Talk:Dickinson College

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Contents

[edit] First college?

"first college founded in the newly established United States" is utterly misleading, given that it was founded well after the previous nine Colonial colleges. Must rephrase before I feel convinced enough to do so. —ExplorerCDT 06:09, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, it is a bit of puffery, but not technically inaccurate. All this is saying is that Dickinson was the first college founded after the U.S. came into being as a nation recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783). older≠wiser 01:47, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
But is it misleading, nonetheless. Some, lesser mortals, will read this as older than Harvard, or oldest in the nation, which is wrong to convey with such sneaky prose. —ExplorerCDT 03:44, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I guess I don't really see it as very misleading or sneaky. It doesn't say or even imply that it is the oldest college, merely that it was the first founded in the newly established United States. older≠wiser 23:24, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
I agree with bkondrad... it's technically true, and it's not trying to confuse anybody. There will always be stupid people who get confused. It's nobody's fault but their own. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aixime (talk • contribs) 10:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Number of frats

Does the number of fraternities include Sigma Chi? The Omicron chapter never lost its charter from Sigma Chi but is not recognized by the school. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.29.160.166 (talk) 21:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United Methodist Church affiliation

I do not believe that Dickinson College is now any way related to Methodists or the Methodist church. While Allison Church does sit on the Dickinson campus, it is in no way related to the college. I would like to see that Dickinson's entry into that universities associated with the Methodist church category be removed. —Quinty 13:46, 4 June 2006

You're correct, their affiliation is mostly historic, but I don't recall how/when the split took place. There are a couple things you may want to do. (1) You can remove the template from this page (just delete {{MethodistColleges}}. (2) You can edit the actual template at Template:MethodistColleges to remove Dickinson and leave a note on that talk page with an explanation (note it was added in this edit. The category listing will disappear when you remove the template. It would be nice if you could find a source regarding Dickinson's independence from the UMC so that you can add some history to the article. I wonder if other schools on the template are listed incorrectly. Let me know if you need any help. -MrFizyx 00:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
User:Pastorwayne has been forcefully trying to add Wikipedia affiliations to other schools not just Dickinson College. He refuses to read the talk pages and thinks that the best strategy is to just add the template without discussiing. Bad idea obviously. Remrem 00:20, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alumni

The alumni were organized alphabetically which seemed as reasonable as anything. Subcategories might also work (e.g. Politics/Public Service, Business, Arts...) The current chaos should not stand. -MrFizyx 04:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Doh! Nevermind chronological order is fine, in fact I like it better. -MrFizyx 19:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Curtis Armstrong has been listed with the notable alumni. The only source I could find was this, which doesn't give a year. IMDB says he finished high school in Berkley, MI in '72, so how did he graduate from Dickinson in '74? Other sources list his eduation at Oakland University, Academy of Drmatic Arts in Rochester, MI. If we don't have a better source for this we should remove him. -MrFizyx 02:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
It is standard practice to split the list of notable alumni into a separate article once the list becomes large enough. Right now the list dwarfs the rest of this page, and so I have moved it to a separate page. To help the page look not quite so barren I have left a variety of the most notable-looking people on the main page, with a note to see the main article for the alumni list. Please don't revert this without discussing it first. --TexasDex 01:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
In general I support what you are doing and think this looks pretty good. However, I think it become a matter of point of view that dictates who is notable enough for the main page. Your current short list seems to focus a bit on people who are very famous in recent times. To my knowledge, Rosie O'Donnell, for example doesn't have a degree from Dickinson, but is a very famous television personality. Are her achievements and representation of Dickinson as significant as a prize winning novelist or congressman. What are the criteria for the "short list?" -MrFizyx 02:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Honestly I wouldn't have anything against just deleting the short list because of the subjectivity of it, but like I said the article is pretty bare. When I originally made the list somebody reverted it, so I wanted to avoid an edit war by not clearing the whole thing out, so I singled out the most important-looking entries, trying to have as many different professions as possible. Go ahead and make any changes you see fit to the shortlist, I don't have any problem with it as long as it stays relatively short. It might be better to actually have this in pagagraph form instead of a list, that way it looks more complete, but the rest of the article is probably higher priority. --TexasDex 03:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rosie O'Donnell

She did not graduate and does not hold a degree; she only briefly attended Dickinson. Calling her an alumna suggests she holds a degree, does it not? Ich (talk) 09:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Not really. Definition of alumni is "An alumnus is a person, especially a boy or man, who has attended or is a graduate of an educational institution. The plural is alumni. An alumna is a girl or woman alumnus. The plural is alumnae." Technically I'm an alumni of UTSA since I attended it for a year but didn't graduate. --ImmortalGoddezz 19:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)