Talk:Alabama State University

Expansion and copyright violation

This article needs a lot of expansion, however that should not be achieved by adding copyrighted material. Adding it again will result in action by administration, to prevent breaking WP:3RR. -- drumguy8800 C T 07:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:AlStateU seal.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Alabama / Alabama State

I added a line at the beginning of the article to clear up any confusion of the names of the two "Alabama" universities. Wikipedia is a global website, and English speakers in other countries are often confused about the difference between "University of (State)" and "(State) State University." See e.g. University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University. -- ℜob C. alias ⒶⓁⒶⓇⓄⒷ 13:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Band Info

Where is the band info? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajharris78 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Recent history

An editor has continually objected to the addition of new material to this article by removing material mentioning a 2013 lawsuit and the ongoing issues surrounding the presidency and trustees of this university. I agree that this and other encyclopedia articles should not be mere summaries of current news and fads but should instead focus on information of lasting importance. However, it seems that the information that is in dispute is important information that is not mere day-to-day news or tabloid gossip but is instead important information that readers should know if they're to understand the topic of this article. The material could probably stand to be edited and perhaps shortened but the university is experiencing public, notable turmoil right now; it has been repeatedly reported in reliable sources and to remove it without comment or discussion seems to be more like the activities of someone whose aim is to protect the university rather than one who is interested in contributing to this encyclopedia. ElKevbo (talk) 21:28, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

In principle you are right, but at a quick glance I don't find your sources hugely convincing at the moment; in particular the use of a court judgement might be argued to contravene WP:BLPPRIMARY. If this has been "repeatedly reported in reliable sources" then it should be possible to choose better ones. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 07:18, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not too attached to that particular bit of material (nor did I originally write it). I'm more concerned about the process by which it and other negative material has been repeatedly removed without any attempt at discussion or engagement by an editor whose only edits are to this article. It's difficult to not come to the conclusion that someone is only editing Wikipedia to try to keep this article clear of negative material. ElKevbo (talk) 11:41, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

In this case, I think those controversies suffer from a bit of WP:UNDUE and WP:RECENTISM. I think the lawsuit paragraph should be completely removed, with the other resignation/trustee controversy maybe getting a brief mention, but these "scandals" receiving two paragraphs out of a seven paragraph history of a institution that is over 150 years old does not seem appropriate to me. Actually, the same undue critique could be made about the two paragraphs about radio stations, which is probably undue, although some mention is likely warranted depending on how they play into the culture of the school which I am certainly in no position to judge. I think, in general, there needs to be a better, more extensive history section. I also think the information that Olde Hornet added about their marching band should be reintroduced, but with citations added, as a staging ground for a possible break out article. CrazyPaco (talk) 17:02, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm amenable to removing the paragraph about the lawsuit and condensing the material about the president's resignation and the ongoing presidential search. I'm not sure how to condense that material otherwise I would have already done it myself but please feel free to take a shot at it! (I'm a little bit wary about removing too much from an already dense paragraph, though, because it seems like so much of it is interrelated and important. It also seems quite obvious that we're in the midst of a much larger story that is still unfolding but time and history will tell. The material would be well-placed, however, if the history section were already well-written and properly fleshed out.)

I have no opinion about the material previously added by Olde Hornet; I don't think I've been involved in removing or editing it. ElKevbo (talk) 17:35, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

The major problem, and you hit on it, is that history section needs to be fleshed out much more extensively, because as is, it awkward to place things like the trustee/president scandal, not to mention the radio station information, in the correct context without them seeming to receive undue emphasis. I'm thinking the radio information should be largely moved to its own section, and perhaps a one sentence mention of the scandal appended at the end of the final paragraph...something just mention the university being caught in an ongoing controversy involving accusations of fiscal mismanagement and improper trustee benefits that resulted in the resignation of a former president in 2012. But as you said, the scandal is still unfolding, and therefore its place within the overall history of the university is also unfolding and hard for me to judge. Have there been other scandals of similar magnitude in the school's history? I'm hoping someone with better expertise on Alabama State will join the discussion/editing. CrazyPaco (talk) 18:10, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Pending further discussion, I plan to restore the paragraph below. Four sentences noting the forced resignation of a president, a state audit making serious allegations of impropriety and interference by the university, and an ignored request by the governor to halt the presidential search seem to be in order. I'm amenable to editing this material and perhaps condensing it but it seems to be too important to be left out of this article entirely given its importance to helping readers understand this university. I am sympathetic to the fact that the rest of the article isn't up to snuff and that the history section in particular is underdeveloped but those don't seem to be to good reasons to omit this material (especially when the material in question has only been removed from this article by an SPA who has refused to engage in discussion or any interaction, a de facto edit warrior).

The university experienced some tension with the state government in 2013. In December 2012, university president Joseph Silver resigned after only six months in the job. In October of 2013, the state governor asked the university to halt its ongoing presidential search to address an audit that alleged that "ASU attempted to thwart and hamper the audit," several trustees received improper benefits, and significant financial mismanagement. The audit was ordered to investigate Silver's claims that he was forced to resign because he questioned "suspicious contracts" at the university.

ElKevbo (talk) 16:06, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

It has been nearly a week with no discussion or objection so I'm making the edit. Please let me know if you now have a disagreement or want further discussion but feel free to make edits to the text in the article itself. ElKevbo (talk) 15:28, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

It may be worth noting that the editor removing the material has yet to participate in this discussion and has been blocked once for his or her actions related to this article. Maybe he or she doesn't see the little red message icon? ElKevbo (talk) 00:41, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

References

External links modified

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