Talk:Bastyr University

Article biased and inflammatory

The emphasis on critiques of Bastyr by mainstream media is exaggerated and overly prominent as for one thing many of Bastyr's programs involve traditional and vocational occupations, like midwifery, and others like dietetics, that do not implicate that dispute. Moreover, even the stock dispute with the AMA and related entities is overblown as much of naturopathic medicine has been accepted in the official medical community. In that regard it is telling that the article refers to acupuncture, a state licensed profession, as bogus, a ridiculous assertion that undermines the credibility of the article that implicates Western cultural chauvinism. So while this dispute certainly merits discussion in a more more nuanced way in the body of the text, headlining it at the top of the article is unfair and casts this worthy institution in a false light that borders on being defamatory. Tom Cod (talk) 16:53, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Best to follow the sources and bear WP:PSCI and WP:FRINGE in mind. An impersonal topic can't be "defamed", and making legal threats is a sure-fire way to end a Wikipedia editing career. Alexbrn (talk) 17:23, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

What legal threats are being made? It seems like you are the one that is acting in a heavy handed manner by threatening me with censorship, but that seems consistent with the tone you have displayed throughout this discussion. And yes, an institution can be defamed. The school is accredited by the state, offering many programs outside naturopathy. To suggest that it is a fraud or that it practices something akin to witchcraft is demagogic, misleading and unfair.Tom Cod (talk) 17:52, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Naturopathy can't be defamed - it's you who is invoking defamation, which is an inappropriate consideration here. We need to point out that naturopathy is a scam, to be neutral. That's just basic policy. Alexbrn (talk) 18:16, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

No, but Bastyr University can be defamed, something that violates journalistic norms and Wikipedia policy.Tom Cod (talk) 18:30, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

The article follows policy. We follow RS giving due weight to its content. Your attempted whitewashings did not and you are flirting with violating WP:NLT. Alexbrn (talk) 18:36, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

No, I made no legal threat and did not attempt to whitewash anything. For what it's worth, I am not a partisan of naturopathic medicine at all and think a discussion of its merits and demerits is appropriate, including within this article; but I find the tone and emphasis of this article on Bastyr University as written inappropriate, misleading and inflammatory.Tom Cod (talk) 18:50, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Use of terms like scam and quackery regarding something suggests that those involved in it are dishonest and not acting in good faith instead of say being mistaken, in error, misguided etc. Use of this kind of inflammatory rhetoric comes across as overly doctrinaire and mean spirited, doing little to advance a civil discussion. I noticed that Wikepedia articles on accupuncture and chiropractic, which appear to be edited in part by some of the same people as herein, contains some of these same epithets. But I know people who are involved in these professions who are honest and decent people. So I question whether this attitude really conforms with Wikipedia norms or not. Can't imagine the New York Times writing even a critical minded article about these topics in such a fashion; it would be interesting to see what Britannica's articles on such topics are like. Tom Cod (talk) 02:05, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOT a newspaper or Britannica. We have our own policies and stance. If you think WP:FRINGE/WP:NPOV policy is misapplied here, check at WP:FT/N. Alexbrn (talk) 06:47, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Your chiropractic friends may be honest and decent people, but that doesn't change the fact that there is NO evidence based medicine that indicates that the practice of chiropractic is anything more than a dangerous and expensive way to shear spinal vertebral arteries. It is not recognized by the AMA as a legitimate medical practice. This is why no chiropractor gets admitting or treating privileges at any hospital in the US, unlike real MDs and DOs, or even DPTs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.5.217.84 (talk) 02:41, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

But that misrepresents things quite a bit. See the Wikipedia article on chiropractic. Chiropractors do not claim to be medical doctors, but are licensed medical professionals nonetheless whose treatments are generally covered by medical insurance and to whom patients are sometimes referred by MDs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2D80:ED01:FC00:746B:A05F:FD9C:73C3 (talk) 13:51, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Chiropractors as a group do not understand the legitimate limits of their scope of practice, and most chiropractic schools teach the refuted "subluxation" theory. Chiropractors routinely kill and disable people but refuse to put in place any system for monitoring or addressing this. They also give whole-spine X-rays looking for a non-existent condition, which is a huge unnecessary radiation exposure. The criticism is valid. Guy (help!) 13:16, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Low admission standards

Currently we state that Bastyr University has "low admission standards" based on "Why 'Naturopathic Medicine' is an Oxymoron". The source discusses admission standards when it writes:

However, when you look under the hood, at the admission requirements, a clear line is drawn in the sand between the two. The average undergraduate GPA of an entering medical school class is around 3.7 with a strict 3.0 cutoff for admissions. And, medical schools typically have acceptance rates in the single digits.

The average GPA of the entering class at naturopathic schools hovers around 3.0, with the school's websites suggesting a minimum of a 2.0 (that's a "C".) The Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine (in Canada) calls a GPA of 2.7 competitive. Also, the acceptance rates are upwards of 60 - 70% with University of Bridgeport reporting 100%.

However, the article is only discussing "naturopathic schools" in general, mentioning only two by name. Admission standards are being drawn from the GPA, but the GPA for Bastyr is not known here, nor mentioned in the article. I don't think we can make the statement that Bastyr has low admission standards based on general comments about naturopathic schools without a source that specifically refers to the standards at Bastyr. - Bilby (talk) 11:20, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Good catch. We certainly need a source that explicitly discusses the admissions standards of this university. ElKevbo (talk) 14:03, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Notable alumni

The general, rule with notable alumni is that we only include people who have articles on WP, although there are room for exceptions. Both Britt Marie Hermes has an article, and while Peter J. D'Adamo does not, it does redirect to a topic which discusses him. Neither Kim Kelly, Michael T. Murray nor Michael Uzick have articles.

• Kim Kelly has a very small amount of media coverage as a result of a patient dying from an allergic reaction after she he injected them with a curcumin emulsion, the longest being a self-published article. No charges were laid, and the FDA article does not mention her by name. The only mention of a connection with Bastyr is on her own home page.
• Michael T. Murray has a bit more coverage, but is currently included based on some criticism of co-authored books on Quackwatch.
• Michael Uzick's only claim is that he was once repremanded by the Arizona Naturopathic Physicians Medical Board.

Is this sufficient for all three to override the lack of articles? I think it might be with Michael Murray, but I'm hard pressed to see it for the other two. - Bilby (talk) 04:45, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

All these folks have coverage in secondary sources that lends sufficient weight. We don't need to be super selective as it's not as if the article is at risk of getting too long! More alumni would be good - can you find any? Alexbrn (talk) 04:54, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

The question is the sufficent weight - there is almost nothing on two of them. Is that really enough? They have little if anything to do with Bastyr, and would never warrant their own articles. Does this really make them notable alumni? Or just trivial things to raise in order to score points on Bastyr? - Bilby (talk) 05:00, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Would be good to build a more comprehensive article. What about Jamey Wallace[1] ? He seems to have garnered some attention for recommending "magick socks".[2] Alexbrn (talk) 05:12, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

That doesn't really help. I'm pretty sure that to be listed as notable alumni normally you need to be mentioned more than as a source of derision in one article. - Bilby (talk) 05:35, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the problem is the English word "notable", which WP editors can confuse with the specific concept of WP:NOTABLE ? If the section was called "Alumni activity" or somesuch that might clarify things. Regardless of whether Wallace qualifies for this section, I do think we need something on Bastyr's magic socks (with appropriate WP:FRINGE-aware treatment of course) since SBM is an on-point source. Alexbrn (talk) 05:43, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Keep up with reality please OP. Kim Kelly is a bloke. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 06:19, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I feel horrible about the mistake. Thanks for pointing it out. - Bilby (talk) 06:22, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

A single source, about an otherwise non-notable individual, based on a single thing he wrote. That doesn't look remotely like due weight. But that's the issue here. It isn't just about the term "notable alumni", although that's a problem - it is about using people with little coverage to attack Bastyr. We can criticise Bastyr fine without having to include people who are virtually unknown, and leaving them out would be far more complkiant with BLP. - Bilby (talk) 06:22, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Unless there are more sources then yes Wallace is marginal. But if people have risen to the level they're getting mainstream news coverage that suggests sufficient weight, and the Kelly and Uzick incidents are covered elsewhere on Wikipedia too accordingly. How any inclusion here reflects on Bastyr is not a consideration for us Wikipedia editors so as to try and "steer" the POV. Just include the reality and let the chips fall as they may. And Britt Marie Hermes, of course, is ironically a credit to the institution having done a fair bit to advance awareness around naturopathy. Alexbrn (talk) 06:36, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

If there were, in fact, articles about Kelly or Uzick I'd be happy with them here. But the respective events didn't happen at Bastyr, as far as we know they were not connected with Bastyr, and the people themselves are not considered notable as graduates of Bastyr. So I'm at a loss to understand why they belong here. - Bilby (talk) 06:45, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

"Selected alumni" now looks worse - there's no reason given as to why these people were selected. - Bilby (talk) 07:19, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Which is true for every "selected bibliography" or "selected works" section on Wikipedia too. We don't normally insert the reasoning behind selection in the article text (though it may be discussed on Talk). Other titles might be "Alumni", "Alumni in the news", "Alumni activity" etc etc. I'm okay with "notable" though (except it confuses people into thinking this means WP:NOTABLE). Alexbrn (talk) 07:23, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

In this case, though, as far as I can tell the selection criteria is mostly "does it make Bastyr loook bad", with one exception, which probably isn't what we want to suggest. That said, the confusion between WP:NOTABLE and notable is not the issue, as the people I'm concerned with don't seem to be either. - Bilby (talk) 07:34, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I think it's legitimate to ask to what degree these alumni are associated with Bastyr. In the case of Kelly it's explicit in RS (Gorski makes the point that even the "best" naturopathic school thus turns out a graduate who caused death through the use of a dodgy treatment). I'm as yet undecided on Uzick ... yes he's undoubtedly an alumnus but to what degree is the Bastyr connection relevant? What do others think? Alexbrn (talk) 08:10, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I'll give this a bit of time, but I don't think I'm making my point very well, or at least you seem to be missing it. If need be, we can always just take this to BLPN. - Bilby (talk) 08:12, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

What again ? That might look a bit obsessive. Alexbrn (talk) 08:17, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

At least I'm consistent, but my main interest here is with Kelly. - Bilby (talk) 08:28, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

It might be helpful to others if you were clear about what change you propose then. You want to remove Kelly from the list of alumni, right? Alexbrn (talk) 08:35, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't think reiterating the issues will help. I'll probaby just have to look elsewhere. - Bilby (talk) 13:25, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

• Anyone who wants a productive and welcoming wiki-outlet for curating university alumni can do so in Wikidata. Eventually - in a few years? - most alumni lists will be auto-generated. I cannot quite demonstrate alumni listing automatically but here is an example university profile. Bastyr does not profile properly because no one has curated their faculty. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:43, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Recent whitewashing attempts

A few accounts were recently blocked for using multiple accounts (WP:SOCK). Since they have also posted on individual user talk pages, here are a few things I would like to clarify. Please click on the various blue links to understand how Wikipedia works. The messages alleged administrator abuse, but the only administrative actions have been to protect the article from disruption (WP:PROTECT) and to block accounts that used editing privileges illegitimately (editing not being a right, SOCK is already linked above, but also see WP:FREESPEECH). Adding material is an independent editing event to deleting critical material. WP:NPOV is about faithfully representing sources that are considered reliable (WP:RS, also see WP:RSP and WP:RSN that can be used to evaluate the reliability of a source), not about presenting a WP:FALSEBALANCE. In relation to Quackwatch, there is consensus that it is reliable but that it also should be attributed (WP:ATTRIBUTE). Moreover, some edits attempted to mislead readers by attributing to Quackwatch statements from other independent sources. In any case, per the Wikipedia WP:FRINGE, WP:PSCI and WP:YESPOV policies, articles should be clear about it. Also see WP:PROMOTION: some of the recently proposed material was clearly promotional and has no place in the encyclopedia. Per WP:COI, editors with a conflict of interest (and this is obvious by recent edits from IP addresses registered to the school) must clearly disclose (WP:DISCLOSE) it and should ideally propose changes and seek WP:CONSENSUS on this talk page rather than edit the article. The WP:STANDARDOFFER essay has good tips on how to proceed after being blocked. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 08:03, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Placing critique of the school's curriculum in the lede is WP:UNDUE

While I believe it is entirely appropriate to include legitimate critiques of the school's curriculum in the article, I believe placing that material in the lede gives undue weight to that material. I believe the material would be better placed in the "Academics" section of the article. Pinging @YourPrincessLeia: and @Cordless Larry: who have recently disagreed about this matter. All other comments welcome, of course. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 13:01, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

My issue here is that per WP:LEDE, the lede should "summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies". The concerns about the curriculum are reasonably prominent in independent sources on the university, so I don't think it's undue to include them. I do think that the lede could be expanded so that it summarises other aspects of the article more fully, which would mean that the material on the curriculum is less dominant. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:40, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

That is the way to do it. Add material to make the lead more in compliance. Doug Weller talk 20:21, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Financial aspects

A recent two-part series on alt med schools in Oregon also includes two Bastyr programs. I looked at the source data of why there are two. The first program with medial loan $300,530, median earnings $43,703, and debt to earnings ratio of 688% is the doctoral program. The second program with median loan $156,482, median earnings $29,815, and debt to earnings ratio of 525% are masters degree recipients. I will likely edit the article later to reflect the Oregon Public Broadcasting report, but in the meantime, I welcome comments and edits by other editors. ScienceFlyer (talk) 17:50, 9 September 2024 (UTC)