Talk:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

School of Communications now School of Media

Yo people idk how to do all the changing and stuff and don't want to mess anything up but someone has to change it soon. the u of i website has school of media now.

Non-notable photos

I don't think posting the photos of non-notable buildings in the UIUC encyclopedia article is proper. Why not post photos of Lincoln Hall and the Psych building, and... You get the idea. Main quad and engineering quad are notable. --G3pro 14:23, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Notable Alumni

What's wrong with keeping (Max Levchin, B.S. 1997, co-founder of PayPal) in Notable Alumni section? I have seen his name on a wall in Siebel Center. He also gave talks in CS dept some years ago. I do think he can be added to the notable alumni list. --Ragib 22:59, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Poll on University Naming Conventions

A new survey has been created to assess consensus with respect to university naming conventions, specifically regarding the usage of terms like "University of Texas" vs. "University of Texas at Austin". The poll addresses this issue both in the specific case of the "University of Maryland" and proposes an amendment to Wikipedia:Naming conventions which could impact a large number of additional pages, including this one. Dragons flight 17:39, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Transportation Section Off-Topic

The section on Transportation was becoming a mini-article on the MTD, which already has a page: Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District. Awards for the MTD mentioned on this page should be referenced in the main MTD article and actually be for campus. Thesquire 22:40, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"main library building [...] houses nearly 10 subject-oriented libraries" needs edit

"main library building [...] houses nearly 10 subject-oriented libraries" is puzzling at best. How many are "nearly 10"? Nine? If so, just report that. - If the statement is meant to mean something other than 'less than ten', it needs explanation. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 00:13, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 9 April 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to the nom's suggestion, per the balance of convincing argumentation. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vaticidalprophet 04:47, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

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University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign → University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, without the "at" and featuring a hyphen instead of an en dash, is the university's preferred branding. The university's social media accounts (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook) reflect the change, as do website redesigns across campus (for example, the Center for Global Studies and the Department of Psychology). The top-level site switches between the two names, but the page titles ("tab names") all say "University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign." Changing the article name would not impact recognizability ("University," "Illinois," and "Urbana"/"Champaign" are the important parts), and it would be more concise. Chevsapher (talk) 17:03, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

• Keep the en dash: The university's preferred branding doesn't matter, and this refers to the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, like Minneapolis–Saint Paul and Dallas–Fort Worth. Outside of Wikipedia, hyphens are often used for typographical convenience and because many people aren't familiar with proper dashes. Our guidelines (MOS:DASH) say not to use hyphens where dashes are appropriate. As for the "at", we should look for the common name in independent reliable sources, not focus on a self-published official name. — BarrelProof (talk) 18:48, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: "Urbana-Champaign" does indeed refer to the two cities that the university straddles, but I'm not convinced that's a reason to use an en dash instead of a hyphen. From what I can see (correct me if I'm wrong), the MOS does not cover situations where two place names are part of a proper noun, as they are in this case. The university has never used an en dash in all the decades since it appended "Urbana-Champaign" to its name; in fact, I have never seen the en dash substituted for the hyphen anywhere except Wikipedia. I don't think it's our call to bend over backwards to prescribe "correct" typography when both common usage and official branding guidelines advocate for the hyphen. Chevsapher (talk) 16:09, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

• What the university uses is irrelevant. Wikipedia is not a promotional site for advertising the topics it discusses. The MOS does cover situations where a merged place name is part of a proper name. — BarrelProof (talk) 17:52, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

• The Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, and New York Times all prefer "University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign", with "at" and hyphen. The hyphen is well established in primary and secondary sources. Further dropping the at would match the official style of the university, what they call themselves, and shorten the article title. It's asinine to say this encyclopedia should not match the official name of an institution due to style inconsistencies. JustinMal1 (talk) 18:08, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

• Move per nom: Matching the university's style allows better coherence with the article topic and the references, Wikipedia's manual of style should not affect the approved and common name of an institution, a hyphen is used in all University documentation, even on transcripts and degrees. Also, the lede of the article lacks an "at." Further, University of Illinois at Springfield and University of Illinois at Chicago should have their prepositions dropped as well. JustinMal1 (talk) 02:29, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
• Move per nom A simple hyphen makes everything easier, and is the most commonly used name of the university. Lingnanhua (talk) 05:16, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
  • The styling of a name should not be confused with the name itself. Styling matters, such as the distinction between a hyphen and a dash or which letters are capitalized, are a matter of house style rather than just popularity in sources. WP:CONSISTENT usage is Wikipedia article title policy. The term in this title refers to the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, and the proper punctuation of "Champaign–Urbana" or "Urbana–Champaign" shouldn't depend on where the term appears. — BarrelProof (talk) 15:43, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
    • The notion that "Urbana-Champaign" in the university name references the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area is incorrect. The name was adopted long before the two cities grew to the point of merger. Had it been because of this statistical area it would have been called "Champaign–Urbana" in the name, as people refer to the area now, without Urbana first. The typical explanation for the name is that the university sought a marriage between the cities for ease of postage, as the campus straddles the two cities. See this document from the University's archives: [1]. In many ways, the campus is much like a marital union, and marital unions are hyphenated, not en dashed. JustinMal1 (talk) 18:05, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
      • Whatever the reason for the region merger that is expressed in the name, it is a merging of geographical places, which is ordinarily expressed on Wikipedia with an en dash. It is not a marriage of people, whatever the convention for that might be. — BarrelProof (talk) 18:51, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
• Move per nom Hyphen is standard usage as exemplified by the university. Styling of the name by the named establishes the form of the name itself. Re presence or absence of 'at', the university uses both versions. A phone call to the press/PR office -- Office for University Relations -- should settle the question of which is preferred. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:52, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
  • The preference of an institution that is the subject of an article is not a concern for Wikipedia, which prefers independent sources. — BarrelProof (talk) 18:51, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
    • Preference for 'at' or not could be established independently by studying the results of an extensive survey of relevant excerpts of text and speech. No such survey is available. If it were, it would reveal the further complication that in normal speech and in mid- and casual-register writing, the expansion of UIUC with or without 'at' is infrequent, while Illinois state universities are often referred to by abbreviated name (Western, Eastern, U of I) or by location ("Our son starts at Macomb this fall", "The Smith twins? Bill went to Carbondale, Bob went to Champaign" [though he may live in Urbana or Fithian]. Wikipedia guidelines are just that: guidelines to be followed judiciously, not blindly, with the goal of presenting information as accurately as possible. In this specific case, the most accurate name can be determined by asking the institution. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 16:28, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sorry I missed it. This is obviously messed up now, at odds with our own MOS. Should have noticed Barrel Proof and opposed this regression. Dicklyon (talk) 04:49, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

And this one poorly attended discussion has now been used to move a bunch of other articles. We need to start over. Dicklyon (talk) 23:44, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

• I don't see why this is such a sticky issue, the university's name should not be affected by the preferred style of this encyclopedia. The MOS states a preference for an en dash when two place names are used jointly, which should not override the name of an institution where the MOS is clear about matching the accepted name. Using the MOS as a license to insert otherwise unused typography into the accepted name of an institution is pointless and contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia. I defer to WP:COMMONNAME here, why insert an en dash when a hyphen is more accessible and commonly used? JustinMal1 (talk) 00:13, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

  I'll try to explain. First, yes, nothing we do here will affect the university's name, even if we render it with our preferred style. The linked page about their name mentions "(notice there is no “at” before the campus name)", but is silent on how the grammatical dash should be rendered; it is common, especially on the web, to render these dashes with the hyphen-minus glyph. That page also links their Writing style guide, which is equally silent on en dash versus hyphen. But WP's style is to use the en dash, making the grammatical role a bit more clear. WP:COMMONNAME is a red herring, as this is a styling issued, not a naming issue. Styling such things consistently is neither pointless nor contrary to the spirit and guidelines of WP. Dicklyon (talk) 00:52, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

  I appreciate the explanation and clarity. I don't believe this is a typical case of the merging of geographical places, however. "Urbana-Champaign" in the title is used much like Wilkes-Barre, as listed in MOS:ENBETWEEN. This isn't a reference to the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area (note the backwardness there), or a merger of the University of Illinois Urbana and University of Illinois Champaign, rather it is a university named after two cities and should be treated more like a marital union than a statistical area. JustinMal1 (talk) 01:12, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

  I disagree. Wilkes-Barre is a single city's name. Champaign–Urbana or Urbana–Champaign is a description of a location of a campus. Dicklyon (talk) 03:04, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

  It's also a single university's name. This is not some sort of combination or merger of the University of Illinois at Urbana with the University of Illinois at Champaign. – wbm1058 (talk) 01:24, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  While I understand the case for the en dash, this article is a case that does not conform to the spirit of MOS:ENBETWEEN. First, the MOS states, "Often, if the components are reversed there would be little change of meaning." In this case, reversing the order of the components would completely change the name of the university. Second, in the context of the university, Urbana and Champaign are not "parallel, symmetric, equal, oppositional". Urbana is primary, and Champaign is secondary. Roughly two-thirds of the campus are located in Urbana, including the historic core along Green Street (Harker, Natural History, Altgeld, Engineering) and all four of the quads. If Champaign and Urbana were equivalent in the campus name, then it would have made far more sense for the administration to pick "Champaign-Urbana," which is how the two cities have referred to their collective whole for decades. Ultimately, I think claiming the MOS mandates an en dash in this situation is a weak argument, and I do not think it is enough to overrule the fact that the overwhelming majority of sources, including the university's wordmark, use the hyphen. Chevsapher (talk) 03:54, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Y'all could just move this to University of Illinois to avoid the damn "at" and "hypen—dash" controversies. Everyone in the B1G knows that "Illinois" is in Champaign and Urbana. This is almost as silly as ("The") Ohio State University Columbus... bu, but, but how can it be "the" Ohio State when there's an Ohio State University at Newark too? (I have no idea where the other "Illinois" are "at"). – wbm1058 (talk) 01:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

• 22:44, 30 October 2007 Keeper76 moved page University of Illinois to University of Illinois (disambiguation) (University of Illinois primarily refers to the flagship campus Urbana-Champaign in context. I will next be redirecting University of Illinois to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
• I see, University of Illinois system. – wbm1058 (talk) 01:35, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  The university's brand guidelines state, "On first written reference, to clearly establish our identity in the minds of our audience, we refer to ourselves by our full name: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign". Most news articles explicitly refer to it by its full name. Furthermore, although "everyone in the B1G" probably does equate the University of Illinois branding with Urbana-Champaign, I think it's safe to assume that most of Wikipedia's readership lives outside the Midwest. Because Chicago is a bigger city, one could easily assume that the flagship campus is the University of Illinois at Chicago. For all these reasons, I think Wikipedia should continue to refer to the Urbana-Champaign campus by its full name. Chevsapher (talk) 03:28, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  You mean the Urbana–Champaign campus? Dicklyon (talk) 04:21, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, of course that's what I mean. Let's stick to the main issue at hand, please. Chevsapher (talk) 21:53, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

The University of Houston tried to brand itself as University of Houston–University Park. This name never really stuck. There is no "University Park" in Houston, this was an invented name. The Southeast Houston neighborhood where Texas Southern University and U of H are located is called the Third Ward. There's another neighborhood called West University Place but that's west of Rice University. There actually is a University Park, Texas but that's a suburb of Dallas which is home to Southern Methodist University. There was never any need for this "University Park" moniker to disambiguate the main campus because all the locals know that if you mean University of Houston System, or University of Houston–Downtown, or University of Houston–Clear Lake, you say so. Nobody will think you mean "Downtown" because Downtown Houston is bigger than the Third Ward. And people who only know the school from watching its sports teams play on national TV mostly don't even know the other campuses exist. I don't think the Illinois situation is as extreme a case as Houston, but a reasonable argument can be made. Do you follow the distinction between WP:Official names and WP:Common names? Generally, we would use the common name, University of Illinois as the article title, and boldface the official name University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to begin the lead sentence. I don't think the official name should ever be a matter for debate. If the official name uses a hyphen rather than a dash, it should use a hyphen rather than a dash. That's not a matter for editorial judgement. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:41, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Can you imagine this call: "They won it! On the dunk! NC State upset the mighty Houston–University Park Phi Slama Jama team!" LOL wbm1058 (talk) 16:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)