically non-black college. Is it fair to list him as an example of a successful graduate of a historically black college?  Jimmy Smits had good acting skills prior to coming to the Cornell MFA program. Does he have the same affinity as Christopher Reeve who did his undergraduate work here? Listing undergraduate and graduate degrees without a distinction is misleading. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 11:40, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Good Article status
This should really be a good article, if not restored to Featured Article. How to people feel about taking another run up the hill? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 22:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Alumni photos: Coulter vs. Olberman
I reverted this edit due to its potentially politically-motivated nature. Let us be agnostic of political leanings for a moment, though. We can consider dimensions like these ones: I think six photos is probably enough in the main article, especially when more detailed articles exist to discuss alumni, so the question is perhaps which six alumni would form the best "balance" of notability and equal representation. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 22:29, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Notability of the alumni
 * 2) Recognizability of the alumni, including the iconicity/value of a particular photo
 * 3) Representation across colleges
 * 4) Representation across sexes
 * 5) Representation across races