Talk:Stanford University/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Municipal association

Stanford U. is not in Palo Alto! All addresses direct to "Stanford, CA" and not "Palo Alto, CA". --Jiang 20:43, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Stanford, CA is NOT a city as explained in the article. I would like to see some confirmation and proof otherwise. Kowloonese 06:18, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ok, my bad then...the article used to call it a "town" and someone changed it not too long ago without me noticing... --Jiang 06:21, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Headers

Jiang, would you please revert your addition of headers to the Stanford University article? I spent a long time tonight on a complete rewrite and I put the things were they were for a reason. It had a nice flow and logical coherence after I was done, and now it does not. Let's let the page grow a bit more, organically, before we chop it up. Thank you in advance. jengod 08:11, Jan 17, 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, our dictators have decided that the table of contents should go above the first header, thus forcing us to limit our introduction to a paragraph or two. Sooner or later, all that content above what was in the first header needs to be broken up into sections. Why not start now? The page is long enough for a TOC to be useful. Wouldn't starting now allow time for logical coherence to be established? How would more content prevent headers from breaking the flow? The Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities template could be applied too. --Jiang 08:16, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Looking at it again, I don't think I did much damage to the flow. Why should campus landmarks be separated from the paragraph on the physical campus by a discussion of the number of undergraduates? Is the band part of the athletic dept? --Jiang 08:20, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Seriously dude, this page was a wasteland for a really long time. I just gave it some soul. Don't force a template on it, don't make it make sense, don't build a TOC where one currently doesn't need to be. This page doesn't need you right now. It's fine. Please leave it alone. AND YES, THE BAND *IS* PART OF THE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT. jengod 08:21, Jan 17, 2004 (UTC)

Are you a Stanfurd student or alum? --Jiang

Why yes, I am. Does that disqualify me from contributing to this article? jengod 08:25, Jan 17, 2004 (UTC)

No, I'm just trying to figure out why, rather than explaining why I violated the "logical coherence" of your text (part of my edit which you later partly restored), you ignored the issue, tried to establish possession of this article, and asked me to leave this article alone. --Jiang 09:27, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Alumni list

What is the logic behind the ordering of the alumni list? Or is there none? The degree and year should be added. --Jiang

Rankings & Reputation

Hi, I have reverted the page back to last edit. Some people seem to feel that anything that damages the school's reputation should not be placed here, even if it's true. Please recognize that Wikipedia articles should be neutral. Therefore, both positive and negative aspects of the school should be written. In this most recent case, Jengod decided that the comment "Stanford ranks lower than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in U.S. News Rankings" to somehow be a violation or vandalous. This is a fact, and there is nothing wrong with stating it as such.

The comment was a crack at Stanford's ranking, deliberately inserted by a Yale IP address into the first sentence of a long article, in an attempt to make Stanford look bad. The presentation of facts can be manipulated to influence opinion almost as well as opinionated writing. silsor 02:42, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)

"Although Stanford students often refer to their school as the "Harvard of the West", for the past 10 years it has consistently ranked below Harvard, Yale and Princeton in the U.S. News and World Report annual college rankings." I reverted because it was denigrating and useless, but provide me a table of USNewsWorldReport undergrad and grad schools rankings for Stanford, Yale, Princeton and then Harvard. If it turns out to be true, which I suspect it is not, then surely add it in. It definitely won't start a ranking war amongst college rivals throughout the U.S. Also, a quick look at the edit history of Acorn and the IP address that made the origin edits reveals a very short Wikipedian history almost all of which is devoted to dismissing "lower Ivies" and promoting the prestige of Yale-Harvard-Princeton. All of which are damn fine institutions, but this is not a college fair, this is an encyclopedia. jengod 02:56, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)

"Stanford ...[is] one of the most prestigious [universities] in the world" is as NPOV as such things get. Does anyone doubt it's true? It's not even saying 'top thousand', much less 'more prestigious than Reed College'. --wwoods 08:22, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Stanford is a wonderful university. All this ordinal comparison (Harvard > Stanford, etc.) is childish; there is similar controversy on the Duke page. Casting ill-informed aspersions on someone else's alma mater doesn't magically make your own more prestigious. JTM 19:47, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Mistake In Translation

The German phrase "Die Luft der Freiheit weht", found on the Standford emblem, is subbed incorrectly ("Let the winds of freedom blow"). A correct translation would be:

"The winds of freedom blow"

Even more correct: "The wind of freedom blows"

Yes, "the wind of freedom blows" is the most correct translation. But I'm guessing they're leaving it as "the winds of freedom blow" because of the Beavis and Butthead connotation that "blows" carries. As in, huh huh dude... like, the wind of freedom totally BLOWS! User:Jawed

It is a bad idea to change a translation to thwart a misinterpretation by immature high schoolers, when the incorrect result leaves millions of mature Germans thinking that this university cannot teach the German language properly.

Well, to be a stickler about it, a word-for-word translation would be "The air of freedom blows" -- former Stanford pres. Gerhard Casper (German by birth) noted that -- but that's not really in the spirit of the motto, which I think was originally Latin. "The winds of freedom blow" is a perfectly reasonable and arguably more poetic-sounding translation. In any event, I don't think a plural version of "die Luft" even exists, and it's certainly not always the case that you would want to be so literal as always to match number in a translation -- die Hose and die Brille, pants and glasses respectively, are both singular in German but plural in English, for example. -Ergative 19:37, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's a question so much of avoiding immature misinterpretation rather than being more idiomatic English. In English, metaphorical winds are almost always plural: "the winds of change", "the winds of war", "the winds of fortune", etc. I think "the winds of freedom" is much more natural sounding than "the wind of freedom". Although this doesn't match the exact syntax of the German, I think it captures the intent of the German while sounding like more natural English. Of course, one can find examples of singular metaphorical winds, so one could aruge that this alteration is not strictly necessary. Nevertheless, surely German speakers understand that not every phrase can be translated to English with word-for-word exactness. Nohat 19:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(On edit conflict, also what Ergative says) Nohat 19:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Based on the text of Stanford ex-President Gerhardt Casper's 1995 paper, Die Luft der Freiheit weht - on and off: On the Origins and History of the Stanford Motto [1] (PDF), the correct translation of the motto (which is a possibly-incorrect German translation of a Latin phrase) appears to be "the wind of freedom is blowing" (see end of p. 2 of the pdf). This is the translation found in David Jordan's (Stanford's first president) 1896 paper on Ulrich von Hutten. However, Casper's paper also discusses the fact the "luft" actually means "air," not "wind," so the motto, if accurately translated from the original Latin, would be "Der Wind der Freiheit weht", and that the translation from the original Latin directly to English produces "the wind of freedom blows." However, the paper also quotes from Jordan's 1893 Charter Day speech at Berkeley, in which Jordan himself translates the motto as "the winds of freedom are blowing" (see middle of p. 3 of the pdf). In the paper, Casper never explicitly states what he deems to be the correct English translation of the motto. A 1995 Stanford press release ([2]) regarding the presentation of the above-mentioned paper contains the translation "the wind of freedom blows," and a Stanford webpage on the founding of the university ([3]) says the English translation of the motto is "the wind of freedom blows." Based on the above, I believe we should consider the most-appropriate translation of the motto to be "the wind of freedom blows," despite the more poetic nature of "the winds of freedom blow" and the possible increased accuracy of "the winds of freedom are blowing" and "the wind of freedom is blowing." Hence, User:Pdehaye's edit to the translation of the motto should remain.

I just realized (long after the fact), that I forgot to sign this edit. And it took me a fair amount of research too. Darn. -- ericl234 ^talk 10:36, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

Hello - just came onto this by accident and want to bring in another aspect: the reason "Luft" was chosen (back some hundreds of years ago) is because Air is something haptic static and somewhat consistent (as opposed to "Wind" which is basically just running through!) "Luft der Freiheit" is something you breath and my guess is the original Latin meaning was going into this direction (if time or language wasnt already pre-assuming so). The German plural for "Luft" is "Lüfte"; the plural for "Wind" is "Winde" - both commonly used esp for poetic contexts. Whereby "Lüfte" is more like "into high skies" - (that brings me into a new frame of mind).

Feb 19th 2006

Not wishing to be too pedantic here, but my take (for what it is worth) is that "weht" refers to "Freiheit" (Liberty, instead of Freedom) rather than "Luft" (Air), so it is not so much that the wind is blowing but that liberty is present in the very air (I guess "Liberty hangs in (or floats on, or is carried on) the air" might be another possible translation, but it's still awkward). I choose Liberty over Freedom since the well-known phrase contains "...with liberty and justice for all..." and I guess that would have been more significant then. AncientBrit 20:52, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The last post is wrong! the verbum refers to the nominative cause (which is air!) - freedom is only the genetive (Air of freedom)! 70.23.108.53 13:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Lead section

This article needs an expanded lead section about 2 paragraphs in length. --Jiang 04:48, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

added Memorial Church / Mausoleum articles

These could use some content...

Stanford Memorial Church Stanford Mausoleum

User:Jawed

Reputation revisited

OK, as it stands the article reads "Stanford University...is one of the more prestigious universities in the U.S.," which is pretty wishy-washy, no offense to whomever eventually phrased it this way (Jengod?). I do remember the NPOV objections to the various ways this was worded in the past, and not to be petty about it, but other schools who have as much right as Stanford to claim being one of the most prestigious universities in the world have articles that say this:

• "Harvard is one of the world's most prestigious universities"
• "Yale University...[is] one of the most prestigious and well-known [universities] in the world."
• "Penn is known as one of America's best universities, and is internationally known as one of the world's most prestigious universities"
• "Duke is recognized internationally as one of the leading institutions of higher education in the United States"
• "Columbia is internationally recognized as one of the world's foremost and most prestigious research universities."
• "Northwestern University is one of the United States' premier institutions of higher education"
• "One of the most prestigious universities in the world, Brown distinguishes itself..."

etc.

So, would people be in favor of changing the phrase back into something along the lines of what was there before?

(disclaimer: I am a Stanford alumnus) -Ergative 01:55, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is no doubt that Stanford University is among the top ten universities in the world. Stanford has an excellent reputation for research facilities and its professors. I really do not think that there is a difference when comparing Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. They all attract from the same pool of our nations brightest students. This is not a "black and white" argument, but a massive grey area. It does not matter which university is ranked #1 by various magazines, they are all great schools!

I do strongly believe, however, that when comparing our nations top institutions, one cannot neglect the U.S. Naval Academy and West Point. Ladies and Gentlemen, when judging various institutions, one must not judge on facilities, SAT scores,and professors, but production. What an inistituion produces is the "only" thing that matters. Yes, facilities, SAT scores, and professors can be incorporated into this ulimate goal, but they are simply subsets. Annapolis and West Point is constantly producing young men and women ready to succeed. They are the only colleges where competition is stressed, where complacency is not possible, and where adversity is overcome on a daily basis. When judging an institution, one must neglect all outside sources (Rich Father), and determine what the school does for the student in FOUR years. Ok, so a typical Stanford or Harvard student has a 1450 SAT and maybe an internship here or there. An Annapolis student has a 1350 SAT, but leadership experience(three years, the ability the think under pressure, and no debt. So, neglecting all outside sources(rich father), an Ivy League student or Stanford student has brains, little leadership experience, and over $100,000 of debt to pay back. An Annapolis and West Point student has brains, three years of leadership experience, no dept, and a really important job the day they graduate. I am just ranting and giving another side of the coin here. By the way, the U.S. Naval Academy has produced SEVEN RHODES SCHOLARS the past 2 years. The result is the the only part of the equation that matters!

ScottyP

Queued images

Gates to Stanford University

Vintage Stanford University postcard

View of Stanford University from the foothills

CSLI

Could someone merge CSLI with this page, or rename and expand the CSLI article, thanks--nixie 01:17, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cornell faculty

I reverted your change because it seems odd why you would only mention the Cornell faculty. You could provide a full breakdown of where all the other faculty "hailed" from. But I'm not sure it makes sense to single out a single school. Why this one? What about the other faculty?

I mention this, because I find it to be significant that half of the original faculty all had roots from the same school. I happened to find that fact while reading an official Cornell source and thought that others might be interested in that little factoid. --Xtreambar 13:37, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your information is back in the article. It is significant, especially because Leland Stanford Sr. had previously tried to donate contributions (in memory of his deceased son) to the prominent established institutions in the East such as Yale and Harvard, which subsequently rejected him. Had they accepted Stanford's offerings, Stanford University never would have been born. Their rejection inspired Stanford to establish his own university, and importing a large number of Cornell people was definitely sending a message to the East Coast education establishment that Stanford was serious about his mission. David Starr Jordan, Stanford's first president, went to Cornell as an undergraduate. Regarding the pejorative comment one person wrote about Cornell being the "worst of the Ivy League", many current prominent faculty members at Stanford received their bachelor's degrees from Cornell, such as former Law Dean Kathleen Sullivan, Stephen Krasner (recently appointed to a high position in the State Department by Condolezza Rice), and Religious Studies professor Hester Gelber.

Just so you know, that story with Harvard and Yale etc is complete BS. See [4] [5]. Jawed 01:00, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Heck, that story was told as a joke, at least 25 years ago. The punchline was the unnamed mother losing her patience and saying, "Come on, Leland. Let's start our own university!"

—wwoods 16:44, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also, see Stanford's take on the Harvard donation story.[6] [7]

Stanford pictures in Wikimedia Commons

Please contribute more pictures: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University

Jawed 08:10, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Old Chemistry Building

I recently walked by the old Chemistry Building on the Stanford campus. It has been unoccupied for a very long time -- the grass around it is waist-high, there are trees growing in front of the doors, the windows are shuttered, and the entire building is fenced off. The building carries the inscription "1900" on the front. It's a window into the past.

Does anyone know what's up with this building? Why is it unoccupied and abandoned? Jawed 07:58, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is that it's structurally unsound as a result of one earthquake or another. It's a historically significant building, so they can't/don't want to tear it down, but renovating it probably wouldn't be cost-effective. Ergative 13:28, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"The 1903 building, condemned in the mid-1980s for seismic safety reasons, is one of the few damaged buildings on campus that has not been restored since the earthquake."[8] jengod 19:54, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Full Moon on the Quad?

Has anyone here actually witnessed Full Moon on the Quad? I'm a student here and eager to try this out :) Are there really just girls waiting to make out with guys? Please enlighten me.

this hardly seems like the place for this question, but the answer is, more or less, yes. i say more or less because it depends on your definition of "make out". of course, it varies by girl, but my (one year of) experience indicates that it ranges from a peck on the cheek to a slightly longer kiss with tongue. -- ericl234 ^talk 09:29, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

It's complete debauchery. Streakers, people openly having sex—I mean, you pretty much see it all there. So sketchy. Sophrosune (talk) 20:20, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

~~Here's some information that might be helpful~~

On the night of the first full moon in Fall quarter, tradition has it that freshman females and senior males come out onto the Quad and kiss at midnight. Over the years, the tradition has degenerated into all freshman and senior making out, often under the influence of alcohol. Residents from the co-ops usually come and streak the event. Sophomores, juniors, and even grad-students may show up, too. The administration is trying to do away with this tradition.

from the College Prowler guidebook, Stanford University - Off the Record

List of Stanford University people?

What do people think about moving the list of notable students, alumni, and faculty to a separate writeup as I've done for Case Western Reserve University (see List of Case Western Reserve University people)? Either way seems to be OK, just thought I'd suggest it, as many other universities are doing the same (Princeton, Harvard, MIT, etc). See Category:Lists of people by university affiliation for a full list of other schools with such lists. - Mark McCartney (talk) 18:43, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

Support. jengod 20:08, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Well this is nowhere near a consensus but I just went ahead with the move anyway. I didn't change any of the structure, so feel free to revise if you would like. If anyone has any complaints please discuss them here. - Mark McCartney (talk) 14:36, 2005 Jun 3 (UTC)

"second-largest university complex in the world"

I always hear that this university has the second-largest complex in the world. So what is the largest in the world? Jawed 18:08, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think I've heard that it's something in Russia...University of Moscow, perhaps, if there even is such a thing. But I have no idea if this is correct or not. -- ericl234 ^{talk contribs} 09:35, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

I was always told it was Duke University. Our article says, "Duke owns 212 buildings on 9,432 acres (38 km²) of land. That includes the Duke Forest and the Sarah P. Duke Gardens." jengod 18:46, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Nope, pretty sure it's not Duke - if I'm remembering what my tour guide friends have told me, it's Moscow State University. Jul 6, 2005

Well, I took off the part about Stanford being the second largest campus in the world. From what I can find, this is simply not true. If you check Purdue's Wikipedia page it is over twice the size in acreage. I don't go to Purdue, by the way; I go to Vanderbilt. Also, while it isn't a university, but a college technically, Berry College in Rome, GA has over 28,000 acres and probably qualifies as the largest campus.

I re-removed mention of this, and added a little blurb under Trivia. Both Duke and the Air Force Academy are larger. Ironically, Moscow State University is in reality much, MUCH smaller than Stanford. Purdue, by the way, is a system of six public campuses, so I wouldn't count that as bigger. Someone at a college search website mentioned that SUNY-ESL held the Guinness World Record for world's largest campus, but this record wasn't one of the ones accessible from the Guinness website, so I can't verify it. As it stands now, Stanford is at best the third-largest in the United States (after the USAF and Duke). --LyptonVillage 11:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of copyright notice

I removed this copyright notice from the page:

University seal and S-tree images © Stanford University

because I thought it was unnecessary as the copyright status of each image is clearly explained on each image's Image: page, which can be found by clicking on the image. It is important that in cases like this we don't make it appear as though it is our policy to specify copyright status of each image inline on every article. If we did, articles would just be long mazes of copyright info. Keeping on the separate image info page is both sufficient and preferable. Nohat 00:17, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Leland Jr. note copied from article

The following was added to the article by User:219.64.65.44. — mendel ☎ 02:26, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

(Monitors - Please understand what you posted here is mere a rumour and nothing more. Leland Stanford Jr. died when he could have barely passed highschool. He never went to Harvard, leave alone passing out. Nor did ever Mr. Leland Stanford travel to Cambrige by rail. Please do not commit such silly mistakes as Wikipedia is my main source of informations on many subjects. - bushyshot@yahoo.com).

The above text replaced content claiming that the urban legend about Leland Stanford being rebuffed by Harvard. A debunking of the legend can be found at [9] - End of the page. — mendel ☎ 02:32, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Zip Code of the University

Dear Mendel, In the article on the University, you could also add the information that Stanford University is the only university in the world to have its own ZIP code - 94305.

It isn't. Cornell does, too. [10] jdb ❋ (talk) 20:07, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for updating me on that. I certainly did not know that.

That may be so. But Cornell sucks. So Stanford is the only university that doesn't suck that has its own ZIP code.

A very impressive accomplishment, indeed. Perhaps we could put that in the introductory paragraph somehow. Nohat 07:58, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Hee. :) jengod 17:54, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Caltech actually has 2 of its own zip codes--one for campus addresses (91125), and one for student mailboxes (91126; it turns out that each mailbox actually has a unique 9 digit zip code)--and this is not including JPL or any of the other off-campus facilities. I suspect that there are numerous other schools that have their own as well.Blazotron 02:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I think many universities have their own zip code. I know my undergrad did (UMR); not sure about my new school, Vanderbilt. What is up with every University claiming they are the largest, the biggest campus, the this, the that, ......... ?

Macquarie University in Australia has its own post code (2109). I am sure others in Australia also do. So I am not sure why you thought Stanford would be the only one in the whole world. Dankru 01:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Same old same old:

Stanford actually has two unique zip codes. 94305 for campus buildings and locations, and 94309 for PO boxes. -KrawNight 19:54, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Mascot

According to Stanford's official atheletic site [11]:

Since 1981, Stanford has been known as the Cardinal. Stanford was known as the "Indians" from 1930-72. As for the mascot, Stanford does not officially have one. The "Tree," which is a member of the Stanford Band, has been mistaken as the school’s mascot, but it is not.

This site [12] says otherwise:

The Stanford Indian has been officially removed as Stanford's Mascot with the "Cardinal" (color not bird) taking its place as the official mascot.

but I would trust the first source more. btm _talk 05:57, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how much this counts, since it's sort of hearsay, but I am a current Stanford student and it's widely thought around campus that our mascot is the color cardinal. Hbackman 06:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

For college teams named after colors, Cornell University, Dartmouth College and Harvard University come to mind. Only Harvard's page lists an official mascot, but they all have some sort of mascot(s) (official or not). I think that often the terms "mascot" and "team name" are used interchangeably and that this leads to confusion. Usually the mascot and team name are the same, but in a few cases they are not. In Stanford's case, the Tree is used on the athletic logo, and seems to be often mistaken as the mascot. Regardless, Stanford's official position seems to be that there is no official mascot. btm _talk 07:21, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I am a current Stanford student. The University does not have an official mascot. Our sports teams are called the Stanford Cardinal (yes, the color, not the bird) and the Tree is the Band's mascot. Krawnight 18:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Nobel Laureates

Right not, the "academics" section reads, "The University has approximately 1,700 faculty members, including 17 Nobel laureates . . ." I'm not sure this is accurate. Stanford's facts page lists 16 Nobel Laureates, not 17. Of the sixteen, eight are emeriti (i.e. retired), three are Fellows at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank located on the campus but whose Fellows are not professors in any department and do not teach. Three are at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and also presumably do not teach, which leaves two (both in physics). The inclusion of emeriti, in particular, seems erroneous to me. --Elliotreed 03:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

move to Stanfurd University?

I think that this page should be moved to Stanfurd University, because that's the proper name. Anyone agree? --Ixfd64 08:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Ha ha. (You actually got me there; I thought you were actually proposing a ridiculous move...) Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of moves...

This article was moved from Stanford University to Leland Stanford Junior University, citing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools). I have two problems with that:

• The old version of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools) conflicted with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), a well-established policy, for no apparent reason.
• It is not clear that the university preferentially calls itself "Leland Stanford Junior University". http://www.stanford.edu/ has about four occurrences of "Stanford" alone, two occurrences of "Stanford University" (including the lead graphic and the copyright notice), and zero occurrences of "Leland" or "Junior". On its contact page, its postal address is "Stanford University/ Stanford, CA 94305".

I'll move it back. Melchoir 02:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

It's on the school's official seal, for Pete's sake. The diploma given to gradautes says "Leland Stanford Junior University."[13] The marching band is the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band as noted on the school's website.[14]. Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia says Leland Stanford Junior University is the official name.[15] What more do you need? I'm moving it back to follow school-specific naming guidelines. Please have a good, documented reason before you change it again in direct contradiction of Wikipedia guidelines. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 02:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Since you've cited WP:NC(S), I advise you to have a second look at it; you might be surprised at what you find. Common sense dictates that we don't unilaterally implement new "guidelines" having no consensus and no history. Please consider that not everything in the Wikipedia: namespace is correct. Melchoir 02:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Common sense more appropriately dictates that we don't change guidelines or POLICY without discussion and consensus. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#School_names is official policy stating that school articles use the full, official name of schools. It is the exception to the rule. You simply cannot unilaterally change policy to fit your own needs without input or consensus from the community. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 03:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If you really want to be conservative about changing policy, you should support me in challenging new additions which themselves never gathered policy or consensus. This edit to Wikipedia:Naming conventions inserted language ("full official name") that never gathered or even sought broad support. There was a quick poll on parentheses, so I left that bit in. These changes from November 2005 were never implemented and flew under everyone's radar until you took it upon yourself to act as if they were standard operating procedure. They aren't, and for good reason. Melchoir 03:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

It's been on the books for nealy half a year, according to what you just said. That alone says to me that it's a sound policy, having been in place for that long without anyone changing it until you came along and decided all on your own that you were going to change long-standing policy, regardless of your perception of how it came to be policy in the first place. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 03:32, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[16] Melchoir 03:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[17] [18] Melchoir 03:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for failing completely to see your point in providing these links. It's quite logical that a policy would have more links than a guideline, that a "parent" guideline would have more links than a "child" guideline, that an "ancient" guideline would have more links than a more recent guideline, and so on. Right? ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 03:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Two of these three pages have been applied hundreds of times each. One of them has never been applied before. NC(S) has been "on the books" only in the most technical and superficial of senses: it was there, but no one ever used it. You know those laws that turn up in trivia collections, how in X town it's illegal to chew gum and whistle on a Tuesday? That's what we're dealing with here. I'm sorry if you happened across the page and took it at face value, but now it's time to undo the damage. Melchoir 04:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Or, turning your argument around, I'm sorry that a then-guideline was applied that you didn't know about and you disagree with, but it's been "on the books" (whether or not you think it's only a technicality is irrelevant, IMHO) for months without dispute. Feel free to discuss it, obviously, and argue strenuously against it if you disagree, but it's not up to you to unilaterally decide that it doesn't apply and wipe it from the records. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 04:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

This is not a courtroom; there are no judges to be swayed by technicalities. If I did anything unwise, it was not preserving the old language in the proposed guideline. Well, I'll fix that now. Melchoir 05:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

But if you insist... (I removed the name change proposal because it was already changed to Stanford University and no one was really voting on it anyway.) Jesuschex 15:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

"Leland Stanford Junior University" is the school's official name. The article should stay here. Hbackman 03:01, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• For those of us who are new to the discussion, this article was named Stanford University until a few hours ago. It was moved without discussion to its present name, Leland Stanford Junior University, citing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools) as support. The latter page is a proposed guideline that has gathered no consensus. On the other hand, a relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), which is summarized at the top of the policy page Wikipedia:Naming conventions. The most common name of the university is Stanford University, and it should stay there. Melchoir 03:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, a move without requesting input from other editors based on a proposed guideline is inappropriate. I believe that the proposed guideline is a good one and makes logical sense, but I guess that we can't just follow it if there's no consensus. I guess go with the current guidelines for now. (Thanks for pointing those out, by the way. I wasn't actually aware of them.) Hbackman 03:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, neither was anyone else; see Special:Whatlinkshere for that page. Melchoir 03:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • NOTE: It wasn't a "proposed" guideline until Melchoir himself marked it as such. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 03:25, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Well, but it was also created in February 2006 and hadn't been discussed. (It isn't even linked right now anywhere on the Naming Conventions guidelines page, and there's a place for proposed guidelines.) People can't just create pages and mark them as guidelines; they should have some sort of community consensus behind them. Hbackman 03:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Actually, it IS linked on WP:NC. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions#School names. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 03:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
          • Okay. It wasn't there when I read the page; I must have caught it between Melchior's removal of the link and your revert. Hbackman 04:07, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
            • Um... I didn't remove it. Melchoir 04:10, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
              • Hmm. Apparently I am a total ditz tonight. Sorry about that. Hbackman 04:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Ask someone who goes to Leland Stanford Junior University what school s/he goes to. S/he will respond, "Stanford." Therefore, let's just move the article to "Stanford" instead of "Stanford University." Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.... ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 03:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Why must you repeatedly use the slippery slope fallacy? No one is proposing it be moved to "Stanford." People just want it to be moved to the common name, not the colloquial. Jesuschex 04:01, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Umm ... "Stanford" alone would be the most common name. So let's move it, since that's what the guidelines suggest. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 04:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
        • See WP:NC(CN)#Don't_overdo_it. Also, see Melchoir's latest analysis (at 04:06, 7 April 2006) at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(schools). Jesuschex 04:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• It is utter balderdash for this article to be at Leland Stanford Junior University. NO ONE calls it htat except in official legal documemts or perhaps if trying to be intentionally ironic or funny. Stanford would also be acceptable, though I think Stanford University is the most commonly recognized and unambiguous name for the school. And if the NC for schools implies that it should be otherwise, then that NC needs to be fixed because it is way out of whack. older ≠ wiser 12:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • The current name is unacceptable; simply because it is the school's official name does not mean that the article should be moved to that location. Our current president is at George W. Bush, not at George Walker Bush; an Ivy-League school in Pennsylvania is at University of Pennsylvania, not The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, its official name. Wikipedia articles should (generally, as a rule of thumb) be under the title that is both officially recognized and most commonly referred to; as such, Stanford University is the proper title. Note that Encarta also has the entry under Stanford Univesity; while I recognize that we aren't Encarta, this shows that the commonly accepted entry name for this university is Stanford University. Given the current debate about the location of this article and the fact that most people seem to favor it under Stanford University than at Leland Stanford Junior University, I'm going to go ahead and move it back to Stanford University, the stable name, while we discuss this more. If there's a consensus to move it to Leland Stanford Junior University, then it can be moved back at the appropriate time. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually UPenn's official name probably is University of Pennsylvania. The Trustees bit is the legal entity that controls the university (Just as at Stanford "The Board of Trustees of The Leland Stanford Junior University" does). At Stanford the full name is used on legal documents and by the band but Stanford University is the usual phrasing (though any Stanford student should know the full name [the band ensures that]). I assume Rhode Island isn't listed under its official name (admittedly that itsn't an university)--Erp 21:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Nope, Rhode Island's title is Rhode Island, but the bolded title within the article is The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. I don't see why this can't be the case for universities and college, however. Jesuschex 21:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

huhhhhh, I just came to this page, and it seems utterly unlogical to have this well-known university under its almost never used name. :confused KimvdLinde 10:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll go you one worse. I struck the full name from an article where it appeared because I've never heard the full name before, but with "Junior" appearing so prominently in the name, it read like...well, like somebody from Cal had been editing the article. :) —C.Fred (talk) 02:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Politics?

Since the Hoover Institution is transparently conservative, which is unusual for a university or university segment, does that mean Stanford itself is conservative? Then again, the law school dean is notoriously liberal. You may have seen her on "Nightline" or other programs. Somebody please clarify. If Stanford is conservative, that's interesting given its proximity to Berkeley. -Amit —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 164.106.195.46 (talk • contribs) 2 May 2006 (UTC)

...I don't see where politics enters into the article... the only occurrence of the word "conservative" is in describing one of the student newspapers. What, exactly, is the source of your confusion? Hbackman 04:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think my comments well explain my confusion. In addition, Condoleeza Rice was a Stanford administrator. John Elway is just about as well-known a Republican there is. Again, presitigious institutions are supposed to be liberal, right? -Amit —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.22.216.150 (talk • contribs) 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think they're "supposed" to be liberal. Institutions of higher education do tend to have a liberal bent, but people at universities are free to be conservative if they want to. I wouldn't say that a university as a whole was either conservative or liberal, personally. A school's job is to educate, not to get involved in politics. Hbackman 21:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Hoover Institution is somewhat independent of the rest of the university though still part of the university (in the 1980s the Hoover Director and the University President were often at loggerheads). Most people at Stanford probably tend to the left of the American mainstream though people of all political beliefs can be found there. See Hoover Fellows an Academic Freedom for some info (note there is a particular bias to the article but it does contain some facts about Hoover's relationship to the rest of the University)--Erp 23:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

M.A.L.

Under notable faculty, who is M.A.L.? I didn't find anything on google search. It needs verification. --Codeblue87 05:14, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Meh, reverted. Melchoir 05:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Folding@Home

At 20:21 on July 15, 2006, User:128.12.138.13 removed the following text in the "Trivia" section, arguing that "Plug for software in Stanford history would be warranted if it didn't require an introduction." I disagree, though not strongly enough to revert the change. Can someone else weigh in on this? --Starwiz 14:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Stanford is the university behind Folding@home, one of the most widely disseminated distributed computing projects in the life sciences field, allowing hobbyists and enthusiasts to participate in scientific research by donating unused computer processor cycles. It studies protein folding, misfolding, aggregation, and related diseases.

Traditions and Full Moon on the Quad

Full Moon on the Quad is a two-paragraph article that was proposed for deletion. Rather than send it up to AfD for deletion consideration, I think it may be more constructive to just merge it in with the traditions section in the main article. Additionally, the other traditions could be expanded with a few sentences describing the nature of the tradition. Yes, after the merge, Full Moon on the Quad could live on as a redirect to the article. Any objections? —C.Fred (talk) 15:16, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. Based on the quick reaction, I've sent it to AfD. —C.Fred (talk) 20:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Jasper Ridge, "crystalline lake", size of campus, and Nobel prize winners

Isn't Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve a part of the 8,183 acre campus (not separate from it as implied by the article)? What does "crystalline" mean in the reference to Lagunita as a crystalline lake? Aren't there two other lakes that might be mentioned -- Sears and Felt? The claim about Stanford being the second-largest university complex in the world strikes me as false. Duke and -- I believe -- the University of the South have larger campuses in terms of acreage. Multi-campus state universities like SUNY and UC are considered single universities with various branch campuses that are probably larger in acreage and (certainly) student population than Stanford. So I think the claim about Stanford's size should be qualified and put in context. There is no question but that Stanford is huge in terms of both acreage (for a single campus) and the square footage of its buildings. If you think in terms of both of these factors, it probably is the second-largest "complex" in the world. But these things should be pointed out and backed up with sources. The same goes for Nobel prize winners. This article claims 17, while the Stanford website claims 16. But it turns out that most are retired, and most of the remainder do not teach at Stanford but are researchers at Hoover Institution or SLAC. If the University of California added up all of its retired and non-retired Nobel prizewinners -- including the ones working in nuclear weapons research at LBL, LLL and Los Alamos Scientific Lab or medical research at UCSF -- the resulting number of "Nobel prizewinners on the UC faculty" would be huge. But freshmen at UC still wouldn't be tripping over Nobel prize winners on UC campuses. I think some of these criticisms have been made before. So why haven't editors made the appropriate changes? I'll be coming back again at some point to see if these claims are still in the article. starkt 08:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

A few answers (as far as I know. I can't reference any of this - this is more from my personal knowledge from the past six years I've spent on campus. Yes, Jasper Ridge is part of the university lands. I have no idea what "crystalline" lake means. I don't believe there are any other lakes on campus - certainly there aren't any others of note to the student body. Now, the campus size issue. As I know it (and the tour guides on campus say), Stanford is the second largest university in the world, behind the University of Moscow. This means the lands the university owns are the second largest in the world. However, most of these lands don't have academic buildings on them - lands includes Jasper Ridge and the Stanford Shopping Center. The university is not allowed to sell these lands (according to its charter), but it leases them for basically nothing. So, technically, they are owned by the university but aren't per se part of the main "campus". I think this answers the question - it's a cool, if slightly dumb, trivia fact that is fun to brag about and is fairly widely known (among Stanford students anyway). State universities with multiple campus really don't count in this way - you can't count the UC SYSTEM of universities as one university. Each has it's own faculty, student body, admissions process, etc. Admission to UC Davis doesn't mean you can take classes at UC Berkeley, and a degree from UC Berkeley is different from one at UC Davis, so they are really totally different schools.

I'm not sure what point you're making about Nobel Prize winners - I would guess most Nobel laureates at most schools don't teach, since it takes many, many years to get one. This is a commonly accepted way of counting them and is a widely used/bragged about indicator of the quality of the faculty, so I'm not sure your point in challenging it. And I will attest that students can interact with faculty from SLAC and Hoover - I've taken classes from them, so they are part of the university. Anyway, I think it's relevant to have the corrected value of 16 winners in the article. Hopefully that addresses your concerns. Auric04 03:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yearly expenses

A more interesting figure than Endownment (money which is not spent on research) is the actual figure that the university does spend on research and teaching. Please add it to the page.

What exactly are you asking? The Endowment is important since the interest on that is a fairly constant source of income (to be exact the law requires a certain percentage of the endowment to be spent each year which might be greater or less than the interest in a given year, though an institution can choose to spend more). This money can and is spent on research and teaching. The university can use it to fund research that hasn't yet attracted outside sponsorship (seed money); it can also use it to fund undergraduate student research or to pay for graduate student fellowships and so on. According to Stanford Facts 2006, the budget was $2.9 billion dollars not including the capital budget (e.g., new buildings) --Erp 16:45, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Not to let the German hear the end of World War II

Chapter "History" ends with "German had recently replaced Latin as the dominant language of science and philosophy (a position it would hold until World War II)." In my mind it is not necessary to allude World War II in this cohesion. Germany is neither a land of Hitlers nor the land of poets and philosphers. But I think it's wrong to marginalise it with a brown cover. -- F. Gudmen

-- It seems to me to be relevant to the demise of German as a scholarly language; as similar explanation for the death of Latin might be associated with the reduction of the role of Christianity in scientific circles (due to their various mistakes in their attitude to science). Likewise, the conflict between Germany and its allies, and the rest of the world (I use this description vaguely since America took their sweet time) - was responsible for the shattering of German science for at least a decade in terms of product, and also made German a language non-grata.

The reasons for German's absence from academic circles now is probably entirely economic and demographic, however, the original fall from grace was rooted in the World War 2 conflict; and so I think it is not inappropriate to mention. Anyone else have thoughts on this? Also, I don't think the sentence as it is in the article infers what you have inferred.

The mention of WWII seems unnecessary (esp. given that the article is too long as it is). It has nothing to do with the selection of German for the Stanford motto. It belongs in an article about the rise and fall of various languages in academic discourse, not here. Josh Thompson 17:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Articles can never be too long. This is not a pocket encyclopaedia.

but they can be full of useless trivia that makes looking for the good ideas a waste of time. Rjensen (talk) 15:01, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

ASSU Mention?

The ASSU is not mentioned anywhere in this article (besides a red-link as part of the Stanford navigation thingy at the bottom). It's finals week, so I can't really do anything about it, but maybe someone else can? Samois98 06:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Either I missed it the first time, or someone fixed it (I think the former)

Thanks!

Samois98 08:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

---

Under the "Campus" heading, the following paragraph appears: (near the end of the section)

The physicist Werner Heisenberg was once asked if he knew where Stanford University was located. "I believe it is on the West Coast of the United States, not far from San Francisco. There is also another school nearby, and they steal each other's axes," he replied, referring to Stanford's rivalry with the University of California, Berkeley.

What is it's significance, or other justification for that paragraph to be in the article?

--66.188.79.122 18:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Stanford Axe is probably a better place for it. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Or actually, let's move it to Wikiquote: q:Werner Heisenberg. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Stanford Duck Syndrome

I'd rather not get into a revert war about this, but the Stanford duck syndrome is mentionable. I'll provide some documentation and put it back in. Samois98 23:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's a daily article that mentions it: http://stanforddaily.com/article/2007/2/5/mentalHealthReevaluated Kramer (talk) 00:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

See also section

I removed the entries here per WP:ALSO. Can anybody help with how the portals should be incorpaorated into the article? Should the See also section title remain for the portals?Thank you. --70.109.223.188 (talk) 13:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Facebook

How come Wikipedia never has any content I'm looking for? It is a terrible encyclopedia...

Where is the information about Stanfords involvement with Facebook? they offer courses on facebook, and are a big part of the development team... 69.19.14.19 (talk) 21:48, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

A cursory Google search doesn't turn independent sources for it. That would be one reason why it isn't in the article: it isn't verifiable. Second, it may not be relevant to the uni as a whole; there's not room for every niche course in every school's article. —C.Fred (talk) 21:53, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't understand how people comes here with this attitude, requiring content that fits their needs. If it doesn't fit you, please write the stuff yourself, and contribute your work. Or if you ask, do it politely. I think this attitude is plain wrong here. Please move along.

The biggest campus

I think that the discussion and data comparing areas and volumes of the campus of different universities is a bit off-topic here. At least I think it should be moved towards the end of the article. There are more important matters to explain first, e.g. philosophy and values of the University, etc. What are your views on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.219.187.39 (talk) 20:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Where are the citations?

Where are the citations of this article? --Roged (talk) 00:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Good catch, the reference section was removed at some point. The article has many citations, but needed a <references/> marker in a reference section in order to display them. --Leivick (talk) 00:59, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Reorganization

I went through and stripped out some of the more egregious instances of peacockery and boosterism. I also brought the organization more in line with the consensus WP:UNIGUIDE by merging content into existing and new sections. The history section desperately needs to be expanded beyond 1906, relatively irrelevant and irreverent cruft about traditions and students groups pared down to only those that are historically notable and verifiable, and the article as a whole could stand to have a thorough copy-editing to address the air-dropped "press-release-ese", "glossy-admissions-pamphlet-ese", and general lack of citations for huge swaths. Excellent pictures though! Madcoverboy (talk) 09:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and for the love of everything that is holy on Wikipedia, decide on a citation style or template and stick to it! It's currently a rot of embedded external links, citation templates, and inconsistent ref tagging. Madcoverboy (talk) 09:45, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Stop flaming over nonsense in this article. This school is the best according to many, so that should be included in the article. The article looks little fine to me. However there are some many lists and stuff that are not always easy to read, but don't try to decrease this article size over nonsense saying stick to facts, which all of them are facts. There are no "press release" or "admisions pamphlet" text in here. Which text are specifically talking about? Be specific or don't comment. I like the article, especially the introduction a lot. People with MIT background shouldn't try to make Stanford look bad at all. Be specific. 71.237.70.49 (talk) 06:15, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The point of the article and Wikipedia generally is to write verifiable and neutral articles rather asserting/justifying that the subject is the best or worst. Please see the WP:EMBED policy regarding embedded lists vs. prose. Furthermore, article size is not the end all be all. You can check the difs from the history to see exactly what passages I found problematic - there's no need to rehash all of them here.

Finally, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, so necessarily no one owns the article and can exclude me or any other well-intentioned editor from editing. People with an MIT, City College of San Francisco, or South Dakota State University background have every right to edit and improve any article to make it verifiable and neutral. Please check your collegiate partisanship and boosterism at the door and help us write a better article. Madcoverboy (talk) 00:54, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Paragraph is poorly-written

There exists a popular story that a lady in "faded gingham" and a man in a "homespun threadbare suit" went to visit the president of Harvard about making a donation, were rebuffed, and then founded Stanford. This story is untrue. The historical account is that the Senator and Mrs. Stanford visited Harvard's President Eliot and asked how much it would cost to duplicate Harvard in Palo Alto. Eliot replied that he supposed $15 million would be enough. However, the Stanfords were gracefully rebuffed in securing A.D. White the president of Cornell University as Stanford's founding president. Instead, White recommended David Starr Jordan, White's former student. They eventually settled on David Starr Jordan, president of the Indiana University, although they had offered leaders of the Ivy League twice his salary to direct Stanford.

This sounds more like a history textbook than an encyclopedia, and it's also awkwardly written. Anyone want to change this? 168.169.151.225 (talk) 15:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Go for it. Madcoverboy (talk) 15:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Grumble Grumble

The history OMITS massive government funding during WWII and the growth of the University during this period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.231.238.52 (talk) 05:17, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The government funding aspect of Stanford's growth was real, although it was a bigger factor during the 1950s than during WW II. (Stanford's explosion from respected regional university to world-class academic powerhouse happened during the late 1950s and early 1960s.) And you're right - it is only hinted at in this article, in the paragraph about Professor Terman. He was a great enthusiast of government grants, but he didn't return to Stanford until WW II was over.

But this is Wikipedia, so be bold and add the information yourself! Be sure to keep it encyclopedic in tone, or better yet, supported by a citation or two. I'll look forward to reading it. ==MelanieN (talk) 06:43, 27 October 2009 (UTC)MelanieN

https://www.pgnet21.xn--stanford-2j5e.edu/giving/part/tsc/download/images/env_l2Cover.jpg

Currently, this article uses https://www.pgnet21.♦stanford.edu/giving/part/tsc/download/images/env_l2Cover.jpg or https://www.pgnet21.xn--stanford-2j5e.edu/giving/part/tsc/download/images/env_l2Cover.jpg as one of its source. This link does not work, and the domain xn--stanford-2j5e.edu which looks like some Internationalized domain name is not even registered[19]. Or maybe it's just a typo? Does anybody know the correct URL for this link? Otherwise, I guess we should delete this reference.--Stacalusa (talk) 16:11, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I've put in a replacement URL which I hope gives the source meant. --Erp (talk) 17:04, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Roble Gym

The Stanford Roble Gym article has been nominated for deletion. Since we don't have a Stanford University project, I thought I best notify people here. Comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stanford Roble Gym. The article definitely needs work and there is concern it does not meet the requirements for notability. --Erp (talk) 01:12, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Citations Needed

The fountain hopping section needs a citation. The Stanford Daily describes it. http://www.stanforddaily.com/2002/05/24/fountain-hopping-a-popular-stanford-spring-tradition/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.180.97.4 (talk) 21:48, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this reference. I have added it to the article. Got any more? I see that citations have been requested for many of the items in the "Traditions" section. --MelanieN (talk) 17:05, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Adding Hasso Plattner Institute of Design under "Research centers and institutes"

For completeness, I'd like to propose that information about the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design be added to the [centers and institutes] section. Please change:

Stanford is home to the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalist and the Center for Ocean Solutions, which brings together marine science and policy to develop solutions to challenges facing the ocean.

to:

Stanford is home to the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalist and the Center for Ocean Solutions, which brings together marine science and policy to develop solutions to challenges facing the ocean. It also houses the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the "d.school"), a multidisciplinary design school that integrates product design, engineering, and business management education.

Tom Nguyen (Adobe) (talk) 00:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The information checks out. I have added it to the article. --MelanieN (talk) 21:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Update endowment

Update endowment (now $16.5 billion).

Done --Jnorton7558 (talk) 22:29, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I changed it to "As of August 31, 2011", the valuation date in the reference. 72Dino (talk) 22:41, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Stanford Wiki

Currently, in the external links, there is a link to http://stanford.wikia.com/wiki/Stanford_University_Wiki named "Stanford Wiki". However, as far as I can see it, the "Stanford Wiki" has hardly any usefull content, and is full of advertisement. I do not think that this link is relevant. Therefore I suggest that we delete this link.--Stacalusa (talk) 16:15, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I commented it out and added reason why so people won't be encouraged to put it back in. --Erp (talk) 17:09, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Whole Article Needs Revision

Much of the information in the article is old (for example, why does it list the fundraising from three years ago, and no other year is even mentioned?), and there seems to be a lot of key information about the university missing. Most importantly, there seems to be an excess of useless information; for example, why would there be information on the mobile homes that once occupied the space of a few current dorms, which were built many years ago? Lots of other random information too. The only way to include the more vital information is to get rid of a lot of other information, unless we make the article longer. Is the article too long already? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.59.249.107 (talk) 01:34, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Stanford-affiliated people are so unconcerned with this article, this gem still exists: "A new environmentally friendly Environment and Energy building is also planned" -- that building was finished three years ago. 66.59.249.107 (talk) 05:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Student Groups

The current selection of student groups used as examples seems rather arbitrary. Should we make an article for Stanford University student groups with more details on their history, formation, and funding structures, and with a more complete categorized list of groups? Unless there are just a few student groups that stand out far more than others, this current list is pretty meaningless as a representation of Stanford. Poseidon^3 (talk) 18:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

First things first might be describing the general areas of the groups, highlighting one or two significant ones per area. The areas are:[20]

• Athletic/Recreational
• Careers/Pre-professional
• Community Service - perhaps Alternative Spring Break?
• Ethnic/Cultural - Stanford Powwow because they organize the single largest student run event and it has been going on for nearly 40 years.
• Health/Counseling - The Bridge Peer Counseling Center and/or Sexual Health Peer Resources Center
• Media/Publications - Stanford Daily, KZSU
• Music/Dance/Creative Arts - the arts groups are covered a bit in the arts section
• Political/Social Awareness -
• Religious/Philosophical -
• Fraternities/Sororities - these are covered separately

Significance means either size, historical importance, or influence. I've put in a few that could probably be mentioned. Any other suggestions?--Erp (talk) 04:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Computer Science

Stanford has according to some sources such as http://nt.cra.org/scripts/rankcs.pl?TOP=108&DIRECTION=DESC&ORDER=QUALITY the highest-ranked Computer Science department in the world and is listed as top ranked in all others; why isn't this mentioned in the Academics section? 74.128.201.242 (talk) 05:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Poor history

The History section is loaded with small anecdotes about the founding years, and trails off after 1905. It neglects the real history--there is too little on the students, the faculty, the administration, the programs and centers, and the impact of the school over the last 120 years. And it needs a bibliography and citations to the many good studies. Compare the entries on Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Probable we need to spin off the origins story into a separate article.Rjensen (talk) 21:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Additional traditions at Stanford

I attended Stanford University and noticed that two traditions were left out. I have added them to the article since they are very big and well-know traditions within Stanford.

1. Secret Snowflake -Students are given three dares by anonymous residents within their dorm. These students have to perform these dares (one a night for three nights) in front of the whole dorm. These dare can range from tame activities (e.g. singing Like a Virgin in a wedding dress) to extreme (e.g. nudity, stunts). This week of dares is carried out near the end of fall quarter before Christmas Break.

2. Valentine's Day - In the freshmen dorms, all of the guys in the dorm wake up all of the girls very early in the morning on Valentine's Day. Each girl is given a single rose and is then brought to the dorm lounge where all of the guys serenade the girls with a love song.

Nicolef6 (talk) 07:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Alumni who have founded technology companies

Since Aug 7 2008, the article has contained a mention of the many technology companies founded by Stanford alumni. Here is how it read as of yesterday:

Stanford faculty and alumni have founded many prominent technology companies, including Cisco Systems, Electronic Arts, Google, Hewlett-Packard, LinkedIn, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo!.

But yesterday, three editors, 169.229.82.172, 136.152.209.172 and DeusExa, insisted on deleting it. The only explanation offered was in 169.220.82.172's edit summary, "Does not represent all fields, too narrow"'. I restored it twice, the second time remarking, "Once again restoring a useful sentence that's been here over 1000 edits. Before undoing, please discuss on talk page." That discussion didn't happen; the sentence was simply deleted again.

I should point out that even though DeusExa objects to this sentence in the Stanford article, he added a similar statement to the UC Berkeley article. Also, the IP addresses for both the IP-identified editors traceroute to berkeley.edu, so this may be just a Stanford/Berkeley rivalry thing. (But if so, I don't think it belongs here.)

Obviously, having already done 2 reverts, I won't do another. Instead, I call for some discussion.

With a statement that's been around so long, through thousands of edits, and which appears helpful, I think the presumption should be that consensus supports the statement being there. It may be that there's a good argument for removing it, but I think that argument should be made and so far, I don't believe it has. Comments, please? Msnicki (talk) 01:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems clear that the sentence should stay. If you need additional reverting of this removal (while avoiding WP:3RR yourself), give me a holler. --MelanieN (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Somebody mentioned at the Administrator's noticeboard discussion about this situation that the sentence in question was not supported by citations. So I just added a citation that supports all the original companies and several others. There can be no further justification for deleting the sentence since it is supported by citation. --MelanieN (talk) 03:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I was just about to point out that it appears that DeusEx is affiliated with Berkeley and even added the same type of info to the Berkeley article, but you've gone even farther and traced the other IPs back to Berkeley--kudos to you. I'm actually surprised that some Berkeley-affiliated people who go so far as to apply a double-standard and childishly keep reverting edits without even explaining why. It's a rivalry, of course, but come on, this takes it way too far. Hopefully once the page is unlocked, they won't continue this pointless battle. 66.59.249.107 (talk) 10:58, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Your hope did not come true. DeusExa did it again today. --MelanieN (talk) 14:57, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

1964 stanford indians champions

I just purchased an old Starter JAcket with a bunch of patches on it. I think it belonged to the Captain of the 1964 Stanford Indians team which were the All Star State Champs. He was # 35 on the football team. Can anybody give me any information about the original owner of this jacket?

Stanford Logotype

This is probably nitpicking, but the updated Stanford Logotype now has a stylized underscore and the word "University" is more condensed as can be seen on their identity guidelines website: http://www.stanford.edu/group/identity/ug_sig_sys.html --Pfenixfire (talk) 11:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from IFerrets, 30 June 2011

Please change in "Athletics" to reflect the 2010-2011 championships:

Since then, Stanford University has won it sixteen straight years, winning sixteen out of the seventeen years it has been offered.

to:

Since then, Stanford University has won it seventeen straight years, winning seventeen out of the eighteen years it has been offered.

— the NACDA Director's Cup, formerly known as the Sears Cup — every year for the past sixteen years.

to:

— the NACDA Director's Cup, formerly known as the Sears Cup — every year for the past seventeen years.

Stanford has earned 100 National Collegiate Athletic Association national team titles[136] since its establishment, second most behind the University of California, Los Angeles, and 465 individual NCAA championships, the most by any university.[137] The 100th championship was won by the 2010-2011 Stanford Men's Gymnastics team.

to:

Stanford has earned 101 National Collegiate Athletic Association national team titles[136] since its establishment, second most behind the University of California, Los Angeles, 439 individual NCAA championships[150] and 467 individual National championships, the most by any university.[137] The 100th championship was won by the 2010-2011 Stanford Men's Gymnastics team and the 101th was won by the 2010-2011 Stanford Women's Water Polo team.

NOTE: please remove "[136]" or replace the link to "http://champions.stanford.edu/history/by-the-numbers/" or use [150]; [150] should link to "http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/champs_records_book/summaries/combined.pdf" (remove "combined.pdf" if inappropriate.) Add the Women's Water Polo win or remove both if we've moved past the 100th win.

Thanks. Michael - Class of '91, Ind. Eng.

IFerrets (talk) 00:06, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Done Jnorton7558 (talk) 14:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Lead too long???

Somebody added a "lead is too long" note to the article. I don't agree with them. The lead is four paragraphs; that is an appropriate or even modest length for this very lengthy article. I don't see anything in the lead that is excessive or should be removed, and I would be inclined to simply remove the note without making any changes. Anyone else agree? --MelanieN (talk) 14:59, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I had the same thought. I suppose some of the discussion of the origins of the university in the second paragraph could be moved into the History section but other than that, I don't see anything wrong with the current lead. Msnicki (talk) 15:02, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I just took a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section)#Length. It says that three or four paragraphs is the appropriate length for a lead if the article is more than 30,000 characters. This article is over 100,000 bytes. I don't know how bytes translate to characters, but clearly a long article like this is SUPPOSED to have a lead of three or four paragraphs. I put a note on the talk page of the editor who added this, asking for them to come here and comment. --MelanieN (talk) 15:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

It's too long, bulky, not succinct. Too much detail. It should give an overview, not probe into every little corner. But, shucks, that's just my opinion. Cheers! GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:54, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, you're right, that's your opinion. But if you'd like anyone to agree, it'd be helpful if you could put a little meat on it, perhaps by proposing (and I suggest doing it here) some specific changes. Otherwise, I propose to remove your tag and seek consensus support to do that. Msnicki (talk) 17:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. In mine, it barely skirts the surface of what is in the article - exactly what an intro should do. It certainly doesn't "probe into every little corner". And it totally complies with Wikipedia style in its length. But I'm not married to it in its current form. If you have specific suggestions of what constitutes too much detail, let's hear them and reach consensus. --MelanieN (talk) 18:09, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

BTW I just checked the leads for the articles of several comparable U.S. universities. Princeton's, Columbia's, and Yale's leads are about the same length as Stanford's. Harvard's, Cal Berkeley's, UCLA's, and MIT's are longer. None of the ones I checked are shorter. --MelanieN (talk) 18:20, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the tag. Three editors have taken the position that the length is fine and no new support has been offered for claims that it's not. In addition, as MelanieN reports, the current length is both in keeping with the guidelines and with common practice in similar articles. Msnicki (talk) 17:29, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Good call - the lead rather strictly follows the guide set forth by Wikipedia, including information it should and avoiding excess information. 66.59.249.107 (talk) 02:45, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Human Resources & Labor Review ranking

Another editor has inserted a reference to this ranking system. I challenge the importance and noteworthiness of this ranking system. There doesn't appear to be any methodological information to help us understand its reliability and validity. Nor does this ranking appear to be widely used or respected. On those bases, I propose removing this addition. ElKevbo (talk) 20:09, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Overhauling the article

While the article is definitely strong as is, there are many areas in which it's lacking. Some are completely fine - the intro, the sections on libraries, athletics, Greek life, etc. But most need improvement:

• History - currently it's very hit-or-miss; some eras/points ignored, others (like football - really?) overemphasized. Here's one source to draw on: http://www.stanford.edu/about/history/
• Campus - mostly good information, but it needs to be reorganized. The "landmarks" and "faculty residences" sections are out of place, and the random picture of Lake Lag needs to moved. There should also be a section on sustainability.
• Administration and organization - should include a list of the schools (perhaps with other info, such as whether it grants undergrad degrees), rather than embedding such in the text.
• Academics: Research centers and institutes - needs to be expanded. Perhaps it should include a section for interdisciplinary studies, which are important. This could be a starting point: http://stanford.edu/academics/programs.html
• Academics: Rankings - this needs to be made more concise, and I think a table would do well for much of it. Also we need a review of which rankings should be included and which ones shouldn't.
• Arts - good section as it is, but there's a lot more recent information to include (such as SICA, the Arts Intensive, the Anderson building, the McMurtry building, the Bing Concert Hall, etc.)
• Dormitories and student housing - poorly written (huge paragraphs) and very outdated information (e.g. it still mentions the pre-Manzanita housing, which I'm sure very few people on campus even remember).
• Traditions - needs sources, should be pruned for what's actually a tradition and what isn't.
• Student groups - there seems to be no method to what's included and what isn't.
• Notable alumni, faculty, and staff - stats on current faculty need to be moved to the "Academics" section, which is what other university articles do, leaving the last section as "Notable alumni."

• pictures - the article needs more pictures that are recent. Some ideas: Green Library contrasted against the pic of the destroyed library from 1906, the new engineering quad, a pic of one or two of the dorms in the dorms section, etc.
• other sections - perhaps we should add more sections that other universities often have, such as controversies (e.g. the ROTC debate, the FIRE controversy at the ed school), pop culture references, etc.
• sources - many, many statements need sources. Almost as important: since we currently have a great many sources (160), we could consolidate many statements' sources. For example, there are 7 sources citing Stanford as the top fundraising university over the years; perhaps we could link to one source showing the fundraising totals over the years.

It seems like a lot, but most of these sections have remained essentially unchanged for years, so this is really just a conglomeration of changes that should have happened a long time ago. I can make changes slowly, but hopefully other Stanford-affiliated people will step up as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loslix (talk • contribs) 01:25, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for a lot of good ideas. I just moved the faculty information to Academics as you suggested and will continue to work on this list. In particular there is a lot that is out of date and needs updating. --MelanieN (talk) 18:33, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Faculty Ghetto vs. Professorville

Are these in fact two different places or one in the same? Should the name be change to one or the other or should both be used? Is one perferred over the other or is one official? Ttenchantr (talk) 17:34, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

They are two different places. Professorville is an area of Palo Alto not owned by Stanford where many early professors lived (not so many now as most can't afford it). The faculty ghetto (which is a nickname) is on Stanford owned land where the residents own the improvements (housing, landscape improvements) but lease the land. Leaseholders must be University faculty or senior staff (which staff can vary a bit) or emeriti. If the leaseholder ceases to have that status, they must sell out (an exception is that a widow or widower who is not themself eligible can stay on until death or remarriage). --Erp (talk) 14:32, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Split off Libraries into a new article?

Someone just proposed splitting off the Libraries section into a separate article, Stanford University Libraries. Discussion is supposed to happen on this talk page. Personally, I don't favor the idea. The libraries are adequately covered in the present article without overwhelming it, and they are not significant enough for a separate article IMO. --MelanieN (talk) 16:30, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I was going to start a talk page discussion yesterday but I forgot to. Anyway, my theory is that many major universities have articles about their libraries/library systems; we could also merge and redirect the Green Library, J. Henry Meyer Memorial Library and Stanford University Libraries Digital Image Collections articles into said Stanford University Libraries article, while giving a broader coverage of the subject. Disavian (talk) 17:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, you're right - I see that other major universities do have articles about their libraries. However, I'm not so sure about redirecting the existing articles about individual libraries to that page. Would you really put all the detail from those articles into a "libraries" article? I notice that Harvard University Library does not redirect, but retains separate articles for its major libraries. So do Princeton and Yale. So I would oppose a redirect of the individual libraries. I'm still not sure this separate article for libraries is justified, but I am willing to be convinced. The example of other major universities goes a long way toward convincing me. --MelanieN (talk) 17:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

P.S. OK, this settles it! If University of California, Berkeley Libraries get a separate page, so do ours! (j/k) --MelanieN (talk) 18:05, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

You don't have to redirect them. It's up to you... I'm just proposing it. :3 Disavian (talk) 18:52, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I thought other people would chime in here - this article has more than 200 Watchers - but nobody has. Looks like you can go ahead and create the article if you want. Thanks for the suggestion. --MelanieN (talk) 13:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, not everybody edits Wikipedia every day, and I feel like active editorship is on the decline as of late. I don't have the hard statistics to back that up, though. Nobody is going to object to more comprehensive coverage of a subject, although it seems the greatest barrier to entry is actually creating the relevant article. Disavian (talk) 17:10, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there's a hard and fast precedent either way for including or excluding this content. In the interests of being bold, I would encourage you to go for it and if it's a total catastrophe, we can go back to how things were before. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:49, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I went ahead and implemented this after someone reminded me that I'd completely forgotten about it. Anyway, we now have Stanford University Libraries to expand at our leisure. Disavian (talk) 08:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, great job! I have added some comments to the article's talk page. --MelanieN (talk) 18:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

BTW you were absolutely right; there is more than enough material for a separate article. --MelanieN (talk) 19:18, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Wow, you've added a lot of referenced content! Nice job. Disavian (talk) 01:12, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

So I noticed that the {{Stanford University}} template is a bit cluttered at the moment (and doesn't have Stanford University Libraries on it). I'd like to suggest that we make it closer to {{Georgia Tech Navbox}}, which is rather clearly segmented, and links only the most important articles about the school. Disavian (talk) 01:12, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I took a stab at improving this tonight. Disavian (talk) 06:34, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

First graduating class?

As noted here, the article doesn't state what year the first class graduated. Seems like 1895, but that's just a guess. Can this be researched and added with a citation. Daniel Case (talk) 22:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea! Esrever ^(klaT) 22:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Most sources seem to say 1895; in particular that year is given for Herbert Hoover who is always cited as a member of the first graduating class. (There is even a picture of that class here: [21]; is that a picture we would be able to use?) However, 1895 was the first graduating class that attended all four years at Stanford. It appears that there were transfer students who graduated as early as 1892.[22] --MelanieN (talk) 19:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Notes to remove clutter

I've added a notes section to allow people to smooth out the main body of the text. Notes should be used for extra information that isn't directly relevant but might be of interest and aren't significant enough to include in its own article (I used it for a digression on the two other parcels of land that made up the initial endowment but have long since been sold; both are mentioned in other articles which I linked to in the note). --Erp (talk) 22:12, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

I had to add some notes to the James E. Boyd (scientist) article for things that clarified existing text but were not entirely relevant, and I think it's a good example of using them properly. Figured I'd chip in my two cents. Disavian (talk) 07:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Stanford's Nobel laureates

The article used to say that "more than 50" faculty, staff, and alumni have won the Nobel Prize. An ISP just changed that to "17". But According to this, there are 17 Nobel laureates on the faculty RIGHT NOW, so there are obviously many more associated with Stanford if one counts alumni and deceased faculty.

This lists the current 17 as well as 6 of the most prominent deceased faculty; there are many others. What would be a fair number to list, and do we have to detail all of their names in the article? Maybe we should make a category or a list so that we don't have to cite them all here in the article which is already overly long? --MelanieN (talk) 13:42, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually I see there already is a place to list such affiliations; it's at List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation#Stanford University. That list is somewhat problematic but already includes 27 such affiliations. I had started on a separate, more detailed list which you can see here, but I think I will concentrate on updating the existing list instead (it's very incomplete) - and then put an updated count into this article. --MelanieN (talk) 14:24, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I updated that list, it now has 43 entries. I modified this article to say "more than 40". --MelanieN (talk) 16:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Inaccurate translation of motto

The German word "Luft" means "air" in English. The English word "wind" is also "Wind" in German. Therefore the university motto should be translated "the air of freedom blows". It is just more accurate :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.113.82 (talk) 15:40, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. Both "air" and "wind" are valid translations of Luft,[23], but in combination with "weht", the meaning obviously is air in motion, air moving - in other words "wind". A better English translation would actually be "The wind of freedom is blowing" rather than "blows", but "The wind of freedom blows" is the official translation embraced by the university for decades - and we should stick with what the university itself intends to say with the motto. --MelanieN (talk) 16:16, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi guys, yeah the transliteration "The wind of freedom is blowing" is more fitting, but why German in the first place, I must wonder. This reminds me of "Vom Winde verweht", the official transliteration for "Gone With the Wind". (Yes, I do speak German, by the way.) 14.201.95.31 (talk) 07:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

You mean translation, not transliteration. A German motto was chosen in part because German had become the language of scholarship (replacing Latin) in the 19th century. And partly because David Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford, was a lifelong admirer of Ulrich von Hutten, the source of the quote. There's quite a long discussion of the motto here: [24]. --MelanieN (talk) 14:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

1.) Thanks for responding. That German was to replace Latin was new, even surprising, to me. Very interesting piece of information. Thankyou indeed.

German remained the international language of science, at least, through much of the 20th century. When I was an undergraduate chemistry major at Stanford, we were all required to take at least two quarters of German so that we could read the standard reference works, such as Beilsteins Handbuch der Organischen Chemie. --MelanieN (talk) 18:03, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

2.) As you know, literal or word-by-word translation does not always work across languages. Try translating Chinese or ancient Greek into modern days' languages to see. That's why the term "scholarly interpretation". For the paragraph above, I did mean transliteration (German: "Umschreibung" that is meant to preserve the meaning or sense of expressions or phrases across languages). Cheers! 14.201.95.31 (talk) 06:45, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

"Transliteration" means rewriting something in a different alphabet. Phrasing a translation so as to convey the meaning (rather than the literal words) would be "paraphrasing", or "translating the meaning", or some such, but any dictionary (or Google Translate, or whatever) that would call this "transliteration" is wrong IMO. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 07:39, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

P.S. See Transliteration; compare to Translation. --MelanieN (talk) 18:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. The discussion has apparently not helped improving the main article (on the subject of the motto). I therefore suggest that my contributions be removed. 14.201.95.31 (talk) 22:25, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

While I'm sure this has been an informative read, it's all moot. Stanford says its motto in English is, "The wind of freedom blows," so that would seem to make the most sense here. Esrever ^(klaT) 23:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Possibly Inaccurate Statements in "Endowment and Fundraising" Section

In the second paragraph of the "Endowment and fundraising" section, it is claimed that Stanford University was the first university to obtain more then 1 billion dollars a year in research funding during the 2012 year. I believe this information is inaccurate because I have read of other schools, such as the University of California San Diego (UCSD) receiving over a billion dollars in research funding during the 2010 fiscal year (see this article on the UCSD website. Also the original Washington Post article used for reference no longer exists (reference 90). If I am wrong, please point me to an updated reference which can be used to replace reference 90, otherwise we should look into removing this statement.

Spacemars88 (talk) 00:08, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't research funding but endowment fundraising (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/stanford-university-1st-college-raise-1b). Different items. Stanford spends about 1.27 billion on research each year according to its facts page; this would be paid for both by external monies and from the endowment. --Erp (talk) 02:35, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the calcification and updating the reference to the page you have shown Erp. --Spacemars88 (talk) 01:42, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

"People" section

We need to consider whether what to do about the "Notable people" section - whether to continue to list a lot of people there as we currently do (I think there are close to 200 - a real mess IMO), or trim the list to only the very most notable, or banish them all to List of Stanford University people. I gather the original intent was to list only THE most notable people here (heads of state, Nobel Prize winners, business tycoons, sports superstars), with the main article being at "List of Stanford University people". But without any real clear criteria for what constitutes "most notable," the section is getting more and more cluttered up with politicians and anyone who started a business and every professional sports player of any kind - look at this recent addition of a dozen people - and IMO it has gotten way out of hand. Do you think we should a) leave it as it currently is? Or b) trim it according to clear criteria with a referral to a list article, as they seem to have succeeded in doing at Yale University and Princeton University? Or c) name no-one in this article, and push all of the people into a list, as they do at Harvard University? Opinions solicited.--MelanieN (talk) 03:46, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Wow! User:Madcoverboy just did a significant cleanup; thank you! --MelanieN (talk) 20:06, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

The problem with User:Madcoverboy's "cleanup" is that it indiscriminately removes plenty of important people who are either leaders in their fields, or known outside of the US. We no longer have 'Azim Premji of Wipro - which is one of the biggest tech firms in the world, even though you're much more likely to have heard of it if you're in India. TPG Capital is (by many metrics) the biggest private equity fund in the world, and private equity is a massive part of Wall Street and high finance. And so on, and so on. I can see the argument for excluding many of the more minor figures, but that wholesale removal of anyone one hasn't heard of seems both capricious and arbitrary, and should have been discussed before it was just obliterated. Mandalini (talk) 09:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

On further investigation, we've also lost Sun Microsystems and Vinod Khosla; the major private equity fund Hellman & Friedman, and the analytics firm Palantir. We have Reid Hoffman, but not Peter Thiel, which is curious. I'm 100% happy to hash out criteria here for winnowing down the list, but I'll start adding the important figures back in again if there's no discussion. Mandalini (talk) 09:53, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd strongly caution you to WP:AGF instead of accusing me of being "capricious" and "arbitrary" and "obliterat[ing]" sections in making a WP:BRD edit that clearly outlined a set of preliminary criteria. Peter Thiel is still present, FWIW. Madcoverboy (talk) 14:47, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that we can't include everyone who minimally (has a wiki article) or even far from minimally (has a high importance wiki article) in the main article without bloating it beyond any reasonable limit (hence the List of Stanford University people article). So criteria, the connection must be substantial either by graduating or having a major impact on the person [or on the university] or by being faculty (but not visiting or consulting unless that status is held for many years) or staff (but for a sizable amount of time or had a major impact) that should be the criteria for the list article and leaves how to choose who for this article. Those people should _illustrate_ the breadth of Stanford's influence in discipline, geography, and time and no more than one or two examples for each intersection at most (I'll allow an exception if Stanford manages to have three or more alumni as heads of government/state at or near the same time in a geographical region). Personally I would be inclined to drop JFK and Romney simply because they weren't at Stanford long and I'm not sure how much influence Stanford had on them (or vice versa). --Erp (talk) 15:49, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad we have a discussion going here; I hope more will join in. I would like to get some consensus about what I think is a problem in the article. The currrent section is massively bloated, i.e., we include way too many people. (Madcoverboy made a start on that, but since there is objection to those deletions I guess I will restore those names while we work out what we want to do. Hopefully they will all be gone, and more, when we reach a conclusion here.) I agree with Mandalini that the current inclusion/exclusion "criteria" are arbitrary and US-centric, and IMO there are no criteria; people just add anything they want as long as the subject has an article here. If we don't set up some criteria we could wind up duplicating the List of Stanford University people, which exists as a list precisely so that the article WON'T get swamped with names of people.

The main problem with ours is that there is no rhyme or reason about who gets a mention, who gets a whole sentence or even paragraph, and who is left out. People are there because somebody decided to add them. The faculty section is the most disorganized; some Nobel Prize winners are omitted, and some halfway-notable academics get a paragraph! In sports: who decided that every Olympics competitor should be mentioned? Business is the worst; minimally notable people get added, often with PR-ish intentions, and how do you draw a line to distinguish the true superstars from the nobodies?

Taking a look at how other universities handle it:

• Even longer and more inclusive than ours: UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Michigan
• Tight, well organized section with no one person given more than a few words: Princeton, Yale, Oxford
• NO names at all, just a link to the list: Harvard

Possible options are: 1) leave it as it is; 2) leave the format pretty much as it is but introduce some criteria; 3) massively trim down to something similar to the Princeton/Yale/Oxford model; or d) list no names at all a la Harvard. Opinions? --MelanieN (talk) 16:14, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

My heuristic is that a section with a daughter page like this one should err on the side of being consise and focused on individuals of unimpeachable historical notability. There is a clear bias towards venture capitalists, financial managers, and founders of the startup-du-jour that both reflects the prominence of Stanford alumni in these areas but also suggests a lack of historical and cultural perspective about the distortions of the Silicon Valley bubble. The 3rd largest IT company in India, private equity funds that 99% of the public can't recognize and modest capitalizations in the scheme of the corporate financial sector, and startup darlings employing a few hundred people and worth less than $1B don't make the cut in my book. As a start, I would recommend only including heads of state, chief executives and founders of Fortune Global 100 companies, recipients of major academic, athletic, and cultural awards. This would mean removing legislators, many of the listed companies and executives, and many athletes who have not repeatedly won national or international championships. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:20, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

That's kind of the lines I have been thinking along. Why do we list every (American) member of Congress, for example? Your list sounds like a good start. I might add Supreme Court Justices just because Stanford graduates have been so prominent there. --MelanieN (talk) 16:26, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Even with Madcoveboy's suggestions, the section would still be quite large; it might be best to follow Harvard's example and have a separate article and leave only numbers here. If we keep a section here, I'm open to a large Indian IT company since it is my understanding that (a) IT is big in India so there are many companies (and with nearly 150,000 employees Wipro isn't small) and (b) by not being primarily US (based in India but branches worldwide) it is a good [i]example[/i] of Stanford's influence beyond the US. The Stanford connection is through the chairman who took over in 1966 at the age of 21 after getting a BS in EE at Stanford and guided it to its present position (he is also in the top 100 wealthiest people in the world). Do we have better examples for Stanford's non-US influence in IT/business? --Erp (talk) 01:18, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Expense scandal addition

I have added a new History section on the early 1990's expense scandal involving Donald Kennedy. This is part of Stanford's history, therefore I think it belongs in the History section. Discussion is welcomed. Ianeds63 (talk) 18:17, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Student groups

I'm revamping the Student groups section by (1) moving arts, athletic, and religious related groups to the Arts, Athletics, and Religious section of the article; (2) weeding out defunct groups; (3) turning the rest into paragraphs illustrating each remaining area. For (3) we need to decide what are the appropriate groups to list and where to put them.

• Media/Publications - the Daily and KZSU. The Leland Quarterly is listed but I'm not sure it is significant enough; other candidates. What is the status of the Stanford Chaparral or of Flipside?
• ethnic/cultural groups - huge numbers at Stanford. The article needs to mention the community centers: El Centro Chicano, Native American Cultural Center, International Center, Asian American Activities Center, Black Community Services Center, and The Markaz Resource Center (also to be mentioned would be the LGBT Community Resources Center and Women's Community Center). Highly significant student groups would be the Black Student Union and the Stanford American Indian Organization because of their historical as well as present impact. I'm inclined to have a separate section under Student Body on all of this and also a bit about the history of diversity at Stanford. Any suggestions on title?
• Business - I'm not really qualified to write about the business oriented groups.
• Others - I'm inclined to move the Axe Committee to traditions or just drop it since it is connected in through the article about the axe. Not sure of the significance of the Kite Flying group or the Robber Barons (and if significant the Robber Barons should probably be moved to the arts section).

Thoughts? Erp (talk) 02:51, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Roosevelt quote

Is there really any value in including this paragraph in the history section?

Visiting Stanford in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt said of the campus and the university, "Now I have come to this great institution of learning and I wonder whether you yourselves fully appreciate the mere physical beauty of your surroundings. I was not prepared in the least (and I thought I was prepared for it) for the beauty of your surroundings. You have had these plans of your university made by a great architect, native to our own American soil, who himself had the sense to adapt—not to copy in servile fashion—but to adapt the old Californian architecture to the new university uses, and so we have here a great institution of learning absolutely unique, even in its outward aspect, situated in this beautiful valley with the hills in the background, under this sky, with these buildings, and if this university does not turn out the right kind of citizenship and the right kind of scholarship, I shall be more than disappointed."[36]

To me this adds nothing encyclopedic and is merely one of scores of possible quotes from scores of famous people. I think it should be deleted. Comments? --MelanieN (talk) 17:30, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Hearing no objections, I will delete it. --MelanieN (talk) 21:53, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

History section organization

Looking over the history section, it really requires (a) an intro to guide what is going on in the section and (b) better organization among the subsections. We can divide either chronologically or topically or a bit of both. I would say key divisions would be

• Origin and early years up to 1905/1906 (Jane Stanford's 1905 death and the 1906 earthquake)
  • Foundation (and including on both the history of co-education and non-denominationalism over the full course of Stanford history since both get mentioning in the original grant)
  • Building the Physical Infrastructure
  • Early Finances
• Earthquake through to World War II
  • Governance including the role of Herbert Hoover (but remove most of Hoover Institute history)
• Post World War II
  • High Tech
  • Moving of the Medical School from SF to the main campus and the building of both hospitals (briefly).
  • Civil Rights Movement (mid 1960s could also be a major division since the university before was perceived as straight white Christian with separate judicial systems for men and women and after it has increasing diversity and awareness of diversity as part of Stanford).

I think the academic department history (for only two departments) needs to be merged into a survey of department/school history. Thoughts? --Erp (talk) 05:04, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the section is poorly organized and I encourage you to proceed along these lines. I think there might be value in one more heading or key division, namely "*21st Century". --MelanieN (talk) 15:16, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Good changes. I would still like to see (and will try to write) something about the enormous expansion of campus facilities in the 1960s (I remember a fundraising drive called the PACE program), coupled with the change of mission or target identity from "upscale west coast university" to "world class university". As for the "separate judicial systems for men and women", that was standard in secondary and higher education up through the 1950s; "Dean of Men" and "Dean of Women" were standard positions at every high school, college, and university. I don't know whether Stanford was a leader or a follower in abandoning that distinction, but pretty much all universities changed that system during the 1960s. For that matter, up through the mid 1960s women could not compete in varsity athletics, could not join the Band, and were restricted in many other ways - not to mention "lockout" and other in-loco-parentis rules in the women's dormitories (but not the men's). --MelanieN (talk) 05:20, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Not yet sure how to tackle the high tech/department sections but have started a civil rights section. BTW the fraternity articles (in particular Kappa Alpha Order, Sigma Nu, and Alpha Tau Omega) are remarkably coy about their histories of officially discriminating. --Erp (talk) 00:09, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

New student body statistics

Stanford has released new info for the Class of 2018 here: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/june/facsen-yearend-meeting-061214.html -download 18:25, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

File:Stanford Oval May 2011 panorama.jpg

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Stanford Oval May 2011 panorama.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on August 8, 2014. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2014-08-08. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:46, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Picture of the day

A panoramic view of the main quadrangle of Stanford University, with Memorial Church in the center background, as seen from across the grass-covered Oval. Opened in 1891, this private research university was established by former California governor Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane, in memory of their only child. The 8,180-acre (3,310 ha) campus is located in what is now Silicon Valley, and the university's graduates include founders of Google, Yahoo!, and Hewlett-Packard.Photograph: King of Hearts

I've taken this as an opportunity to start an article on the Main Quad at User:Erp/Sandbox Stanford Main Quad. Help and suggestions would be appreciated. In particular I could do with an annotated line drawing or map of the structure (also does anyone have a reliable source with how big the Quad is? --Erp (talk) 01:03, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

• If you've put it in main space before 8 August, ping me and I'll link the article from the blurb (or you can do it). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:18, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Today's Featured Picture

Today's Featured Picture, on the Wikipedia front page, is the magnificent panorama of the Oval and the entire Quad, taken by User:King of Hearts. I really think this is the best photo I have ever seen of the Quad. Thanks to User:Erp for creating the article Main Quad (Stanford University) in time to be linked from the Featured Picture description. --MelanieN (talk) 18:43, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Prestige and reputation

The second line in the article is currently about how Stanford is one of the most prestigious in the world. This seems to be pretty clear boosterism to me: vague and serving only to generate a non-NPOV positive impression of the university. Any thoughts on why the Stanford article might be an exception? — DroEsperanto (talk) 17:34, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

It appears to be a pretty well-sourced statement that is important for readers to understand about this subject. It's not nearly as well-sourced as I would like, however, and I understand the caution against including the material and the slippery slope argument. But this seems like a well warranted exception since it is well-accepted, supported by multiple high-quality reliable sources, and of central importance for this subject. ElKevbo (talk) 18:08, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the sentence crosses the line into blatant boosterism and the offending content should be removed or softened. Other superlatives like the largest campus or record of athletic success are revealingly left in less prominent positions. Dealing with boosterism crap like this has really driven me away from wanting to make substantive contributions anymore. Madcoverboy (talk) 19:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree that the sentence is a bit too much. Note that top-fundraising and most selective are ephemeral and a bit too narrow. Next year Harvard might regain the top selective (for the US) or some extremely wealthy person leaves their fortune to some obscure university in Mississippi. Also is it the most selective world wide? The phrase "one of the most prestigious universities in the world" is supportable. --Erp (talk) 05:07, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it's important to note all three factors, and I disagree about the boosterism; it is indisputable that Stanford is one of the top universities in the world. All three factors are critical pieces of information for the user to understand the topic. I'm going to refine the "most selective" statement though. The "top fundraising" part can always be edited out if the situation changes, but Stanford has been the top fundraising university for the last several years and this is not just a one-year thing. -download 02:00, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Personally I hope it is the most prestigious university because of the great research and graduates that it produces not because it can raise the most money. It is also highly US centric since according to the article cited top fundraising is strictly in comparison to other US institutions (I suspect some of the Gulf States are pouring large amounts of money into local universities) and is also only about donated money not money gotten from research grants/contracts or tuition or income from the endowment. Note no amount of donor money would make a bad university prestigious on the world stage (though it might make it internationally infamous instead of locally infamous). --Erp (talk) 02:40, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

The organization of the lead

In my opinion, the lead can be roughly separated into 4 parts, including a very brief description (the location), the history, the current academic status and non-academic ones (e.g. endowment/sports). Thus, the organization of the academic schools and the recent acceptance rate should belong to the third section, the academic profile.

I'm not sure if the acceptance rate is accurate and crucial enough to be added on the lead since each School maintains its own selectivity of applicants. Also, I believe the sentence about the student populations there is redundant as such numbers are clearly displayed just on the right hand side by the infobox, similar to the case of the section of university rankings where information already summarized and shown by the ranking template were removed. Biomedicinal (contact) 15:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

You raise several issues here: whether to include that information at all, and if so where to put it.

About the location of these two sentences: The University is organized into seven academic Schools with a student body of approximately 7,000 undergraduates and 8,900 graduates.[7] Its most recent acceptance rate, 5.69% for the Class of 2017, was the lowest in the university's history.[17] These two sentences used to be wedged into the paragraph about distinguished alumni. I moved them from there because I felt they interrupted the flow of the paragraph and seemed to be about something else. You moved them back into that paragraph. However, that paragraph's topic sentence (Stanford has nurtured many prominent alumni, and its academic reputation has made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.[13][14][15][16] ) suggests that it is about alumni and reputation. If you believe that paragraph is more generally about academics (which makes sense), then let's make its topic sentence say so. Make The University is organized into seven academic Schools with a student body of approximately 7,000 undergraduates and 8,900 graduates.[7] into its opening (topic) sentence. Move Its most recent acceptance rate, 5.69% for the Class of 2017, was the lowest in the university's history.[17] to the end of that paragraph.

About whether to include the sentence about the academic schools and the student body size: It seems reasonable that the introductory section should provide a sense of the scale or scope of the subject. That's what a lead section is for. I would like to see it included in the text. Just because something is in the infobox does not mean it should be removed from the text. On the contrary, an infobox is intended to "summarize key features of the page's subject"; the key features are still supposed to be included in the text.

About whether to include the admission rate for 2013: that has been the subject of some edit warring at this article, but the earlier objection was that it was being put into the article too soon, before the final numbers were released. Now that the final numbers HAVE been released, that argument falls away, and I think it is significant and relevant enough to include. It certainly implies something about academic reputation so it belongs in the academic reputation paragraph IMO. As for the different schools, that's irrelevant; the figure refers to undergraduate admissions - the class of 2017 - and "All undergraduates apply and are admitted to the university as a whole"[25] rather than to the individual schools of Engineering, Earth Sciences, or Humanities and Science (which are the only schools that have undergraduates).

I'll await further input; this article is watched by several hundred people and hopefully a few of them will weigh in. --MelanieN (talk) 18:40, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

It may be helpful to review what the relevant guidelines say about the lead of college and university articles: "This should include basic information: the name(s) of the institution, location (city name; describe multiple campuses if present), founder and founding name, and affiliation with any larger university system or major local affiliate network, if applicable. Give other names for which the university may be known (e.g. Cal) and bold them, too. Use italic text for names that aren't in English. A thumbnail sketch of the dominant and distinguishing characteristics should be given in the lead, and expanded later. Attributes should include public/private, coeducational/single-sex, 2/4-year, religious affiliation if applicable, and type (liberal arts college, multi-school university, vocational school, research institution, community college, etc.). It should be mentioned whether it is an undergraduate-only institution, or if graduate programs are present (and if so, specific stand-alone programs like medical, law, and divinity schools should be mentioned). Do not include images in the lead; they should be placed elsewhere. The lead should not include information not covered in the main body of the article. Summarize the rest of the article without giving undue weight to any particular section (such as rankings) and mention distinguishing academic, historical, or demographic characteristics. The lead should be a concise summary of the entire article – not simply an introduction." ElKevbo (talk) 20:51, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I see your points. Maybe, the statement "Stanford's academic reputation has made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world." can act as the topic sentence of the third part since it can provide a brief concept to the readers that this section is about the academics. Biomedicinal (contact) 10:51, 26 January 2014‎ (UTC)

I see that you put the admission information into the "Academics" section, where it has more historic context; in that case it can probably be deleted from the lead. I still think that the sentence about the schools and the student body would be the best topic sentence for the "academics" paragraph, with the "prestige" sentence coming second as a natural lead-in or transition to the rest of the paragraph being about prestige and reputation. --MelanieN (talk) 22:18, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay. Can we change it now? Or further input should be waited for? Biomedicinal (contact) 15:30, 27 January 2014‎ (UTC)

I'd say go ahead with those changes. The guideline quoted by ElKevbo may need to be looked at to see if we are missing some things from the lead section. --MelanieN (talk) 19:18, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I just changed the organisation of the lead in the following order so as to stick more closely to the flow of the article:

1. History
2. Campus & Organisation/admin.
3. Academics & student life
4. Noted alumni

Biomedicinal (contact)

I moved the history part back into its own paragraph. My reasoning is not only that it flows better, but because of the fact that the lede is already a short passage in itself. As such, the first paragraph should serve as a clear summary of Stanford, and not just cover the history. -download ׀ talk 04:26, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I like the way you've restructured the lede. However, after reading it a few times, I think that one of the downsides of the current lede is that some elements are awkwardly placed in less-than-ideal places. I'll work on moving things around in the next week or so. -download 04:45, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I see your reason. I've been revising my thought of how to organize the lead since the discussion on the Cambridge talk page, where a user disliked the separation between the introductory and the historical parts. Perhaps we can separate them if the historical part is lengthy. Moreover, I think the academic divisions and fundraising issue should be more about the organisation/admin. as stipulated by the guidelines. Biomedicinal (contact)

Thanks for your help on this. Currently a couple placements seem a bit awkward--I see where you are coming from regarding the campus/organization vs. academics/life paragraphs, but it seems a bit strange for "Its academic departments are organized into seven Schools with a student body of approximately 7,000 undergraduates and 8,900 graduates." and "Stanford is a highly residential university with a slight majority of enrollments coming from graduate and professional students." to be placed separately even though they are about much the same topic. Furthermore, the sentence "It is also home to the papers of Martin Luther King, Jr." is also uncomfortable. Do you have any ideas? -download 07:37, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

That's fine. Maybe, your version is better. I'm just thinking if something about the academics should be added to the forth part of the lead which currently only talks about student life. It's better for the lead to follow the flow of the whole article which was stated in my last response above. Biomedicinal (contact)

Hey, thanks for inviting me to this discussion again. I agree that it's important to follow the flow of the article, and I definitely think academics would be valuable to add to the lede. However, I don't think it is worth sacrificing readability and flow of the lede just to follow the organization of the entire article to a T. I think the lede currently flows very well and conveys important information clearly, while I recall that when we tried to artificially make it so that it perfectly matched the organization of the article, it did not read as well. -download 04:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

OK. Here comes another issue regarding the first part. I think prestige comprises fundraising (the wealth) and the selectivity already. So, I'm not sure if it's necessary to highlight these two factors before describing the University's status of being one of the most reputable. Biomedicinal (contact)