Talk:Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

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New total students: http://www.kuleuven.be/overons/feitenencijfers.html —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.190.253.144 (talk) 20:52, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted Frank Vandenbroucke from the list of notable alumni. Not because of political reasons, but I think that if you add him, you also have to add all the other flemish ministers which have studied at the KUL which would be a huge amount of people.--Lamadude 14:25, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

please take a look at Talk:Catholic University of Leuven, for a proposal on moving the common history of the two universities to a separate article. --Lenthe 09:52, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


Why is the university of leuven considered private whereas the university of ghent is considered public? That doesn't make sense.

The Catholic University of Leuven is a private institution, with a board composed of bishops and independent persons, whereas Ghent University has been founded by the State, and its board is composed of politically appointed members.

For governmental funding purposes, there is however no difference. MaartenVidal 20:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] VUB and freemasonary

"and the Free University of Brussels ("VUB") freemasonic. [...] It is nevertheless still unthinkable that priest-professors would teach at the VUB or the UGent or that lodge-professors would teach at the KUL."

I have found no evidence for labelling this university as "freemasonic" anywhere. As far as I know, the Masons do not establish universities the way the Catholic Church does - and therefore one cannot compare a university, which was founded by a member of a certain group to a university endorsed by a group. This section should be removed or amended. Karpada 08:10, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

You'd better read the phrase a second time. It clearly states "in polarized Flanders (...) is CONSIDERED (...) freemasonic". It is not incorrect at all. If you are a Fleming yourself and know something about the higher education in Flanders, you'd know that this is the truth. I don't see any reason for changing that part of the article. Maybe the other contributors do. Please let us know your opinion about this. Berchemboy 14:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I changed the sentence "Ghent University is considered to be independent, and Antwerp University and VUB to be pluralist" into "Ghent University and Antwerp University are considered to be pluralist, and VUB to be independent", since VUB has an outspoken anticlerical reputation. MaartenVidal 20:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Removed the claims about other universities due to conflict with NPOV. Also this article should not be about other universities. PhiRho (talk) 14:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I can't see a conflict with NPOV. These are all factual statements, and to understand Leuven's position as a Catholic university in a pillarized society you need to know what the other institutions are. To understand the Secularist character of the VUB it helps to know that the original founders were Freemasons. The whole paragraph is weakened by removing the information, and I'm reverting it (but if mention of Freemasons seems POV, by all means cut those coupe of words). --Paularblaster (talk) 21:15, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Why do you want to claim that the Vrije Universiteit brussel is secularist? This statement is in conflict with NPOV, in my opinion, because I see no evidence that its administrative explicitly takes such standpoint. At least it would need a good reference. The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is pluralist according to its statutes in the sense as decribed on Wikipedia: see Pluralism. Furthermore, is it really necessary to make statements about one university in the article on another university? And certainly the statement that it was established by freemacons (also questionable, it was established by parliament, and there were certainly some freemacons in parliament; not all people promoting its establishment were freemacons!) does not add any info to the current article. PhiRho (talk) 09:22, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Is the university's website a good enough reference for you? (See my recent edit) The reference to Freemasons has already been removed (although you should perhaps be aware that Freemasonry is nothing to be ashamed of; one of my grandfathers was a mason); as I said, it does elucidate the pillarized divisions of the Belgian university landscape - a fact about Belgium that explains a lot of otherwise inexplicable things --Paularblaster (talk) 15:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
That's much better. "Freemasonry is nothing to be ashamed of": I agree with you PhiRho (talk) 17:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal / Interwiki Examples

Hi everyone. When I stumbled upon this merge proposal, I checked out what was the situation on the french Wikipedia.

Even though some articles are still stubs in other languages, I think Lenthe's suggestion should be adapted in this fashion:

I believe the Dutch Wikipedia currently has only two pages:

Following this example, I believe the four pages suggestion should provide the best interwiki template to preserve neutrality.

So this is my take on the question. Hope it helps : )
Stéphane Thibault 01:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC) Talk


The policy of the K.U.Leuven, as it is written on the page referred to below (sorry dutch only), is not to translate the official name "Katholieke Universiteit Leuven". http://www.kuleuven.be/huisstijl/naamgeving.htm

That's 100% correct, so I believe that it should be KUL and not Catholic Univ Leuven.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 17:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


Given the year-long silence I take it nobody has any strong feelings about a necessary clean-up nd disambiguation. See below for details.--Paularblaster 23:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] After the split ...

After putting Rudi Pauwels here (he was erroneously listed as an alumnus of the unified university of Louvain), I noticed that many, if not most of the alumni listed here are in fact alumni of the older unified university, and some are even metioned there as well.

Someone ought to have a look at this, and if possible, check with the categories that these people are put in, because I suspect there are problems there as well. One of the alumni claimed for Leuven is Paul Ricoeur, "philosopher". A French protestant, by the way. Actually, in his article it is claimed that he briefly TAUGHT at the university, before 1970. I am removing that one presently. --Pan Gerwazy 13:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Same thing with Jacques Lacan. Sorry for writing Dutch in the summary of the edit. Lacan and Ricoeur were added by the same anonymous IP. --Pan Gerwazy 13:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted three more alumni who did not belong here. So that others may not have to repeat my checking on the others, I have added the date of their graduation in invisible text. Anyone adding new alumni (there are preciously few now ...) should ideally do the same.--Paul Pieniezny 14:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separation / Disambiguation

I've been and gone and done it and put pre-1968 under Catholic University of Leuven, and post-1968 here and under Université catholique de Louvain. Help sorting out the links would be nice :) I've done most of them already, but there are still 100+ linking to "University of Leuven" (which has become a disambiguation page instead of a redirect to here).--Paularblaster 23:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I should have said: an often-misleading redirect.--Paularblaster 23:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Degree of catholicity of the university

I have removed the following two sentences from the text: "In fact, the K.U.Leuven is not Catholic in any real sense, certainly not in the sense of adhering always to Church teachings. In this respect, K.U.Leuven is more often regarded as being 'progressive' in relation to other Catholic universities worldwide."

These two sentences are wide open to debate, and were not cited. The charge that KUL is "not Catholic in any real sense" begs the question of what a "real sense" of being a Catholic university would be. And, if one is to define this as adherence to the Catholic magisterium (as the author of that sentence seems to imply), then one has to define what such adherence means for a Catholic university today. The sentence commenting on the university being regarded as "progressive" is overly broad, not cited, and open to debate as well. B-May (talk) 12:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)