Talk:Cranfield University

Rewrite
This needs rewriting - it is basically a copy vio with a few pronouns changed. The JPS 14:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

University ratings
(I'm posting this to all articles on UK universities as so far discussion hasn't really taken off on WikiProject Universities.)

There needs to be a broader convention about which university rankings to include in articles. Currently it seems most pages are listing primarily those that show the institution at its best (or worst in a few cases). See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities. Timrollpickering 22:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. See neutrality discussion below as well. Million_Moments (talk) 18:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The Cranfield tag is unjustified - all comments are referenced to external neutral sources. Of course they are selective. You seem to have some anti -Cranfield neutrality. Please remove the tag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cj1340 (talk • contribs) 13:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You can't just put up good ratings. You need to include all ratings. See what is linked above. I am not anti-Cranfield I looked it up the other day when it was on BBC News and it seemed obvious to me this article is not written in a neutral tone. Million_Moments (talk) 14:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

please remove tag...every one that has ever been to Cranfield can testify to how incredible the institution is....i agree, you have some anti-cranfield sentiment....please tell us what university you went to so that we can assess your neutrality or lack thereof.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.146.52 (talk) 15:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi all! I understand that university ratings are somewhat tricky since nobody wants to see his university as a bad one and everybody hopes his university is the best :) I've made some changes to the rating in order to point out that the rank (as one of the first Uk univs for research) given is extracted from a specific survey. Now it looks like for all the facts in this section it is clearly said from which datum they come from. Thus a potential reader can clearly see where the facts come from, and make his own assessment on the fact relevance. This is now done for all the facts that are subjective and comparative (ranking). Other facts such as number of students which graduate at Cranfield are just figures and do not seem problematic to me. As a consequence, I think the article is now neutral enough, and the reader can see and decide of the importance of those facts. So can we discuss the tag? I don't think it's necessary anymore.195.6.25.121 (talk) 15:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Motto
Cranfield themselves appear to be translating Post Nubes Lux as "After darkness, light" - see the bottom of The Arms of the University.

"After clouds, light" appears to be an alternative (more correct?) translation but do we go with the one the university uses itself or the literal?

The University of Kent has a similarly ambiguous motto "Cui servire regnare est" which is literally "whom to serve is to reign" but the prayer book translation (which is the reason why it was picked) is "whose service is perfect freedom". Both are displayed on that article - maybe that's the way forward? Timrollpickering 15:46, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Tom - I agree, however the VC at Graduation gives the correct translation and it irks me that even the University website is incorrect. Perhaps we should lobby the University to get the translation correct. It seems very poor that the University cannot get it correct - there is only one translation to the latin Post nubes lux as a variety of sources and my latin text book teach me. This is very reminiscent of 'The life of Brian' although someone is updating many of the corrections I am putting in without checking sources - e.g. Cranfield is 10 miles from MK and Bedford not 5 - has this person not had the forethought to actually check figures. Also he should check the HESA website were all teh data regarding destinations is recorded - the new value is actualy 94.7%. It is, it seems to me, important to have some details that can be factually tested actually correct on the page. However, I do have better things to do than correct for some idiot who seems to be hell bent on ensuring that 'vandalism' is synonomous wiht fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cranfield Student (talk • contribs) 16:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The link to the "Arms of the University" site (http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/about/history/page1081.jsp) is dead anyway, maybe it was taken down by the Latin Inquisition (for mistranslating the clouds in the motto). Dead link should be removed and the mistake corrected, or should one simply point out that the university itself uses a wrong translation? --WernR (talk) 08:32, 3 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The university's official translation is now "after clouds light" (so matching the obvious meaning of the latin). Robminchin (talk) 18:34, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Picture Move
I have moved all the pictures to the Wikimedia Commons. This is something that should be done with all freely licensed pictures to enable them to be used by other Wiki projects and others. (Wikipedia is not an image store and is only supposed to hold fair use images that are not to be made available elsewhere.) These moved pictures are then deleted from the Wikipedia to save space. Unfortunately the last picture had a poor name, one probably generated by the camera; such names are strongly discouraged on the Commons, so I changed it to something more descriptive. I then needed to change this page (and any any other pages that might use it, in this case none) to point to that new file name, allowing the old named file to be deleted. I hope this explains everything: no pictures have been lost, they are all safe on the Commons. --Simon Speed 22:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality
Tagged this article for neutrality, it seems to portray the university in an overly good light. For example, see discussion above about university ratings. The first section that contains these ratings reads like a list of everything that is wonderful about Cranfield and this isn't very encylopedic. Million_Moments (talk) 18:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Re-written the lead for a more encyclopedic tone... hopefully will allow the editors to get on with what is already a fine article Dakinijones (talk) 10:37, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the biggest issue is with the ranking and evaluation section Million_Moments (talk) 10:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've put in tags to point the editors in the right direction to relieve MillionMoments's concerns Dakinijones (talk) 11:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the article is (now) mostly neutral. Perhaps it would be acceptable for all parties to keep a POV template, but move it to Ranking and Evaluation with. Where both Timrollpickering and Million_Moments have identified a problem to exist. =Species8473= (talk) 12:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed Million_Moments (talk) 19:37, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Student Life
This section - as it stands just a list of societies - doesn't fit comfortably in the main article. However it is clearly an area needing attention - social activity, accommodation, welfare, the local area etc. Hence I suggest a new article (Cranfield Students Association) where this could be accommodated. Comments please Cj1340 (talk) 19:53, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality & military?
Ok this seems so neutral as to be scrubbed vacuous. Why is there no mention of the relationship to the British military? That would be useful. I've heard this is like west point, is it true? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.84.165.140 (talk) 23:17, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * In case anyone thinks this is a serious question, the University is not a military college (is someone thinking of Royal Military Academy Sandhurst?). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:52, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Pictures of the Sky
Images of a helicopter and the Red Arrows may well have taken place above the Shrivenham campus, but do not illustrate anything about the University. This is why I removed them.Chemical Engineer (talk) 20:34, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Sugest you look at them more closely - it's a bit unique for UK Universities for very good reasons Cj1340 (talk) 23:56, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just modified 4 external links on Cranfield University. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090206112359/http://www1.bluemoose.org.uk:8080/ to http://www1.bluemoose.org.uk:8080/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110713030835/http://www.info4security.com/story.asp?storyCode=3081470&sectioncode=10 to http://www.info4security.com/story.asp?storyCode=3081470&sectioncode=10
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Reliable sources for date of 'university status'?
There seems to be a strong consensus in the sources that Cranfield University started out as the College of Aeronautics in 1946, became the Cranfield Institute of Technology (with its own degree awarding powers) in 1969 and was renamed Cranfield University in 1993. However, sources seem to differ as to when Cranfield University achieved 'university status': These are both articles in quality UK newspapers. I wonder whether anyone can identify a more definitive source here?
 * The Independent says that this was in 1969 - see
 * The Daily Telegraph says that this was in 1993 - see

The Parson's Cat (talk) 12:47, 28 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Further to my previous post, it I've come across a further source in favour of the "university status from 1969" POV: . This is may be a useful input into the discussion.
 * The Parson's Cat (talk) 13:22, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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I have just modified one external link on Cranfield University. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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photos of alumni
The photos in the alumni section are not something I remember seeing in any other article with an alumni section. I would say that these photos belong in the article about the person, not in the article about the university they attended. Seems to give excessive significance to some alumni by including their photos but not those of others (ones we don't have photos of?) Removed the gallery of photos from the alumni section but it was reverted with a request for reason. RJFJR (talk) 16:13, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * They are present on a number of UK university articles. I think there was a discussion about whether they are appropriate on WP:UNI. Aloneinthewild (talk) 15:03, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

MK:U
If anyone from Cranfield or MK Council reads this, please be aware that the name MK:U will never be accessible directly from Wikipedia. This is because the notation xx:x is used by Wikipedia for internal redirection. That is why U takes visitors to the article in Macedonian (language code MK) about the Cyrillic letter U. So, when the project moves out of the concept stage, a new name would be advisable. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:01, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Kaye effect
Alan Kaye discovered the Kaye effect in 1963 at the Department of Materials, College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, Bletchley, Bucks. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1963Natur.197.1001K/abstract that would make him an notable alumni and even a possible person for a wikipedia article.

Is there any info on him at the University?

--Stone (talk) 07:48, 25 September 2020 (UTC)