Talk:Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College

Graduates
This page should list the work of previous graduates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.0.158.212 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

There isn't any. The college is less than 10 years old. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.243.112 (talk • contribs) 22:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course there is work by previouse graduates. Not only does the school have students that have already graduated from law school and are about to graduate from medical school, there several students in nationally recogonized masters and Ph.d programs AND every student is required to write an original thesis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.0.162.154 (talk • contribs) 22:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the previous statement, one of the academic selling points of the school is the development of the thesis. So either list the thesis works of all previous graduates or somebody is getting their asses kicked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.186.131.65 (talk • contribs) 09:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, individual student thesis papers are not notable and should not be included on the college's page. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. If one of these works is notable for some reason then it should have it own page, and just have a mention here. Also, please sign your comments as directed above. KnightLago 14:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

If the Honors College is doing its job, than the theses (not thesis papers) are notable academic contributions; making their presence on wikipedia important information for scholars, current college students, and future college students. Also, calling youself KnightLago doesn't make you cool; it does show that you live at home with your mother. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.203.61 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Ouch, that hurt. How are the thesis papers notable? KnightLago 12:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I take back the previous statement. I would have a log in name, but KnightLago - the coolest name a 30-year-old virgin could have - was taken.

And as I said previously, the theses ("thesis papers" being not only redandent, but inherently retarded) are original scholarlly work - not a generic high school paper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.0.163.128 (talk • contribs) 23:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Again with the personal attack. So they are scholarly works, so what. What makes them notable? And I would work on your spelling there, "redandent" and my favorite "scholarlly", nice, me retarded you say? KnightLago 03:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

While advocates for the thesis listings may be 'aggressive,' they do appear to be well intentioned and accurate. Furthermore, the page should list important stats in a box to the side, similar to Florida State University. The way the numbers are listed appears as unneeded wordiness.--Hawthorne122 18:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The list of graduates' theses sounds good to me. Students at the undergraduate level have been doing graduate-level work for a while now at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College. In fact, an Honors College graduate named Niina Pollari won an Honorable Mention from Early English Books Online's 2006 "EEBO in Undergraduate Studies Essay Contest." EEBO is primarily a tool for graduate students. Additionally, Kyle Ashby, who is currently still enrolled at the college, had a paper on transgender issues on Nip/Tuck published in the Southeast Journal of Media Criticism. Many more Honors College students are doing graduate work in their undergraduate years, and many of their undergraduate honors theses go on to be published in scholarly journals intended for graduate work.

Each and every Honors college thesis is far more than just a thesis; it is an intensely-probed piece of work that at least two faculty members (typically three--all with terminal degrees) acutely critiqued & evaluated. Also, the Honors College theses are the only student-published works in the FAU MacArthur Campus Library. Not even graduate work is there, but Honors College theses are binded, cataloged, and available for those wishing to incorporate them into their research. This cataloging is typical of dissertations at the graduate level. Seeing as the Honors College thesis is in fact notable as graduate-level work at the undergraduate level, it should at least be explained in further detail on this page. The current list of theses linked from Wikipedia to the FAU website is very inaccurate and needs updating. I'm sure if anyone needs an updated list, they can contact the FAU MacArthur Campus library online at AIM screen name FauReference.

Also, another notable fact about the Honors College is that the graduates of the college actually receive very little recognition for their work. They graduate with a generic Liberal Arts degree, entirely equal to that of a non-honors student attending FAU in Boca Raton, FL. The only difference is that instead of being approved by the "Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters," the Honors College diploma is approved by the "Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College." Even students that enroll in the 15-credit honors program on the Boca Raton campus receive a certificate for their completion of that honors program, whereas individuals who graduate from an entirely honors curriculum receive nothing of the sort! Because Honors College graduates receive exactly the same diploma and recognition as any other person with a FAU Liberal Arts degree, the Honors College graduates end up looking like weaker candidates for jobs and graduate schools. Thus, if an Honors College graduate and an FAU Liberal Arts graduate were applying for the same position at a company or graduate school, the FAU Liberal Arts candidate would probably get the job as they typically have a higher GPA from "easier" classes. The Honors thesis is the only aspect of their education which might earn them a position over the Liberal Arts candidate.

Perhaps if the Wikipedia page for the Honors College recognized their struggles more, and if graduates & their works were not patronized by such individuals as KnightLago, then Wikipedia could be used for citation of public belief that graduates deserve more forms of recognition.

I understand the bias I hold, and so I hope that any of the people who read this will edit the page in a way that would further incite recognition of those students enrolled in this program.

-Current Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College student (I've never posted on Wikipedia before now)131.91.218.49 14:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * My M.A. thesis is not on Wikipedia yet. To whom should I address my complaint?
 * Wikipedia is not: a soapbox; a directory; or, as the beleaguered KnightLago already pointed out, an indiscriminate collection of information. Mwillia9 01:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Mwillia9, the article on "list of indiscriminate collection of information" doesn't say anything about not having notable publishings of a school. If your M.A. thesis was notable, then it should be on Wikipedia. KnightLago's point that the content isn't notable isn't reason enough not to limit the content of this article because "Notability guidelines do not directly limit article-content." See notability. While simply listing all of these theses would indeed be indiscriminate, from the sounds of it more notable theses do exist, and I would encourage people to include a list of notable theses.70.187.39.52 18:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * From notability: "Notability guidelines give guidance on whether a topic is notable enough to be included in Wikipedia as a separate article, but do not specifically regulate the content of articles, which is governed by other guidelines such as those on using reliable sources and on handling trivia. The particular topics and facts within an article are not each required to meet the standard of the notability guidelines. List articles, though, should include only notable entries; for example, only notable writers should be in List of English writers." By adding all the theses you would make the article a list of non-notable works, with a few short opening paragraphs. And in my opinion violate the spirit and intent of notability. KnightLago 23:35, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I quote one of the combative posters from above: "either list the thesis works of all previous graduates or somebody is getting their asses kicked." It is simply impossible to list every single thesis or dissertation written at every school on Wikipedia. I do not in fact believe that my MA thesis (or most others') is notable enough to be listed on WP; I was trying to make the point that if a complete list of theses were included here, then alumni of much larger schools with much longer histories and many more theses and dissertations could demand that their work be listed as well, and it would never end. Certainly, any HL Wilkes theses that have had a significant impact on their fields could be listed here, but by my totally unscientific estimate (based on the three-year snippet of theses listed on the Library's website) there have been at least 360 written since the college's founding in 1999. Such a list would indeed be an indiscriminate collection of information, and would be so long as to be meaningless. Mwillia9 06:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Pictures
This page needs them. Go Owls 14:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)