Talk:Grinnell College

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Gates Tower

The picture of the dorms labeled "Gates Hall" is erroneous. Through a miracle of remodeling, Gates tower switches floor by floor from being part of Gates Hall and Rawson Hall. Hence, I've renamed the picture "Gates Tower and Hall," which is far more accurate, since, though the tower contains parts of both Rawson and Gates hall, it is universally known as Gates Tower.

Prominent Alumni

Other institutions that are similar to Grinnell list alumni that are much less prominent than the one's on the "Notable Alumni" section of the Grinnell page, so I don't see a problem with the list of alumni.

Also, the wikipedia page of almost every other prestigious liberal arts college mentions the college's overall academic reputation in the opening paragraph of the article. It is important to comment on Grinnell's academic reputation in the introductory paragraph because it gives brousers a better idea about Grinnell and the type of school that it is.

figures on faculty and students good?

Does anyone have exact figures for faculty and students? This information is usually printed in college literature.

The figures the college puts in the literature are sometimes incorrect, actually. At the start of the fall semester, there were 1412 students at Grinnell. 1396 in the spring. (Of course, some students take leaves in the middle of the semester.) I could dig out faculty stats from a budget, if it was wanted. - Matt Cleinman

The images look pretty bad. Can someone put better pictures of Gates Hall and the Honor G?

"Dubious" tag and selectivity information

I removed the "dubious" flag that had been added to the first sentence of the Admissions section. The statement is elaborated upon, clarified, and attributed appropriately later in the paragraph. As for third-party sources, the designation "most selective" is discussed and sourced a little further down. Read as a summative sentence that introduces the upcoming material, the first sentence is completely justifiable as it stands. Avram (talk) 05:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

"Highly selective" and "most selective" are different terms and have different meanings. "Highly selective" is a term of the art, and Grinnell's admissions numbers don't meet the standard definition. That's why the admissions office was weaseling with the "self-selecting applicant pool" line in the first place. "Most selective" is a specific category used by a single publication. Equating the two different terms is inappropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

In that case, what exactly is a "highly selective" school? Is there a sourced definition? If there are definitions somewhere that people agree upon, then sure, we should use the one that Grinnell fits. In the absence of such definitions, admitting only a pretty small part of the applicant pool fits the lay definition of the term. Avram (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 01:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC).

Referring to highly selective, collegedata.com states "although this label has no precise definition, you can consider any college that admits one third or fewer of its applicants as highly selective." RickH86 (talk) 10:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

There are many sources that say exactly that. It appears to be a single-variable measurement. If you're talking about a place like UC Berkeley, then that definition is useful. They get a wide range of applicants for all kinds of things. If you're talking about a school that specializes in any particular area, or draws only from a particular population, then it's not really a useful measurement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

So would "selective" be an appropriate term? I'm really just looking for a good way to introduce the admissions section. Also, it wouldn't be bad to reference the source of the term's precise meaning, so that this debate doesn't flare up again in a year or so. Avram (talk) 01:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be accurate, but why not skip that sentence entirely and get directly to the point? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Image gallery

The following initial comment is copied from User talk:208.81.184.4#Gallery on Grinnell College to provide context to the reply, which is more appropriate here.
I disagree with cleanup tag you have added and now re-added to the Grinnell College article; it refers to WP:NOT, which does not refer to galleries as an element of articles, but only to stand-alone galleries. Wikipedia:Image use policy#Photo galleries does address the use of galleries as part of articles; specifically, it says "The determination of whether a gallery should be incorporated into an article or created at the Commons should be discussed on the article's talk page." The gallery you have tagged was created over time by several article editors, and there has been no discussion of whether to remove it. I realize that all the images and more are available in the Commons, but that doesn't mean that a subset of them would be out of place in the main article. If you feel that this specific gallery should not be included in the article, I encourage you to explain why in Talk:Grinnell College. Avram (talk) 01:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Actual the current text of WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files specifically states:

“ 4. Mere collections of photographs or media files with no text to go with the articles. If you are interested in presenting a picture, please provide an encyclopedic context, or consider adding it to Wikimedia Commons. ”

To me this reads that images should be used to illustrate specific text elements found in an article, and require more context in an article than <here is a building named x>. Note that few WP:GOOD articles use image galleries, and fewer still are found on WP:FEATURE articles. It would seem reasonable that contributors to the Grinnell College article would be interested in getting this article to that status, and could consider the migration of the gallery to commons as one stepping stone towards that goal. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 22:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

No, the WP:NOT statement is about Wikipedia as a whole, and generally about articles that exist for the primary purpose of collecting photos and the abuse of Wikipedia as a site for hosting such files (that is, images and other files that have no use in articles). If image galleries were always undesirable, then the gallery feature would have been disabled and the many related templates deleted. In fact, the use of galleries is permitted but discouraged. There are many articles that use galleries to good effect; the only important question is whether this article is one of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

As I see it, the role of the gallery on this page is to provide a guide to what the campus looks like, in a way that would be difficult to do with, say, a section on architecture. The gallery in the article differs from the gallery in Commons in that the latter is not curated. I'm not incredibly attached to having the gallery in the article, but I have grown to like it. Avram (talk) 04:18, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Apparently it is curated in the Commons! Well, I don't know. I feel that the article is somewhat enhanced by the gallery, and I have my doubts as to whether a similar gallery in the Commons would have the same effect. Avram (talk) 04:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Images states more clearly what I attempted to convey above, where it says "[i]f the article can be illustrated with pictures, find an appropriate place to position these images, where they relate closely to text they illustrate."(Italics added) Likewise Wikipedia:Layout#Images states that "[i]f an article has many images ... you can try to use a gallery, but the ideal solution might be to create a page or category combining all of them at Wikimedia Commons ... and link to it instead, so that further images are readily found and available when the article is expanded."(Italics added) I believe that in this particular case the ideal solution is the Commons page that is now in place at Commons:Grinnell College, Iowa. Note that there there are additional images at Commons:Category:Grinnell College, Iowa that could be added that page, with the appropriate description, to more fully illustrate the campus. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 19:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

GrinnellPlans

Not only am I uncertain that GrinnellPlans should be mentioned in this article, I am wholly convinced that we do not want to be a forum for disseminating news about it. There may or may not be a real problem (How do we know that it's not just random vandalism?). The problem may be solved as soon as someone at GrinnellPlans figures out how to spell EFF. But whatever the problem, this is not Wikinews, and adding breaking news to this article is inappropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

While I feel that "breaking news" in the GrinnellPlans section is perhaps misplaced, I do feel that the [Plans] social networking site is worth mentioning as it is an unusual organization of alumni and current students that evolved from the same nascent gestalt that birthed entities such as Facebook. While not entirely unique, it is unusual for even a private college to have its own in-house fansite/alumni networking site, and more unusual when said organization is then kicked off campus servers by the institution for fears of liability. Perhaps it could be placed under a section on campus controversies that made national news? Aderksen (talk) 13:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Academic program

Aureliusxv deleted:

A Grinnell education is anchored in active learning that occurs in one-on-one interactions between faculty members and students. Grinnell's open curriculum encourages students to take initiative and assume responsibility for their own courses of study, developed under the guidance of a faculty adviser. Outside of the First-Year Tutorial (a one-semester special topics seminar that stresses methods of inquiry, critical analysis, and writing skills), there are no core requirements. To graduate, students are expected to complete at least 32 credits in a major field and a total of 124 credits of academic work, with no more than 48 credits in one department and no more than 92 credits in one division. In the humanities, arts, and social and natural sciences at Grinnell, students have opportunities to conduct original research and undertake advanced study through independent and interdisciplinary projects that foster intellectual discovery.

as "fixing an advert." Now I understand the problem with the tone, but deleting this information is inexplicable. How many colleges have so few "distribution" requirements? There's no such thing as "general education" requirements at Grinnell College. Compare this to the experience of nearly every other college student in the United States: They sit down with a long list of required classes and plan "two from column A, one from column B, unless I decide to major in finance instead of psychology, and then I'll need to..."

Consider as well: How many schools actually provide a faculty adviser, instead of a full-time employee whose sole job is to get as many students enrolled in classes as possible with the fewest number of computer-generated errors? At the three large schools near me, your "adviser" is paid about double the minimum wage, spends all day in a cubicle, and does nothing else. These represent major differences between Grinnell College and just about every other college in the United States.

For that matter: Consider how many state universities provide very little contact between regular, full-time faculty and undergraduate students. Many students (particular first-year students) find that their classes are taught by (graduate) students or by part-time adjunct instructors, while the "real" faculty do research or refuse to teach entry-level courses.

Does anyone object to re-adding the information? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:47, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I deleted this section, 1) because it was flagged by another user as an advert effectively blighting the appearance of the page and 2) because the description is ripped wholesale from the college website. That being said, I have no issue with the content being there. You make a good case for it being important in its depiction of several characteristics of the college that are unique and defining. Would you mind rewording the information so it has less of a biased tone? Aureliusxv (talk) 06:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)