Talk:Western State College of Law

Campus Access
It seems spurious to have a paragraph devoted to describing the parking lot of this law school. The paragraph seems to have been copied from text designed to discourage illegal parking at their facility. Per WP:BOLD (yet still searching for some consensus, not too bold) I shall consider removing it if I see no objections over the next few days.Retran (talk) 17:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Teaching
The "Teaching" section begins with an extremely unclear pronoun reference "These methods include much small group instruction." The rest of the paragraph seems to defy the WP:NEU neutral point of view encyclopedic style, as it seems copied from promotional text of some sort. The descriptions of teaching are so vague it could be referring to any school and any type of teaching. Does anyone have specific information on what teaching method of law Western State emphasizes in their courses??(Socratic, hands-on, etc??) Retran (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Notable persons
In reverting a deletion for a WSUCL alum, I note the deleted name is for a California Superior Court judge. Such individuals qualify for notability as state-wide WP:POLITICIANS. E.g., they are judges of the Superior Courts of California. Redlinking them is appropriate. WTAF is an essay and not a guideline. Now perhaps the edit should have a cn tag, but that is a different issue. --S. Rich (talk) 01:53, 9 March 2011 (UTC)01:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Great, I'll add a cn tag. I don't mind redlinked entries being there, except it's a lot more work- before the cn tag is removed, the notability needs to be confirmed and the attendance at WSUCL also needs to be confirmed. It's generally easier to create a stub with those cites, but it can be done here on a fairly clear notability item; it's the unclear ones that are harder to discuss without the stub. tedder (talk) 02:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

EDMC Ownership
The cn tag on EDMC ownership is interesting. EDMC owns Argosy University and South University, as reflected on their website. But their website does not mention ownership of WSUCOL. At the same time, the website does give a link to WSUCOL, and WSUCOL is mentioned in some of EDMC's news releases. Moreover, some of the WSUCOL Board of Trustee members are from Argosy & South Us. It is probably safe to say in this article that EDMC owns or is closely affiliated with WSUCOL, but verification is desirable. (Perhaps mention is contained in some of EDMC's SEC stock filings.) I've tagged the EDMC article with a similar cn tag, so perhaps that will lead to an answer or reference.--S. Rich (talk) 06:43, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * At the risk of doing OR (which I am not about to publish), I've looked up Western State University of Southern California with the California Secretary of State. WSUSC has Entity Number C0481908 and its' corporate address is the exact same address in Pittsburgh as EDMC's.  Really, EDMC owns WSU and the cn tag is not needed. But I leave it to other editors to remove.--S. Rich (talk) 06:55, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm the tagger. I did far less than you did. I looked at the EDMC article and saw the reference to WSU but with no citation. Then I tagged the WSU article. I don't see how the tag can be removed until there's a source for it. And if no one sources it after a certain amount of time, the assertion should be removed. It's not that important an assertion anyway.
 * I originally got hung up on the accreditation issue. Not only wasn't it cited properly but it made little sense. I did my own OR on that issue (which I'm not going to even share, let alone publish :-) ), to satisfy my suspicions as to what actually occurred, but the sentence makes little sense as currently worded. Once I tagged that, I went through most of the rest of the article and tagged just about everything.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

ABA accreditaiton
I've provided a cite to the ABA accreditation page. Full accrediting is acceptable in that the ABA has "Provisional" and "Probationary" accrediation. The term full may not be used by the ABA, but it is used by WSU. Even though that cite is SPS, it is certainly reliable enough, and acceptable under SPS standards.--S. Rich (talk) 22:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't care about the full part, but it's the history in the sentence that still isn't cited. As it stands, the sentence says: "The American Bar Association accredited WSU in August 1998 and granted full accreditation in August 2009." The only thing that's cited it that it's accredited, even with your addition. There's actually a better cite from the ABA that shows that it was accredited in 2005 (not even mentioned in the sentence). See here. I am going to change the sentence to indicate that the school was accredited in 2005 and cite to the school's website and the ABA's.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:03, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed update
Hi, as part of my continued work for Education Management Corporation (EDMC) I have written a revised draft for this article, as Western State College of Law at Argosy University is owned by EDMC. (I have previously worked on the South University article, see Talk page discussion here, and my colleague User:WWB Too has worked on other articles related to EDMC.)

This article is in need of general clean-up and fails to meet Wikipedia's standards in several areas. I've provided more details about my concerns with this current article and the updates I've made in my version in the collapse box below. Before I get to those notes, I want to clearly state that I have not and will not directly edit any articles related to EDMC because of my COI. I'm asking that editors review what I have prepared and assist in making the updates to the article if they approve of the changes.

General comments:
 * I've cleaned up the references throughout the article for consistency.
 * I've removed the image: WSU Snowmageddon.jpg because it is of very poor quality.
 * The acronym WSCL is in use in a few places in the article currently. This is not an acronym the school is commonly known by so I have removed it. "Western State" is the more common way to refer to the school in short form.

Introduction + infobox
 * From the introduction I have removed the information about the campus relocating as I've been unable to find a source to confirm this information.
 * I've updated outdated information in the infobox and found new links to support 2013's February Bar pass results because the link in the current article is invalid.
 * I've removed the USNWR ranking. Since the school is not ranked by this organization, it seems unnecessary to include a parameter for which there is no information.

History
 * I've removed the subsection Name change and relocation since there is actually very little sourceable information in this section. I also feel that the subheading also places too much emphasis on one event in the school's history when there are many other significant events.
 * I've removed details from this section about how the school is commonly referred to by students and about the school's campus, which appear to have been written by someone with first hand knowledge and for which no source is available.

Academic programs
 * The information about the Criminal Law Center and Business Law Center in the current article appears to have been plagiarized from the school's website. The website has since been updated and now the links are invalid, but I might be able to find an archived version of the page if other editors would like to confirm this for themselves. Anyhow, I've written a much shorter summary of these two programs, also based on the school's website, as the current version is more promotional than informative.

Accreditation + Rankings
 * I've combined these two sections because they are both so short.
 * For now I have removed the markup from the top of the section. This article doesn't provide any additional information related to Western's rankings. Do other editors feel that the inclusion of this redirect is standard for law school articles?

Post-graduation employment
 * I've reorganized the information in this section so it is in chronological order.
 * I also replaced the National Law Journal link with this Above the Law source, which also supports Western States post-graduation employment information, but is not behind a paywall.

Notable alumni
 * I've added a source to support the inclusion of Bonnie Dumanis, as she is currently unsupported.

External links
 * I've removed the external link to the Lawschool.com article about the school. Its inclusion here doesn't appear to be in keeping with Wikipedia's guidelines for WP:EL

My draft has been added to my user space here: User:16912 Rhiannon/Western State College of Law at Argosy University

Thanks for taking the time to look at this. If you have any feedback on my draft that I can use to improve it I'd be happy to take it under consideration. If you're unclear about any of the changes I've made please let me know and I can elaborate. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 16:45, 23 October 2013 (UTC)


 * In History, you say "Though the school was unsuccessful in this attempt, it was at the time accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, which made graduates eligible to sit for the California Bar Examination.[9][10]" This is not quite accurate. The reference mentions accreditation by the state (as in Committee of Bar Examiners). It is the CBE accreditation, not WASC, that enables grads to take the bar. – S. Rich (talk) 17:06, 23 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi S. Rich, thanks so much for pointing this out. The you're right that the source does mention the state as well as WASC, so I've added that into the draft. Unfortunately, the source wasn't so clear on which accreditation allowed graduates to take the bar—it seems to say that both do. In order to reflect the source I've kept the reference to WASC as well as adding mention of the state. What do you think? If there's any adjustments needed, please feel free to make edits to the draft, if you'd like. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 18:03, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Still a bit vague and inaccurate. As you know, there are 3 types of law schools in CA. The CBE says: 1. ABA school grads can take the bar; 2. CBE accredited school grads can take the bar; and 3. CBE registered school grads can take the bar, but the students must first take the FYLSE (baby bar) in order to go beyond their first year of studies. So, what was WS's status before it got CBE accreditation? – S. Rich (talk) 18:18, 23 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi again, I did a bit more digging and found an article that gives some more detail on the school's accreditation prior to its ABA provisional accreditation in 1998. This O.C. Register article, hosted on Cal State's website, says the following:
 * "Western State opened in 1966 as the only accredited law school in Orange County"
 * and
 * "Before winning provisional American Bar Association approval in 1998, Western State was accredited by the California State Committee of Bar Examiners, which enabled its students to sit for the California Bar exam."
 * Based on this, I've updated the draft to state that the school had accreditation from California State Committee of Bar Examiners and that it was this accreditation that allowed students to take the bar exam. Hopefully that's much clearer now. I was assuming you meant "before it got ABA accreditation" rather than "before it got CBE accreditation", as based on what I have seen in sources, the school was accredited from the start, but let me know if there's something I missed. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 20:44, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Another tweak needed: "in 2005 becoming only the third for-profit". Recommend removing "only" (promotional tone) and substituting something like "as of 2005 becoming the third .....". – S. Rich (talk) 04:34, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, you might look at WP:UNIGUIDE. And rather than "notable alumni", you might say "notable people". That way you can add some of the profs if they have WP articles.  – S. Rich (talk) 04:37, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi S. Rich! Sorry for taking a bit to get back to you. I've made the edit you suggested re: removing "only". Looking at it again, I see what you mean, it isn't really needed there. I also looked at changing the section heading for Notable alumni to Notable people, but having done so I realized it was a little confusing—right now there's no notable faculty there, and I've not been able to find any with Wikipedia articles yet, so it seemed strange that I'd have to add a sub-head to show that the current list is just notable alumni. So, I undid my edit and put it back to Notable alumni. I think this could be changed to Notable people in the future, if faculty members are added. Does that sound ok to you?

Also, looking again at WP:UNIGUIDE, I see that an overall section heading of Academics is preferred for discussion of programs and accreditation, so I added that in. Was there anything else in particular from that guideline that you had in mind for this article? Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 19:22, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I've read over your draft, and you have made some good improvements, although the article looks thin in its amount of information and prose, and certainly could use many more (and better) images. You may want to ask your client if they can provide images for you to use. You may also want to take their logo (link here) and upload it to WP as a fair-use image. That would be a good addition to the infobox. I have about twenty suggestions in wording, and that might be easier if I make the changes to your draft, if that's all right with you. Another suggestion for your draft is that citations in the infobox like you have it are often frowned-upon. I would suggest removing the citations, because much of that information should be elsewhere in the article, and none of the information seems challengeable or controversial to require a citation. An alternative would be to transition to Infobox University, which allows you to include citations at the bottom of the infobox. I looked at your references, which seem thoroughly done with plentiful information and reliable sources, well done. My final remark at this time is that in most cases, especially this one, sections on notable people should be entirely in prose. A good example of that is at the Dartmouth College page. Tell me what you think.-- ɱ   (talk)   21:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * In addition, you may want to update the coordinates to this: . These are the coordinates of the main building of the college, while the current coordinates take you to the very edge of their parking lot.--  ɱ   (talk)   21:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I tweaked the coords according to the USGS data & provided the ref. I'll try to look at some of the other stuff tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this.... – S. Rich (talk) 22:55, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You'll probably want to just use the template I wrote above. Your coordinates appear to go to the neighboring La Vista High School. Either USGS has incorrect data, or outdated data if the high school property was previously a part of this Argosy college.-- ɱ   (talk)   00:14, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Eyeballing it says you are right. I'll tweak IAW your suggestion, but we won't be able to use the GNIS as the reference. (BTW, I've had occassion to talk with the GNIS people on other coordinates. They are often quite happy to make adjustements.  – S. Rich (talk) 01:55, 15 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Ɱ and S.Rich, thank you both for getting back to me, and to Ɱ for reviewing my draft so quickly. I'll use bullet points for my replies so they're easier to follow.


 * I have asked my contact at EDMC about photos, but they're not able to release them. About the logo, I agree it should be added. I was planning to follow up about that once the changes to the body of the article were addressed, but I've uploaded it now in case it makes it easier for you to add into the infobox. Here's the link File:Western_State_College_of_Law_Logo.png
 * Please go ahead and make any wording changes, etc. to my draft. I'm sorry, I should have said so in the first place. It's certainly there to be worked on by anyone.
 * The citations in the infobox have been included because I've encountered editors in the past who feel that they should be there, but I'm fine taking them out if that is your preference and have done that now.
 * Revising the Notable alumni section so that it is written in prose works for me. I see that the Dartmouth College article has reached FA status, so it appears that that is the prefered way of listing alumni. I've gone ahead and prepped this section as prose, grouping alumni by field as the Dartmouth article has done. Also, previously I had just cleaned up the references for this section, but left the text as is, now that I've converted to prose I've made a few minor changes and added some wikilinks. I also changed the heading to Notable people, per WP:UNIGUIDE and S.Rich's suggestion previously. I feel that this now works since the prose explains that these individuals are alumni (my concern before was that there would be nothing to explain that the people listed were alumni vs. connected to the school another way).
 * For the updated coordinate information, I've added the co-ords provided by Ɱ rather than those added by S. Rich, is that ok?


 * Let me know if either of you have any further suggested improvements. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 16:55, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for accepting my suggestions. I have just made some changes to the wording, which most likely concludes all of my contributions to the draft. I believe that more information exists about the history or workings of the college, but one might have to be creative in finding reliable sources for more information. Anyway, I hope I have been helpful. Feel free to ask me further for assistance.-- ɱ   (talk)   20:07, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Ɱ. In terms of adding more about the history and workings of the college, I found that there weren't that many good reliable sources available but certainly I hope that editors will add to the article over time as information becomes available. If you're happy with the draft as it stands now, would you mind moving it live? I very much prefer not to directly edit any articles where I have a COI (I follow the "bright line" for COI editors). Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 19:50, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * S. Rich apparently wants another go at reviewing the draft. Meanwhile an editor removed the college's logo image from the draft, only because user sandboxes can't have nonfree images. Once we publish the draft, we can put the logo on the article's page.-- ɱ   (talk)   20:00, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll check in with S.Rich today and see if he still wants to take another look. Thanks again, Ɱ. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 20:00, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Quick update here: S. Rich reviewed the draft again and just had a copy edit and suggestion to replace on citation. I've done that, so I think if everyone is happy with it, the draft may be ready to go live. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to tweak. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 19:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, I'll implement your changes from the draft momentarily.-- ɱ   (talk)   20:16, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much! The article is looking great, much improved I think. Thanks again, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 14:37, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Bare URLs in article banner
I see the below bare URL banner on the top of this article, however there does not appear to be any bare URLs visible as part of the article text. Unless others have objections, I will plan to remove the banner in the coming days.

Editchecker123 (talk) 09:25, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Generally, if you see a maintenance banner like that, and the issue appears to have been resolved, feel free to remove the banner. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 19:20, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation here, much appreciated. Editchecker123 (talk) 03:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)