Talk:Faith Smith

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

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• ... that Faith Smith (pictured) co-founded and for 31 years was president of the NAES College, the only urban institution of higher learning led by, managed by, and serving Native Americans in US history? Source: 2003 American Indian Quarterly journal article by Anne Terry Straus and Debra Valentino about gender and community organizing in the Chicago Native American community

Created by Nigetastic (talk). Self-nominated at 17:57, 24 November 2020 (UTC).

• Very interesting addition to the encyclopedia, thank you! It is certainly recent enough as well as neutral, no Earwig pings, long enough, and a hook of interest. Remaining queries:

• Might you kindly share the quote from the cited source that supports the hook? I don’t have access to the journal to check myself.
• Unfortunately I think the (wonderful) image may not be useable. It’s a recent photograph, thus requiring the artist’s permission for reuse and if the NEAS hasn’t been able to identify the photographer, by definition they did not get permission and the photograph isn’t licensed properly. I’ve asked for more opinions at FXD so ideally that will get sorted before this hook is promoted—if I’m mistaken and we can use the image, it would be great to include.
• Would you consider a trimmed hook? E.g.

ALT1 ... that Faith Smith (pictured) was the founding president of the NAES College, the only urban institution of higher learning led by and serving Native Americans in US history?

Or a better option of your choosing, just something to punch it up a bit.

Thank you for all!

Innisfree987 (talk) 06:54, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• For reference the discussion about the image is here: WP:Files_for_discussion/2020_November_25#File:FaithSmith.png Innisfree987 (talk) 19:01, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• @Innisfree987: Hello there. Thanks for your swift attention and encouragement. I'll paste in here the relevant passage from the "American Indian Quarterly" article by Straus and Valention: The point, for our purposes, is that Indian women now took on a dif- ferent kind of leadership in the Indian community, albeit frequently unacknowledged by themselves or others. When "activism" within the Indian community itself led to the establishment of new community or- ganizations to enhance and complement the work of the Chicago Indian Center, women had a more public presence and occupied more official positions of authority than previously. The Native American Committee, which began to push for changes in the Chicago Indian community be- ginning in the 1970s, included women among its most outspoken leader- ship, women such as Phyllis Fastwolf. Indeed, as new organizations be- gan to develop and break off from the Indian Center, the director of the center was Faith Smith, a young woman involved in political action and in post-secondary education, and in National Indian Youth Council ef- forts following the 1961 conference. Ms. Smith became the founder and director of the Native American Educational Services College (NAES Col- lege), the purpose of which was to provide higher education and certifi- cation for adult community organization leaders and community service providers. The importance for Indian leadership of both education and certification in the greater Chicago community was clear. . . . The trimmed hook you've suggested is quite fine. Brisker is usually better. Thank you! Nigetastic (talk) 20:31, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• Nigetastic, thanks! Is there an additional source that calls her the president rather than “director” (or we could always reword the hook), and also a source to confirm the claim about being the only such school? Sorry for all these questions, I ask now because I find it’s better to hammer it all out ahead of time as it will get a lot more scrutiny as it proceeds toward main page and then the added time pressure can be stressful (this just happened to me, eep). Innisfree987 (talk) 20:52, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• @Innisfree987: Yes. This article from the Chicago Trib uses the title "president." I used the scholarly journal because it provided more context, but this Trib article is shorter, clearer and, in this particular, was probably fact-checked better.Nigetastic (talk) 21:06, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• Nigetastic, Ok! And I see the part about “led by and serving” – am I overlooking the part about the college being unique in history? (Just as an FYI, generally DYK nominators should quote their source next to the hook it verifies—the template should indicate where. Saves you all this pestering!) Thank you, Innisfree987 (talk) 22:57, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
• Innisfree987 Thank you. If you're in the US, I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. I've looked thru all of my notes and correspondence, and what I see is the belief that NAES was "the only" but all of the secondary sources make the more cautious claim "first." My guess is that saying "only urban Native American institution" raises several quantitative questions about what, for example, "urban" means. If there were a (mostly) Native American college in a city of 75,000 people, does that count? At any rate, I'd be glad simply to say "first." I have reached out to the Northwestern libraries and the last president of NAES to ask about more info about the photo. Thank you again for your interest and attention. Nigetastic (talk) 16:16, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

• Nigetastic, “first” sounds like a good solution for the phrasing. As for the image, any news about identifying the photographer? (Did you see the note an administrator left for you on the File Discussion?) Innisfree987 (talk) 01:36, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Ok I see an administrator has removed the file and left instructions about how to resubmit it with the correct permissions. So that this DYK isn’t left on hold indefinitely while that’s undertaken, I am approving a text-only hook with the discussed wording:

ALT2 ... that Faith Smith was the founding president of the NAES College, the first urban institution of higher learning led by and serving Native Americans in US history?

Cheers, Innisfree987 (talk) 03:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Innisfree987 Many thanks for your help and attention. I left note on the image talk page that the NU libraries could only introduce me to the president of NAES and American Indian Association of Illinois, and I wouldn't expect a swift or simple response from them--if they'd had much more info about the provenance of the photo, it would be been provided when it went to the library. So I'm quite happy to see this published as is. Anything more I need to do? Nigetastic (talk) 23:17, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Nigetastic, thanks for the update, and the hook is all set! May just take a few days (possibly up to a week or two) for a promoter to move it to the next step, but you don’t need to do anything else unless someone pings you with a question (but we have nailed down so many details I wouldn’t expect any more questions!) Innisfree987 (talk) 23:23, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Hi, I came by to promote this. We try not to include names that don't have Wikipedia links on the main page. And the hook is not the hookiest, just sort of a "Did you know that X=Y?" Since this is a new nominator, I'm willing to promote it, but without the unlinked name:
• ALT2a: ... that Faith Smith was the founding president of the first urban institute of higher learning led by and serving Native Americans?
• But is this the best hook you can come up with? Yoninah (talk) 15:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks Yoninah, I wasn’t aware about the name, good to know. Maybe let’s give it a day to try to think of another hook but we’ve worked this entry over with a fine-tooth comb so may not have new ideas... Nigetastic what do you think? Innisfree987 (talk) 16:22, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Innisfree987: If the page creator could come up with more detail, like an interview with the subject, it would help to build a better hook. Yoninah (talk) 16:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• Hello Innisfree987. Thanks for your feedback. There are a number of interviews with Faith Smith, one in a small oral history of native American woman by a small imprint of Random/Penguin and another with her Purdue alumni magazine. She was quoted in the Chicago Trib, although not interviewed. Is is that you'd envision something fresh from an inteview for the hook itself or that the article would be improved with more material from an interview? Thanks. I'm happy to help. Could just something a little more specific to look for. Nigetastic (talk) 18:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• Credit where credit is due, this was Yoninah’s idea, but I think they were suggesting looking for some surprising fact to add to the entry and then make that the hook. Or if you have a new idea for a hook from what’s already there, that’s great too. I think the issue is especially after all we’ve had to trim from the hook, it doesn’t feel so surprising anymore. Innisfree987 (talk) 18:42, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
• Innisfree987. Thanks for your quick response. Let me dip back into the interviews I've got and see if I can identify a fact with a little more sizzle. This may take into Saturday when I've got some free time, but I'll do this asap. Nigetastic (talk) 20:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Nigetastic: all you need is more information about her from the sources that you've used. Her childhood, for example, has just one line about where she grew up. Do you have something cited to the fact that she is a Native American, maybe where her parents came from? Right now I think you could use this for a hook, just to add some contrast:

• ALT3: ... that Faith Smith, who grew up on the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe reservation in Wisconsin, became the founding president of the first urban institute of higher learning led by and serving Native Americans? Yoninah (talk) 21:00, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• ALT3 is an excellent suggestion, Yoninah. Thank you. I went back to the interviews I have with Smith and, to her credit, she mostly focuses on the subjects of her activism and not herself. There wasn't anything more to use. If you're happy with ALT3, it looks great to me. Thank you too Innisfree987! Nigetastic (talk) 22:20, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you. @Innisfree987: could you review ALT3? Yoninah (talk) 22:23, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

* If it works for you guys, it works for me! Technically we haven’t documented the quoted source for the new part of the hook here in the review but it’s in the entry cited to a book so I feel fine applying AGF—Nigetastic knows the sources inside out. Onward! Innisfree987 (talk) 23:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Innisfree987: If you can't verify the hook ref yourself, use a gray tick like this. Yoninah (talk) 23:13, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• BTW, we need a page number for this book source, Nigetastic. Yoninah (talk) 23:14, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you for the reminders on both, Yoninah! Innisfree987 (talk) 23:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
• Interesting question, Yoninah! The page number I mean. The interview is from a book by Ballantine. I purchased the Kindle edition, and both the Kindle app and the Kindle Cloud Reader give no page numbers, only "locations." I consulted the "cite book" references, the template offers, in addition to "page" and "pages" the category "at." So I've added "at=1748" to the text, which it took, no problem. I also consulted GoogleBooks, which often display not an ebook file but a scan of a printed edition. In this case, GoogleBooks uses the same file I purchased. In short, the page number isn't knowable, but I hope that reference helps people find their way to it. Nigetastic (talk) 02:12, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you. It's enough to know that it's an e-book, which I understand doesn't have page numbers. All is good. Yoninah (talk) 11:28, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

• I created this article this morning, 24 November 2020, and nominated it in the DYK.Nigetastic (talk) 18:00, 24 November 2020 (UTC)