Talk:Mary Baldwin University/Archive 1

Slight advertorial tone
It's not too bad, but as an outsider reading this article randomly, there are one or two places where this reads more like a sales brochure than an impartial encyclopedia article. For example, this - "Its relatively small size enables the College to foster a lively sense of community within which is expressed a concern for each person" - looks as though it was lifted straight from some advertising material.

Regardless of the above, the article definitely needs better referencing. Only one link other than the college's own is rather poor, and inline citations are badly needed (eg for the US News & World Report ranking). I've therefore added a refimprove tag. 217.33.74.203 (talk) 12:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Factual accuracy?
Not sure if this is the right place to put this but - where did this information about The Chevaliers come from? I can't find any confirmation of such a group elsewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.240.170.60 (talk) 22:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

copyvio material removed from history section
the material which I removed from the history section was copy/paste from the institution's catalog. please check it in the diff and compare with catalog (history of college section) available here: MBC catalog 2008-09 (pdf)

&mdash; Alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 06:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

additions to history section
this is about this material (with munged reftags so we can see them to discuss): Throughout its history, Mary Baldwin College has overcome many obstacles to become one of the oldest all female institutions in the United States. Mary Baldwin College was founded in 1842 by Rufus W. Bailey as the Augusta Female Seminary. With ties to the Presbyterian Church, the college is the "oldest institution of higher education for women in the nation affiliated with the Presbyterian Church."<:ref> Among the first students to attend the Seminary was Mary Julia Baldwin, the future college's namesake.

In 1863, Miss Baldwin was named the principal of the Seminary, leading it through a difficult time as the country was engaged in Civil War and somewhat of an economic depression. After the withdraw of Rufus W. Bailey, the school declined a bit, and seemed on the verge of closing until Miss Baldwin stepped in during the tumult of the Civil War to revive the college in a way (Watters 6)<:ref>. She remained the principal until her death in 1897. Renamed the "Mary Baldwin Seminary" in 1895, the first steps to honoring the woman who did so much for the college in some of its most difficult times were taken.

The Seminary struggled for nearly thirty years after the death of Miss Baldwin as the standards and expectations for women's education changed. People were no longer as interested, nor did they have as much need for, the highly specialized education a female Seminary offered as the higher education of women became more acceptable. In the early 1900's, colleges for women became more widely accepted (Watters 211-12)<:ref>. With this acceptability came the changing of the name of the original Augusta Female Seminary, then Mary Baldwin Seminary, to Mary Baldwin College, in 1923.

Again, Mary Baldwin, among other single-sex schools, faces a bit of a struggle to prove itself in a time when coed education is the main avenue of schooling. As of 2006, Mary Baldwin College was one of less than sixty all female schools in the United States, down from more than 200 in the 1960's (Scelfo)<:ref>.

In order to keep up with the changing times, Baldwin has instituted a "Gateway" program, where each incoming student chooses a gateway that relates to their passion. There are nine gateways into which a student can enter the college, each pertaining to a specific area of study.

For the exceptionally gifted, there is the PEG program, which allows students as young as 12 years of age to enter the college as a residential student. The college also offers the Honors Gateway, which allows students with a GPA of 3.5 or higher, to be challenged academically throughout their college career by taking honors colloquiums, as well as incorporating an Honors requirement into their Senior thesis. This also gives students the opportunity to graduate with an Honors Degree from the college after fulfilling all of the requirements as well as maintaining an acceptable GPA. For African-American women, there is the opportunity to come to the college in the Ida B. Wells Gateway, which explores African-American culture and traditions while incorporating aspects of leadership, academic achievement, and service. Mary Baldwin is proud to offer an International Student Gateway where students from other countries come to the Untied States to study. The Career Academy Gateway is offered as a way for students to get a jump start on their careers while still attending college. The focus of the Spencer Citizens Gateway is to incorporate worldwide service into the learning experience of higher education through outreach efforts to countries around the world. The Healthy Lifestyles Gateway is for those women who are interested in how to make healthy lifestyle choices, as well as how to support others in their efforts to do so as well. One of the newest gateways offered is the Latino Culture Gateway. This gateway allows students to explore the Latino culture and traditions. The last gateway is the VWIL, or Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership Gateway program. This gateway offers its all female corps of cadets preparation for the military as well as positions of public service in both the public and private sectors.<:ref>

It seems to me that at most the first three paragraphs contain encyclopedic material. possibly the fourth, cited to newsweek. the rest of them are pure spam, and the tone of the first three is promotional. i don't mind keeping those and rewriting them with reasonable sourcing, which i have, but i don't see how a case can be made for the retention of the rest.&mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 21:30, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

note&mdash;i moved the following over from Milleree2382's talk page so that all interested parties could see it and participate in the discussion&mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 01:37, 10 October 2011 (UTC): I'm sorry you felt that my material was unacceptable for Wikipedia, and I'm sorry you felt it deserved to be deleted or reverted. I added this information for a school project. I was not ignoring you or being unsociable, but doing other work. I am a college student with a lot on my plate, and as this was my final project for a class at school, (which is due tomorrow, I might add) and your reverting it was not at all helpful to me. I did my research for this project, and did not in any way intend for any of my information to sound like "advertising" or "promotionalism" This was my first time using the editing tools for Wikipedia and I was sort of shooting in the dark, so forgive me if I made a few mistakes. I would be happy to correct the mistakes and create a different section for the Gateway programs if you would like, which, again, was not meant to in any way promote this college, but simply to inform (you can follow the link to the college's website which is cited directly in the section that I added) to find out any further information you desire. I will refrain from any further Wikipedia editing from now on so as not to do anything in an improper manner. So sorry. Milleree2382 (talk) 01:12, 10 October 2011 (UTC)milleree2382 If there is anyway you could put the history section back up until after tomorrow, I would be happy to delete at a later date. Thank you. Milleree2382 (talk) 01:22, 10 October 2011 (UTC)milleree2382

i'm sorry if i'm making your school project harder, but i'm not willing to agree that the material should stay up there because it's a requirement for your class. i'm glad that college teachers are involving their students in wikipedia content creation, but i also think that the only reason that material should go in an article on wp is that it improves the wp article. i don't think that this material does. if you want to discuss it on the merits of the material, i'd be happy to do so, but i don't think the fact that you have to do it for a school project is a reason to include the material. maybe your teacher will accept the diff, which you can link to like this as proof that you did the work? anyway, i'm going to ask one of the wikipedia contacts for the schools and universities projects to comment on this. thanks for answering!&mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 01:37, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * i'm sorry you're taking this personally, if you are. your work is all still there in the history of the article and it's going to be there forever, hard copy or not.  i'm not saying that it's not scholarly enough, i'm saying that the part about the gateways is not encyclopedic enough, whether or not it's cited to the college's website.  it's probable that the first part, about the history, is encyclopedic enough, but its tone struck me as promotional and i just wanted to talk about it.  that's just how we do things here.&mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 01:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think that the spam applies, but the content is not greatly referenced (the refs miss the author, date, publication), the citation density is poor and the wording is not always encyclopedic. I'd suggest restoring the content, but adding citation needed templates where needed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 03:03, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

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