Talk:Tufts University

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This article is part of WikiProject Universities, an attempt to standardise coverage of Universities and colleges. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this notice, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

This article, relative to articles about other major universities, is far too brief.

Contents 1 Vandalism 2 Student Life, Culture, and Sports 3 History 4 structure 5 boosterism 6 Tufts redirect and disambiguation 7 Reputation 8 Reputation of Certain Programs 9 "Safety at Tufts"?? 10 Publications 11 Photography 12 Ad cleanup 13 Recent Developments 14 Omidyar money 15 Context in the intro

[edit] Vandalism

It seems likely to me that these pages (like most colleges and universities) will be a frequent target of vandalism... please bear in mind, should you find vandalism, that it's more useful to revert to a good previous version than to attempt to un-edit the vandalism. There's usually more involved than just the one you noticed (in the case of stuff I just reverted, eight or ten little changes.) Pjmorse 02:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Student Life, Culture, and Sports

Let's open the discussion on what to do with student groups: right now the a cappella groups enjoy their own special heading separate from any other student organizations. This doesn't make sense as there are many other popular student activities at Tufts that aren't recieving this special treatment. It seems to me that no student group should be mentioned in the main body of the Tufts entry unless it is important to defining the University...for instance, the Bubs might be mentioned by name in a section that discusses musical offerings at Tufts since the group is a big draw for some candidates for admission. It would, as an alternative, be perfectly appropriate to include links to groups that have their own Wikipedia entry but don't necessarily define the University in the 'See Also' section. Thus we eliminate the problem of merging the Mates' stub with the main article, since any info on the Mates can be linked to the See Also section. LGDubs 16:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Also to be considered: the dubious graph about the sailing team which was recently added. - Pjmorse 02:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that someone should add a note about S-Factor, which is a new a capella group on campus. I don't know much about them however. Himynameistimli 05:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the Group of Six (Which includes the Africana Center, Asian American Center, International Center, Latino Center, LGBT Center, and Womens Center) play a large role in campus culture...

Also I think that something should be said about fraternities and sororities on campus...

And in addition to the part about the TCU Senate and student government, something should be said about Programming Board, which is the umbrella organization for all of the Class Councils, Film Series, Lecture Series, Concert Board, Entertainment Board, and TUSC (Tufts University Spirit Coalition) and maybe there could be little discriptions about each smaller ogranization. Like TUSC organizes many of the "spirit" events like the Homecoming Rally, and Tuftonias Day, and the Senior Class council is in charge of all the senior pub nights, and senior class gifts. I would try to write this stuff..but I'm real new/bad at this wikipedia stuff..

[edit] History

Right, looks like we need to have some discussion about whether the history section does or does not belong. Present your arguments, folks. Pjmorse 23:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I created the history section on 1 December 2005, but I don't think that since then it's become either cohesive or complete. I'm for removing it until someone can give it the attention it needs. skeeJay 14:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

So...........no one has a problem with me removing it? skeeJay 17:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll play devil's advocate: I do think it's important, and possibly even necessary, that an article about an institution like Tufts explain its history. And I think we'll do better even with an uncohesive/incomplete section which might be edited by someone with some spare time and/or research than with no such section. So I'm in favor of it staying, perhaps with a bullet in the to-dos about what we'd like to fix. I'm still interested in pitching in, but I'm absolutely slammed by work, probably for the duration of the semester. My vote would be to leave it in with a to-do list notation, and if nobody has gotten to it by June or so, I'll head up to Tisch (assuming I ever see the outside of Halligan again) and do some research. Pjmorse 23:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I've got some time to work on history (and I can shoot some leafy-green summer campus photos as well, if that would be useful.) Do people have specific feedback about what kind of information they'd like to see in the History section? Pjmorse 13:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you all think that there should be a larger section dedicated to the history of jumbo? It's always mentioned in the tours, so maybe it's important? And what do you think about pulling different pictures from the tufts digital archives for the early history of Tufts. Also, do you think that we could upload the video for the capital campaign for tufts? I have it stored on my computer and I want to upload it somewhere where people can watch it. Himynameistimli

Does any one think it's important to note the massive steps Tufts has taken to rebrand itself? Like the new logo is the most obvious thing, but they've also taken steps to revamp their undergraduate admissions website. I think it's funny to know that the campus center was never completely finished. And JUMBO III is in the works! Lostmortal 07:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] structure

I'm planning on gradually updating this page to more closely conforms to the WikiProject Universities suggested structure (but not exactly; there are certain parts of the structure that I feel don't suit the school; e.g. a section on the 'Institution' instead of 'Organization' allows a broader description of the schools and campuses, a la the Harvard page). Also, to avoid another neutrality argument in the future, I want to remove some of the ambiguous propoganda that's in the article now (like that vague paragraph about Tufts' "mission") and add some balanced and frequently-documented criticism. I am a student of the school, but I feel like this stuff needs to be here in the interest of neutrality. Skeejay 15:20, 13 Oct, 2005 (UTC)

Skeejay, amazing work on this page! I haven't been here in a month, and you've worked wonders with it! It's surely shorter, but that encourages quality, moderated growth - much better than the sometimes-schlocky stuff we had up there before. Bravo, sir. I guess the best way to repay you would be to chip in with some extra information. Once I finish writing this Philosophy essay, I'll stop by and see what I can add. The image servers are down right now, so I can't see the photos we're using, but I've been taking some this semester with the intent of finding a place for them on this article. Watch for that and be sure to provide feedback, all. Anyway, well done, Skeejay! Coolhappysteve 07:29, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Also maybe add a list of the abundant cultural organizations the university has - not all clubs though, just the prominent ones under categories for example ethnic groups, religious groups, political groups etc. Shaojian 19:48, 23 Oct, 2005 (UTC)

Um, distressed to see the "Tufts Goggles" changes, so I removed them. The Naked Quad Run also seems to be a controversial point, so I pulled it, but I'd agree that it fits in a discussion of campus traditions (so long as it's handled with some neutrality.)

There's clearly some unsettledness about the "campus diversity" section based on its tortured wording and attempts to present both sides, but I haven't been here long enough to feel justified in yanking any of it.

Skeejay, if you want help, let me know, particularly over winter break. Pjmorse 15:08, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Good points, Pjmorse. I think NQR definitely needs to be worked back in, as that's a pretty defining feature of campus culture. Dan 19:09, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, Pjmorse and Coolhappysteve. Some help would be great. What I was thinking next was completing the information on 'campuses' and then taking care of a 'history' section. Thanks for cleaning up some of the other idiocy; I thought the NQR section was fairly unbiased before 219.77.86.166's changes this morning, but you can check me on that before we restore it. Skeejay 22:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Re-added information about the NQR to 'culture.' Tried to make it unbiased; one sentence describing the event, and one citing the 2002 controversy. Let me know what you guys think. Changes to the paragraph should probably be discussed here before being added to the article. 130.64.87.226 04:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Is there any way that someone can add the Pumpkining of Campus in as one of the Tufts Traditions. I would except I am new at this and have this incredible fear of messing it up and looking like a fool TMcMahan 05:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

TMcMahan, I'm a grad student and my life is limited to Halligan (and a few other corners of campus.) Explain "The Pumpkining of Campus" to me here, and I'll make your words into something main-entry-worthy... if they aren't already. Pjmorse 02:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

TMcMahan, I agree that the pumpkining should be added. It is prominant and significant. (Every Halloween, the Tufts Mountain Club famously decorates campus by placing pumpkins in hilarious and absurd places.) For that matter, I've heard that the TMC moving the gravity rock around used to be a common tradition. Do you know anything about that? skeeJay 03:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to note that Tufttonia's Day is also Tufts' birthday? 130.64.99.136

[edit] boosterism

There's a huge amount of boosterism going on here lately, including the a cappella groups. As it stands right now, the Mates article is a stub (and has been marked for merging with this article) and the Bubs article is a biased mess. The best solution I can think of right now (short of giving each group their own article) is an article dedicated to the a cappella scene at Tufts. If no one has a real problem with that route, I'll implement in a couple of days. In the meantime, I'll move the merge notice to the Mates article, where I think it's better suited. skeeJay 23:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Tufts has a rivalry with Bates? Does Bates know? Pjmorse 14:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of boosterism, why is there now a whole section on Blackout, when none of the a cappella groups are mentioned individually? It's not even like the section mentions other step teams on campus.Sam927 22:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tufts redirect and disambiguation

Currently, the entry for Tufts redirects here, and there is no disambiguation for other uses of Tufts at the beginning of this article. I'd suggest Charles Tufts and Sonny Tufts as other likely destinations, either in a disambig page or at the top of this entry (the latter assuming we keep the redirect). --Zippy 21:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that makes sense. I would still have Tufts redirect here, especially because the VAST majority of inquiries will be concerning the university. But I think a link to a disambig line at the top of the page makes sense. (For that matter, the disambig page should probably have Tufts Health Plan on it....) skeeJay 19:36, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reputation

Can someone add a section on Tufts' reputation (academics, athletics, and such)? I go to this school, so I'm not really NPOV.

I agree, little attention is focused on Tufts' academic reputation, aside from its' selectivity. Is this possible to fix in an update?

[edit] Reputation of Certain Programs

Can someone add a discussion and/or overview of some of Tufts' more distinguished programs, particularily in International Relations and pre-med?

- There should be a dedicated section pertaining to Academics as well.

Negative; not if we're going by anything close to the WikiProject:Universities. I'm not saying we should, I disagree with a lot of its suggestions, but it makes a good point: academics should probably be in the article about a specific school and not the entire university. skeeJay 17:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Safety at Tufts"??

I have to admit, I don't know if a section on a particular department like that is appropriate unless you can distinguish it from other schools in some way. Imagine the craziness if each department had it's own section like that. In terms of university police departments, I'm not sure if this is noteworthy, and it sounds like boosterism. Add in the fact that it's been almost a decade since the Clearly Award. I'm going to have to vote for nuking it. skeeJay 22:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Three days without a response. I'm removing the section; if there's any debate, please post here before reverting. skeeJay 22:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Publications

Arbitrarily deleting the Observer != NPOV. --Pjmorse 05:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Ditto Primary Source. You (and I) may disagree with what they say, but trying to silence them is not the answer. --Pjmorse 02:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, this is getting old. Here's the new rule: if you remove any publication, I'm going to revert your change unless you explain why (e.g. "They don't exist anymore," or similar solid explanation.) Likewise, edits to discussion of the Primary Source's sophomoric "satire" will be reverted, no matter how much I may agree with you, if you demonstrate a lack of NPOV by, say, deleting an entry from Campus Publications at the same time.

There's a place for discussion of this pathetic little episode; Wikipedia isn't it.--Pjmorse 22:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photography

Look, I think a lot of the new photography looks gorgeous, but I question the informational value of some of it. Several of the individual photos come across as advertising the school instead of providing supplemental information or perspective. The "views of Tufts" section, particularly, is not part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Universities template and doesn't belong in the history section. Certain photographs (e.g. the one labeled "Carmichael Hall") are nice but certainly don't tell you ANYTHING visually about the campus or grounds. The new photographs, I think, need to be pruned for appropriateness. Any thoughts? skeeJay 06:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• ok, I'll take a look at the photos. I'm pretty new at wiki-ing, so I was just trying to help as best I could. I will try to include only photos that are helpful.

• Hey, I think that the picture with the comment about the new music building doesn't correspond to the quote. It talks about the new music building, but I think that the picture is of cohen auditorium Himynameistimli 05:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• I just cut a bunch of photos that I thought were the least descriptive; I also moved all photos to the right of the page to make it more readable (photos going from left and right make the page painful to look at in my opinion), and reduced the size of all images to be of maximum width 250 (some were unnecessarily HUGE before at up to 400px). Feel free to undo or discuss any changes I made that you don't agree with. --CapitalR 06:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• I agree that the gallery was massively overkill, and fairly obviously advertising considering that all of the photos were attributed to university photography Melody Ko. I would argue that some of the photographs that have been removed had solid encyclopedic merit, including: the logo of Tufts Athletics; the former version of the official school seal; a thumbnail of the "cannon," an extremely prominent fixture on campus; and perhaps two campus shots that were illustrative in establishing the terrain and climate of the main campus. I'd point you back to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tufts_University&oldid=79655770 as an example of what I'd consider adequate photography. Let me know what your thoughts are. skeeJay 20:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• • The old campus seal might be a good candidate, especially if it doesn't still exist, and the logo probably as well-an uncopyrighted version really couldn't be made of that. The cannon and "terrain and climate" shots are replaceable fair use, though, as presumably the cannon still exists, and certainly the campus does, so they wouldn't work as fair use. What you might try, though, is to contact the school. They may be willing to GFDL release a few publicity shots, especially if you tell them it would be for use in their Wikipedia article. I've had good luck with this approach more than once. Publicity shots are intended to be widely distributed anyway. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 20:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• • (By the way, since I've done this before, I'd be happy to contact them if anyone needs, but since there are apparently some alumni here, they might get a better reception.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 20:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• • • Yes, that was how I obtained those two campus photos. (I thought I had added that to the license information.) They are publicly released publicity photos of the school. Not sure about the cannon, photograph, though, I will look into it. skeeJay 20:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• • • Publicly released/"permission to use" doesn't work though, unless it's totally unrestricted use or attribution-only. It looked like those were "no commercial use" type licenses. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 20:53, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ad cleanup

This article is very much in need of some ad cleanup. It could've been (and for all I know, was) written and approved by the school's marketing department. I'll do some snipping and placing text into a neutral tone if I can find the time. I'm really not sure the massive picture gallery is necessary either, that just makes it look all the more like a prospective-student brochure. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 05:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't primarily written by anyone employed by Tufts, but surely by lots of people who attend or have attended (full disclosure: myself included). What sections do you think are most like an advertisement? The facts all seem correct to the best of my knowledge. --CapitalR 06:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Facts can be correct and the overall tone can still read like ad copy. For example, consider the following two statements:

• "Consumer Reports rated Brand X Widgets as 'overall best in category' in 1998. However, since then, the ratings have slipped steadily downward, to 19th out of 50 in 2006." (this would probably be appropriate for an encyclopedia.)
• "Consumer Reports agrees, you just can't beat Brand X Widgets! _{According to a 1998 article. Some restrictions, exclusions, limitations, and disclaimers may apply. Just because we said something doesn't mean we're really meant any of it.}" (this goes in an ad)

In both cases, the facts are true, per se, but it's all about tone and presentation. There was a whole lot of fair use imagery that I've removed, per the fair use policy-they were all decorative and most are very replaceable with free images. A lot more of it is written with subjective adjectives. (The a capella singer section was one, we don't need a list of every group. A very brief overview of the program might work.) The article should focus a lot more on what the college is, its verifiable history, its effect on the surrounding world, and very importantly, no boosterism in the tone. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 06:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• • Yeah, I completely agree actually that this article was too much like an ad and contained too much superfluous information. Good working cutting down so far; I'll work adding more useful information later on. --CapitalR 12:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems as though cleanup on this article has stopped, and that most of the boosterism has been removed. Time to remove the template? Seraphimblade, should I go ahead and restore the Tufts seal and Tufts Atheletics logos we discussed? skeeJay 15:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

After 3 days with no objections, I'll remove the template and restore the discussed photos. skeeJay 15:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see the comment on watch. No objections. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 17:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it was proper to remove all of the photos. While I could concede that a few of them could have been deleted, the majority of them offer great merit. I am from Montana, a long way from Boston. Like many students applying to universities, I utilized Wikipedia to research possible schools, and the most helpful pages were the ones with photos. I am a student at Tufts, and asked the school for those phots and put them up myself. Many schools have campus photos, and I see it fit for Tufts to have the same. A prospective student cannot trust with absolute certainty the written content of this page, he/she can however trust a photograph to give an honest representation of what the campus looks like. Certainly, what the campus looks and feels like is much more important to a student or visitor than some rubbish story about the cannon. Please reconsider what it is we are trying to do here. The purpose is to provide information. It lacks foresight and recognition of the times to exclude visual information from Wikipedia. While I agree some of the photos didn't offer much, many did. You removed photos of: the president's lawn, the academic quad, the library, a homecoming tradition, etc. Again, I go to Tufts, those few photos said more about Tufts than most of what is written on this page. Pmurph07 18:17, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

If Tufts is willing to release those photos under the GNU Free Documentation License, the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike license, or to the public domain, we can certainly use them. However, our fair use policy prohibits us from using photos under more restrictive licenses (including "no commercial use" licenses) for decorative purposes. Of course, if you go to Tufts, you could certainly do a few things-ask the school to license the photos that way, or snap some yourself (in which case you, of course, are the copyright holder and can choose to license them that way). Even so, though, this is an encyclopedia article, not a college brochure, and only a certain number will be appropriate. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 18:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, that is fair. I will contact Tufts. Pmurph07 20:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Developments

Would anyone consider adding a section about the Sophia Gordon Dormitory or the Granoff Music Center? Would it be appropriate to place it in this section? Lostmortal 07:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Lostmortal, I believe it would be, especially considering the investment involved the uniqueness of the dorm. Any other opinions on this? skeeJay 15:15, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Omidyar money

I've seen this one mistakenly edited several times, and it seems to need noting. Pierre and Pam Omidyar have made two large gifts to Tufts. The first, $10M in 2000, is cited with the Tisch College section; the second, $100M in 2006, is under Recent Developments. The Tisch College one has been "corrected" to $100M several times. Please don't bother doing it again? --Pjmorse 14:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Context in the intro

Cuivienen, I certainly agree that the information you've added to the intro paragraph is true, but the intro is not the correct place for it. Lots of what you're adding seems to be details and context more appropriate for sections on the page as opposed to the intro, which should be brief and to-to-the point, pointing out the major aspects of the university. Phrases like "the modern incarnation of the Universalist church" and "a Franco-American nutritionist" are generally not appropriate in the Wiki format, since they don't provide crucial context and the user could easily just click on the Wikilink to get that kind of extraneous information. The inline citation of the Newsweek Kaplan College Guide is already provided as a footnote reference and should not be inline within the intro.

If you'd like to discuss these changes further, I'm all for it. skeeJay 17:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)