Talk:University of Manchester

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Contents 1 Miscellaneous 2 Contact theatre 3 Massive attack of POV 4 Definite Article 5 The largest single site University in the UK - not! 6 Strength and standing 7 THE university of manchester 8 movement 9 Famous old boys 10 section 11 Famous academic staff and alumni 12 University ratings 13 School of Informatics 14 North and South Campus terminology

[edit] Miscellaneous

I have cleaned this article up so it looks like something approaching an encyclopaedia article. It still needs some work, but it's better than it was. It appears that it was originally copied verbatim from [1]. I have contacted the owner for permission; if he refuses I'll revert to an older version. —Wereon 19:15, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

P.S. Do any Latin-speakers have a translation for the University motto, Arduus ad solem?

I asked the PR dept at U of M about the logo, and they have now inserted the current moto. They will also provide the approved translation in due course. Billlion 09:46, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It means striving towards the sun - P.Lai

Thanks, but that was the old Victoria University of Manchester logo. The new one is "Cognitio, sapientia, hvmanitas" and a Translaton is given .Billlion 21:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

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What's the section about the famous figures in Science on the bottom of this article for? If it's because there's a hall of fame at Manchester (I've never heard of it and I'm a student there) then that should go in a seperate article, if it even deserves to be in the Wikipedia.

(I think it was there because they're all either former alumni or staff of the university, it's on the Victoria University page now, but I think it needs some cleaning-up).

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I've slightly rewritten the introduction. I appreciate that the page is somewhat incomplete still, I shall add some more stuff when I have time. What I'm planning is something along the lines of: an 'About' section with a slightly more indepth overview of the the university, current research etc; then a 'History' - with a brief summary, then links to Victoria and UMIST pages for further details; 'Campus' - description of campuses, links to halls, subsections about notable buildings - Jodrell Bank and John Rylands, etc.; then perhaps a brief note about 'famous alumni', with a link to a more detailed alumni list. I shall also add a box (as for Cambridge, Harvard, etc) with a brief summary of facts about the university. If anyone has any good pictures of some of the more impressive university buildings and the John Ryland library to add to this page that would be good.--Iceaxejuggler 13:39, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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The table on this page has some trouble with my browser/skin (Firefox 0.9.3, Cologne Blue); the text is overlapping the right edge of the table and 'bleeding' onto the background. Not sure why. Radagast 14:05, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Text bleeds to the right on konqueror 3.2.0 too. Must be a problem with the template rather than this instance? Billlion 15:36, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Contact theatre

This sounds like an advertismesnt. Can some one who knows this theatre write something encyclopedic please. There is also a stub for the theatre that says less than here. Does not seem in place in this article Billlion 20:31, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Massive attack of POV

User:130.88.177.15 seems to have a campaign of posting large amounts of propaganda about the bright future of this institution from the University's web site. When this settles down can someone please revert it, or extract anything suitably encylopedica from this gush of optimitic rhetoric? Billlion 22:11, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have deleted the gush about the University's future. Nearly all university leaders say similar such nonsense and this isn't very encyclopedic. In any case there is already a reference in the introduction: "One of the stated ambitions of the newly combined university is to 'establish it by 2015 among the 25 strongest research universities in the world on commonly accepted criteria of research excellence and performance'" and a link to the strategy for those interested.--Iceaxejuggler 00:11, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am in two minds about this now. Direct quotes from Alan Gilbert are at least clearly POV. I think the thing that needs to be expressed is that the motivation for merger was to haul ourselves up the league tables rather than save money on efficiency savings. I had a go at editing the straight propaganda a bit, and I feel a bit more could be included. Its hard to be objective as those close enough to the university to know are likely to be biased. Billlion 08:17, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I moved some direct quotes by Alan Gilbert to his own page. Although that page seems a shade on the hostile side of neutral.Billlion 13:38, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Has the PR department been at work here? Although most of it's undoubtedly true, its tone is too promotional. The article needs to be more encyclopedic, i.e. more objective... Cal T 22:55, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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As far as I know the official name of the university is "The University of Manchester" and not "University of Manchester". Should the title of the article be modified to reflect this? I have not edited anything before in Wikipedia, so I am unsure of what should be done. --NavarroJ 08:40, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well yes in a way. See for example University of Manchester Act 2004, but the define article in this act is also applied to The Victoria University of Manchester and The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. And it is wikipedia policy to avoid The in article titles. I suspect many universitys have The in their Royal Charter, but in this case the University's PR people are trying to push the use of "The" as a branding issue. My suggestion is leave the The out Billlion 20:06, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Definite Article

It is my understanding that the University's policy is that its name shall be "The University of Manchester", with a capital T in "The". Is there any reason why I shouldn't move the article from University of Manchester to The University of Manchester? --Stemonitis 12:27, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I can't see why not. But remember to make the University of Manchester page redirect to the new one. David 20:09, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Done --Stemonitis 12:50, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is not to use the definite article (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)#Universities), so I've moved it back. - Green Tentacle 18:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The largest single site University in the UK - not!

The article begins (began) with a claim to be the largest single site University, yet further down the page, it describes the University as being split between the old UMIST site, the old VMU site and "a number of other sites". The Open University has more students, Warwick University probably has a bigger single site (mostly green, but so what?). The University of London also has more students, though one could argue that the federation is very loose. But MU's claims need to be substantiated.

The former UMIST and VUM sites are very close, certainly closer than Gibbet Hill or Westwood sites at Warwick are to their main campus. In fact the two Universities overlapped for example at the School of Management, and some shared departments and facilities before merger. However the claim from the University of Manchester's publicity is that it is larger in terms of having more full time students that any other UK University, apart from the "University of London", which of course is only a "single university" in name. UCL, Imperial, KCL etc being fiercly independent. The claim is really "the largest number of full time students if you dont count University of London as one unit" Billlion 07:14, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Here are some student numbers quoted from Wikipedia.

• University of London total 115,000, eg UCL 3,800, Imperial 10,731
• Open University 180,000
• University of Manchester 35,546
• Manchester Metropolitan around 20,000 full time and 10,000 part time
• Leeds 31,500
• Oxford 17,000
• Warwick 17,904

University of Leeds has 7,228 places.

I can't see any other British university larger than Manchester. Open University doesn't count as it's not a conventional university and the University of London is a lose collection of London based unis. David 19:19, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Although the University of Manchester is often described as on two sites, this is purely a legacy from when the University's were seperate entities. The campus although clustered in two distinct areas (Oxford Road and Sackville Street) are linked together by a number of buildings along Oxford Road and Upper Brook Street, including a number of new building under construction, such as the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre, and the AMPPS Building 23:24, 15/08/2005

[edit] Strength and standing

This could do with some sort of comment upon the university's current academic strength and it's standing compared with other universities in the UK. I'm not in a position to do this, but the article is lacking something like that.

Very hard to do in an encylopedic and objective way. There are league tables of course but they are all flawed. Please add comments to bottom of Talk pages and sign using three tildes. Billlion 18:06, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] THE university of manchester

its not 'university of manchester', but 'the university of manchester' i moved this page and added redirects, but its been moved back and renamed.? why? Rog 12:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

When did you do that, and what username were you using at the time? As far as I can tell, the page hasn't been moved for quite some time. Talrias (t | e | c) 12:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, i looked at that actually and couldn't see it either- think i did it as a guest? i guess it must have been about october/nov?. i don't come here that often.. the other thing i looked at after posting the above is that all the other uni's - so perhaps everything on wiki has the 'the' missing. i don't believe it should, i think it sounds disjointed and it is part of the actual name. but you know, its sometimes worth bowing under the populus pressure eh.Rog 20:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

da da:

"Definite Article

It is my understanding that the University's policy is that its name shall be "The University of Manchester", with a capital T in "The". Is there any reason why I shouldn't move the article from University of Manchester to The University of Manchester? --Stemonitis 12:27, 3 September 2005 (UTC) I can't see why not. But remember to make the University of Manchester page redirect to the new one. David 20:09, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Done --Stemonitis 12:50, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is not to use the definate article (see Wikipedia,Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)Universities), so I've moved it back. - Green Tentacle 18:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)" Rog

Stuff the Wikipedia policy just use common sense. "The" is part of its name and so it should be used in the title of the article. By all means create a divert page but do things as they really are. Xania 18:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't have much sympathy for 'stuffing' wikipedia policy(!), but more importantly here the insistance on the use of "The" in the title is a branding/marketing decision rather than a part of its legal name as defined in its charter and statutes. It's really part of the rebranding exercise after the merger and is more marketing fluff that substance, sort of the empahsise "the one and only" University of Manchester. Billlion 19:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Oops, retract that! It is in the charter and statutes [2]

doubly embarassing as I helped write them.Billlion 20:00, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] movement

The university has adopted a policy of moving almost entirely to the Oxford Road site

source please, i've certainly not heared anyone mention this in my department (eee) and they still seem to be building some kind of new interdisaplinary research favailicy pretty close to the umist end. not to mention all the work they've been doing to the sackville street building recently (including the very posh new cetre for excelence in enquiry based learing) Plugwash 02:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

ok its a bit better now but i still think its greatly exagerrating whats going on. i know they are builing a new maths building (not sure if its going to be on the site of the one they are tearing down or not) but is there actually any expansion of facilities going on and if so what and where (i don't count tearing down a building to build a new one of similar size on its site as expansion). Plugwash 16:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The School of Mathematics is currently in foour buildings. See campus map. Lamb and Newmann (89 an 88 on th map) buildings are temporary buildings either side of Booth Street East (on the "former UMIST" side of "former VUM" campus), while MSS Building (21) Ferranti Building (20) are on the former UMIST capmus. The new building (Called "AMPS" for the moment) has already been started ( pictures )and is located next to the west of Schuster Physics building (54) on what is indicated as "Car Park C" on the map. The site of the former maths tower is going to be a new student oriented complex with enormous lecture theatres as well as student support services. The recently completed Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (16 on the map) was commisioned by UMIST just before the Project Unity talks began, but nevertheless can be counted as expansion on the former UMIST site. One reason that the University tries to avoid talking of North and South Campus as distinct is because it bolsters its PR claim to be the biggest single campus university in the UK. In fact the former campuses of UMIST and VUM overlapped anyway. UMIST's School of Management was on the Oxord Road, and the Material Sciences Department was already a joint department.Billlion 19:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok so the maths deparments moving as it consolidates, thats one new building and one pulled down so no significant change there! (there may be depending on what replaces the old maths tower ofc is that planned in any way?) is there any other movement that could substatiate that paragraph or should i just rip it completely.

As I said the old maths tower site is to be used mainly for big lecture theatres and student facilities. I can't give an externally available reference for that yet. But as there are no immediate plans and only speculation on any of the buildings on the former UMIST site being sold off. Best to delete, and wait until plans are actually announced.Billlion 20:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

and what exactly do you mean by tempory buildings? actual temporary structures? locations that are normally used for something else? buildings rented from outside? Plugwash 03:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Lamb and Newman are two-story prefabricated buildings without foundations, they are temorary in the sense that they are will be moved and used for some other purpose when the AMPS project is complete. A picture makes it clear Lamb building, Newman building. [[User:Billlion

|Billlion]] 20:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The new project on the old maths tower site is provisionally called the SCAN building see eg [3] (word doc). [4]

Billlion 13:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC) S: I'm confused - not sure I am doing - save some for me!

[edit] Famous old boys

As I understand it, quite a few famous people from 'Manchester University' have gone on to be succesful and from memory (OK just checked all the articles and they all state Univ of M except Zoe Ball so I'd be grateful for confirmation there), these include Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmonson, Steve Coogan, and Zoe Ball and Euros Lyn. Can anyone confirm that these people attended the university, and if so, should there be an additional section at the foot of the article to include these people? DavidFarmbrough 11:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Well most of those should be changed to point to victoria university of manchester (which was widely known as the university of manchester before the merger). The university described here was only formed in 2004 so i doubt it has many highly sucessfull graduates yet! Plugwash 12:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] section

the following was in the article Whitworth Park:

Whitworth Park is Manchester University's largest hall of residence with over 1000 residents, located on Oxford Road, part of the 'City Campus'. It is in a central location on the University of Manchester campus, close to sports centre, libraries and Students Union. It comprises of eight low-rise houses containing one to three storey flats for groups of seven, eight or nine students. Accommodation is in single study bedrooms, with shared kitchen, lounge and bathroom in each flat.

Grove House houses the administrative and social centre of the community. Facilities include two squash courts, launderette, bar, gym and large dance hall. Whitworth Park has an Active Residents Association. Postgraduate students are housed in parts of Leamington and in Acomb. Acomb consists of twelve self-contained flats with 7 or 8 study bedrooms sharing kitchen, lounge, three showers and toilets.

I redirrected the article to here, and this can be incorporated into the text. Jon513 18:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Famous academic staff and alumni

This section breaks up the flow of the page and seems just to be a list. Wouldn't it be better at the end of the article or as a separate page altogether?Alex 11:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Also the category Category:People associated with the University of Manchester and its various sub-categories need to be populated and sorted, particularly to ensure that pre 2004 alumni are listed by component institute (and actually linking there). Timrollpickering 02:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The table of research incomes of leading UK Universities didn't really seem to belong here, since most of the information it contains doesn't really pertain directly to the University of Manchester. I've retained the figure for Manchester and the observation that it is the fifth largest in the UK, as a sentence in the section on "The present". Cambyses 09:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] University ratings

(I'm posting this to all articles on UK universities as so far discussion hasn't really taken off on Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities.)

There needs to be a broader convention about which university rankings to include in articles. Currently it seems most pages are listing primarily those that show the institution at its best (or worst in a few cases). See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#University ratings. Timrollpickering 22:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] School of Informatics

User:mholland wrote on my talk

Hi there. Category:Schools of Informatics seems to have been created and populated by User:Michael Fourman, but placing University of Manchester looks like good categorisation to me. The category page explains that it's for Universities which contain a school of informatics. And UoM is a member of Category:Nursing schools in the United Kingdom too. Would you reconsider uncat'ing it? (Ignore me if Manchester doesn't have such a department at all!) — mholland 15:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I take your point. First of all UoM used to have a School of Informatics. It was formed from the Department of Computation at UMIST after merger but has since been absorbed in to other schools. Secondly I would say the category is wrongly named, but that issue does not matter much here. Billlion 15:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. Thank you for clarifying. — mholland 15:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] North and South Campus terminology

I have reverted an edit that removed the terms North and South Campus, on the grounds of the terms as not being 'official'. What exactly is the definition of 'official' in this context? The terms seem to be used in various places, and documents on the university website, as a site search or Google site search will reveal. Surely this, and their use amongst students and staff gives the terms some de-facto legitimacy, and at least a justification for their inclusion in the article. I think they ought to be included, though explain their 'semi-official' status by all means. -- Fursday 14:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

As it says above under "The largest single site University in the UK" there is not really much of a gap. Actually the official policy just after merger was that the terms "vicinity of Sackville St " and "vicinity of Oxford Road" would be used an no official documents would say North and South Campus, perhaps to help the claim to be the largest single site university and avoid any confusion about the two parts being distinct campuses. The map [5] shows fairly well that the gap caused by the Mancunian way is pretty small, but there is a kind of waist separating the two parts. In any case I agree that the terminology is used informally. However I do not think it is a useful distinction. It is not even a clear way to divide former VUM and UMIST buildings as Material Science and Oddfellows, Aquatic Centre for example were joint and the UMIST part of what is now MBS is in the thick of the mainly VUM part. Please revert your revert. Billlion 16:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of the perceived usefulness or official status of the terms, they are nonetheless being used and that justifies their mention. From what I can tell, there seems to be confusion around the various disparate parts of the university as to their status as official terms, with some parts using them and others not. I have reworded the paragraph in question to this end. Fursday 17:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)