Talk:University of North Dakota

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the University of North Dakota article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

This article is within the scope of WikiProject North Dakota, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of North Dakota.

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.

[edit] Expansion/photos

I'd like to help out with the article. What sort of angles would you like to pursue?

Also, I would suggest against using UND's PR images in the article and try to take some pictures that can be fully released under the GPL. I realize my picture of the Chester Fritz is a bit washed out, but it is public domain. I have several more photos of the campus that we could put up (including one of the "eternal flame" display out by Twamley), I'll post them up on the talk page here and see what to do with them. --Alexwcovington (talk) 10:14, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Here are the photos. I uploaded them to the Wikimedia Commons, it's actually surprisingly easy to use them, as you can see from the syntax here. Nevermind the table.  :P --Alexwcovington (talk) 11:28, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Blowing snow	Centennial Drive	Chester Fritz Library	Clifford Hall
Depression monument	Eternal flame	Memorial Union	Twamley Hall and field
Twamley Hall	Walsh Quad in winter

If you think it is better to not use the UND PR pics that's ok. Your pictures of the Library and Twamley are the best of the collection in my opinion. I'll put them in the article and we can see how that works. Also, maybe sometime I'll take a couple pictures around campus and see if I get anything good. --MatthewUND 18:47, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh yeah...as far as additions to the UND article. I was thinking about adding a "Research" section...that way we would have the "big three" covered: academics, athletics, and research. I made an article for the Red River Valley Research Corridor and we could link to that article from a new "Research" section. Other ideas of mine include a list somewhere in the UND article of notable alumni and a new article for the Dakota Student. --MatthewUND 18:53, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

I created a Dakota Student article today. --MatthewUND 09:26, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Cool. --Alexwcovington (talk) 11:26, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Notable alumni

I am new to Wikipedia but thought someone might want to clear up two things in the Notable Alumni section: the link to Thomas McGrath appears to be the wrong link and also Kimberly Krueger may be moderately notable but is not an alumna (she has not graduated). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.25.217.142 (talk • contribs).

Hey there, welcome to Wikipedia! You're right on both counts: the link to McGrath was wrong and Kruger really doesn't belong in this list. I'll fix both issues. Again, welcome! --MatthewUND^(talk) 06:29, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Largest Employer?

I am not sure about this largest employer statement. The quote made by the president does not seem accurate based on the approx. 2800 people when adding together the faculty and staff (are there other unknown employees?).

According to http://www.acinet.org/acinet/oview6.asp?soccode=&stfips=38&from=State&id=&nodeid=12 UND is #7 which looks to be more accurate based on the faculty/staff numbers.

Let me know what you think.

--Ndstate 04:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that the acinet.org list makes it look like NDSU employs many more people than UND. However, I can't place too much confidence in that list or the figures. The list doesn't appear to be from any official agency and it includes some odd entries. Why does it list Altru, MedCenter One, and MeritCare twice each? That doesn't make sense. In all honesty, how can NDSU (slightly smaller than UND) have 2000 more employees? The stats just don't add up.

I found this list (pdf file) from ND Job Service and it actually lists UND as the largest employer in the state (it appears that it isn't including the Air Force). I personally place much more trust in the ND Job Service list. I've added the ND Job Service list as a second citation for that employment statement in the UND article.

I'm thinking that the NDSU employment figures you found on the NDSU website are a little inflated. Perhaps they do employ 5222 people overall, but that is including 2174 temporary employees and 639 graduate assistants...I'm not sure that those should really be included in NDSU's employment stats. I'm thinking the stats we have found for NDSU are very liberal and the stats for UND are either conservative or in line with actuality. I wish we could find definitive employment stats for both UND and NDSU that uses the same criteria. For now, we'll probably have to try to figure out decent numbers for both universities, but at the same time realize that, overall, UND appears to employ more people than NDSU and is at least the second largest employer in the state. These stats can be confusing, huh!? --MatthewUND^(talk) 07:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

After some looking around, I think the NDSU figures we have found are for full-time and part-time employees...in other words, anyone who in any capacity works for NDSU. On the other hand, the UND stats appear to be for only full-time employees. What we have to decide is if we should post just full-time employment for both institutions or if we should report full-time and part-time for both. --MatthewUND^(talk) 07:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello, just so you know I was not implying that you were making something up. I was just basing my post on the numbers I had seen. I am not trying to make this a competition between UND and NDSU ;)

Anyway, the reason I thought NDSU's numbers could be so high is because of the extension centers etc. Additionally I have no problem counting part time people, because they are in fact faculty and staff etc, and the agricultural aspects of NDSU relate to their employment styles: temp/partime.

Let me know what you think --Ndstate 03:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I really wish we could find employment numbers for both NDSU and UND that use the same formula to arrive at their totals. I agree with you that the NDSU numbers (which include part-time and temporary people...any person employed in any capacity) are probably the best numbers to go with. Still, I wish we could find similar statistics for UND. I know I've heard these numbers for UND before, but I can't seem to find anything now other than the numbers that exclude part-time and temporary positions. You would think that the universities would be required to post numbers like these on their websites. The current numbers that UND has on their website are unrealistically small. While I agree that it remains ambiguous just how many people NDSU and UND each employ, I really think it is safe to say that UND overall employs more people (based on the sources I provided). --MatthewUND^(talk) 07:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)