Jump to content

Talk:List of Cornell University alumni

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Chavando (talk | contribs) at 07:36, 9 August 2006 (Never mind, figured it out.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Project Cornell

Early Discussion (before move from Talk:Cornell University)

Alumni

Some of the "Alumni of Note" don't have degrees or graduation dates listed. This is sometimes because the person didn't graduate, but sometimes not (I'm not sure why others are missing it -- for example, click "Roger Morse", and his degree and year are available). I won't go so far as to say we should remove people who didn't graduate -- my dictionary says "alumni" can mean either "former student" or "graduate" -- but consistency is good. When I saw the list, it looked to me like all the people without degree/year didn't graduate, which is not true.

I think listing degree/year for all graduates (and leaving non-grads as they are) is ideal. If we can't get that information but know the person did graduate, perhaps list people who did graduate as "(year unknown)" or "(19??/??)". Another alternative would be to indicate somehow that a particular person didn't graduate, like "(did not graduate)", but I like that solution less -- no need to call extra attention to it; just don't be misleading.—4.16.250.79 23:38, 9 Jun 2004

List of Cornellians

The listing of alumni is becoming rather lengthy. While not yet as bad as Stanford's, perhaps it ought to be separated out into its own article (List of Cornellians ?), similar to Harvard University people, Brown University people, List of UC Berkeley alumni or List of people associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.—choster 22:54, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Cornell has many Alumni of Note and a single page might be useful.—Xtreambar 22:28, 27 Oct 2004
Moved finally.—choster 19:09, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Cornellians?

Has anyone considered making a Category:Cornellians, subcategory of Category:Cornell University? It wouldn't replace this list, but it would make the list a lot easier to find. Each person here who has a page would be in the category, as well as this list. What do you think: good idea, or bad? --Dbenbenn 04:23, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A couple of categories like that already exist, but it has been debated whether such categories are at all appropriate or useful, see: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities. A lot of people would fit in several university categories. No consensus yet, however. / Tupsharru 12:17, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

More Categories

I think spliting up a few of the categories may be a good idea. I might do this soon (ie when I have a few more spare minutes!) unless some else does it first. For example, a new category might be "Educators". --Xtreambar 02:11, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Fictional Cornellians

There's a source for some possible fictional Cornellians here [1], from the University Relations department via the "Dear Uncle Ezra" advice column. Kime1R 12:28, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Presidents of Cornell

I've added succession boxes to all Cornell presidents who either did or did not have pages already. Feel free to chip in with edits to those pages as they are bare, very bare. --Xtreambar 04:26, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fine Arts category

Unless anyone object in the next week or two, I'm going to move famous alumni photographers and artists into the fine arts category. Cornell Rockey 21:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like an improvement over the current categorization. I support it, and think you can just go ahead and make the move. btm 08:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Year Linking

Should we link graduation years such as (B.A. 1987), or leave them unlinked (B.A. 1987)? It's kind of pointless to link them all, in my opinion. -Mercuryboard

Sure. De-link. Works for me. Also, is it necessary to link all B.A. etc..?--Xtreambar 19:49, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, those shouldn't be linked either. We have another page which details the degrees Cornell grants. --Mercuryboard 01:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A.B. = B.A.

The College of Arts and Sciences formally awards A.B. degrees, but more people will see B.A. and understand it's a Bachelor of Arts degree. Whichever we decide to use, we should stick with it for consistency. Which will it be? -Mercuryboard

I decided to go with B.A. -Mercuryboard 03:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the College formally awards B.A. degrees [2]. For example, I received a B.A. instead of an A.B.; my diploma uses the term "Bachelor of Arts" instead of the Latin equivalent (I just double-checked :-)). Additionally, if you get a college ring, the jewellers have been told to put "BA" not "AB". According to Uncle Ezra, the official switch to using the English term started in the '80s.[3] Either both should be used (for accuracy's sake) or we should just stick with BA for everyone. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 05:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of awards

I don't think that we should have the list of awards that current faculty have won. Anyone else also think so?--Xtreambar 21:25, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The main article has it under Faculty. I'm not sure where it fits, but I think it's important anyway. Also, are there 31 or 32 Nobel laureates? I think those who count 32 are duplicating an alumni who is currently on the faculty. -Mercuryboard 01:03, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Doctorates

Some of the people listed on this page use the title "Dr." Should we include such titles in the list? If so, it should be held consistent for everyone. -Mercuryboard 23:21, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicates

Remove duplicate names, yes or no? -Mercuryboard 16:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that annoys me is trying to figure out where something is categorized (when there are several legitimate possibilities) before I can find it. If somone is both an alumnus and a professor, for example, why not have them listed in both categories? (This is valuable information.) Are the duplicate names in a justifiable situation like this, or are they mistakenly listed multiple times? -DoctorW 04:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We have a few situations. Alumni who were also faculty; Alumni who are known for multiple fields; Alumni or faculty who are known for a specific field but have also won a major award. Brown lists faculty along with their departments, named chairs, and distinctions. Harvard uses tables and does not separate by alumni, faculty, or field. Most of the others use the same model that we do, with minor adjustments. I can't find it now, but at least one university bolds their alumni who have also served as faculty, to avoid duplication.
I don't like the idea of bolding or other idiosyncratic coding that requires the user to notice the key in order to understand it; such a device is poor user interface, as it misunderstands the cognition/perception realities of web users. I looked at Harvard's list, and though they may have thought it was much easier given their long list accumulated over 350+ years, I didn't like the simple alphabetical list. You either know the name, or browse the list - no other way to find anyone. Even if you think you know the name, if you're mistaken about the first letter in its spelling, you can't find it (this happened to me - had to go out and Google it). I don't see any problem with a few duplicates, but in the cases you mentioned, very good reasons for keeping them listed in both categories. -DoctorW 01:10, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
NYU's is very nice too. Princeton and Berkeley both use the bold system, and it seems to work. Another university lists notable alumni who span multiple disciplines as being "one of a kind" in their own category, much like we do for the Nobel prize winners. The computer scientist in me keeps thinking that duplicates are to be avoided at all costs. Also, we can definitely organize the faculty list into areas of study. -Mercuryboard 02:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I second your idea to organize the faculty in areas of study or accomplishments considering that many are well known for their non-academic work.--Xtreambar 04:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Categories "Cornell alumni" and "Cornell University faculty"

Some of the people on these lists are not included on this page, perhaps an interested person would like to do some adding. --Xtreambar 02:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alex Doonesbury

Should she be listed as an alumni if she hasn't decided to come yet? Doesn't alumni imply atleast 2 years spent on campus? Cornell Rockey 17:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More room available

We've got plenty of room for more pictures in the right column. We need some more of these, mostly in the faculty area. Just don't dilute it with random names though, make sure they actually are the most prominent people on the list. -Mercuryboard 18:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merges

Standards

  • If a person is a faculty member with any Cornell degree, list only under Alumni.
Reasoning: The person was an alumnus before they were a faculty member. Faculty members can come and go, but degrees stay for life.
  • Remove duplicates, place people once where you would expect them to be found.
Reasoning: People may be known for more than one thing, but it redundant to list them twice.
  • For faculty, list the highest professor title held, including any named chair, followed by their years at Cornell
Reasoning: Faculty often stay at Cornell for many years, and are known for the height of their careers, and we should reflect both.
  • Follow these sample formats and use common sense. If more than one applies, separate with commas.
    • B.S. 2006 Operations Research & Engineering (for one major with "and" in its name)
    • B.A. 1993 Psychology and Mathematics (for a double major)
    • B.A. 1987 Mechanical Engineering, minor Computer Science (for a major and a minor)
    • 1937 (for an unknown undergraduate degree awarded in 1937)
    • undergrad 1912-14, dropped out (list the years of attendance and the result: transferred, dropped out, failed out)
    • undergrad (they were an undergrad and may or may not have graduated)
    • graduate study 1879-1956
    • Ph.D. 2004 Government
    • M.D. 1992 (no field of study necessary)
    • Professor of Human Development (1904-13)
    • Professor of Anatomy, Medical College (2001-) (if the professor is affiliated with a specific college)
    • A.D. White Professor at Large (2001-06) (name the professorship or chair if known)
  • Remove entries for which there is no Wikipedia article, unless there is a adequate assertion of notability in "Known for"
Reasoning: Some people are not known as individuals, but their accomplishments may be significant. This is the often the case for business founders and co-founders.
  • When in doubt, include.
Reasoning: Let notability standards follow Wikipedia:Notability.

—mercuryboardtalk 18:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep the images?

Keep the images? Yes or no? I'm not sure. They're taking up valuable space, might not illustrate much, and bring a few people to the spotlight (something that Cornell University#Alumni is supposed to do.) —mercuryboardtalk 03:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you talking about the portraits of the most famous Cornellians? If so, how can there be any question? Of course they must be kept. But I liked it better before, when they were next to their own categories. Most of the schools I've seen do it that way, if I remember correctly (rather than one huge list in alphabetical order).
BTW, what's going on with the formatting? The entire page (except for the portraits) is squeezed into the left half of the space available (at least in my browser) - tons of pointless white space. Did someone make a mistake? It wasn't that way earlier today.
A third question (and I apologize for the bluntness of my comments - it's late): in what order are the academic fields? It makes sense to have government figures at the top, right under nobel laureates, as they are well-known (the Cornell University page has portraits of only two people - besides Andrew Dickson White, and Carl Sagan standing with the Viking Mars Lander - both national political figures, one liberal, one conservative. After that it doesn't make sense to me. Why is "Crime" next?!? (It was near the end several months ago, which seems far more appropriate.) Alphabetical order would be a very poor choice in my judgement, but perhaps some logic could be brought to bear on the order of academic fields. Perhaps it could follow the order in which classes are listed in the course guide, or departments listed on Cornell's web site, or the Dewey decimal system, or something. I'm sure there are good precedents for this of which I'm not aware. Right now it seems rather random. While 1.6 through 1.16 seem to be close to an order with some logic, 1.3-1.5 should be moved down (and I believe this was the case several months ago). -DoctorW 06:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've been doing a ton of work on this page, but it's never looked anything but fine on my Windows XP, Firefox, 1280x1024. What is your operating system, browser, and screen resolution? I was referring to removing the portraits from this page for the reasons I stated above. —mercuryboardtalk 06:21, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reordered. —mercuryboardtalk 06:28, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the images. Heck, adding more would be nice. --Xtreambar 13:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can you imagine an encyclopedia that, having secured a large number of color pictures, and having the ability to publish them at no additional cost, would decide to abandon them and publish text only? Good encyclopedias have pictures. Some people may be more recognizable from their pictures than from their names. Some people who are known to a reader by name might be people the reader would like to see. There are so many reasons to keep the pictures. -DoctorW 00:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with tables added to this page

The problem with all the excess white space seems only to be in Mac Safari at certain resolutions; nevertheless, the text for whatever reason is not able to move much to the right of the Wikipedia-defined width of the table of contents. It looks bad, and leaves a quarter of the entire page blank. It's an artifact of the entire page being with in a table, including the table of contents. It can easily be solved by beginning the table after the table of contents.
Another problem, if solved, would automatically solve the first problem. I've never seen an encyclopedia where a picture related to some text (in this case a portrait and the brief description of that person) are as much as dozens of inches away from each other. Yes, a reader can click on the caption, but they might prefer to glance over to the left rather than look at a whole page about the person (especially if they have a slow connection). A picture is normally (in every case I've ever seen, actually) right next to the text. At the very least, an image of a person should be in the same section as that person's entry. -DoctorW 00:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I really appreciate it when someone puts a lot of time into something, such as User:Mercuryboard's contributions to this page. Nevertheless, I was not able to find a solution to the problems I mentioned above (and one I didn't mention) while retaining the table structure. I looked at over a dozen "List of _______ University people" pages last week, including all of the Ivy league, and none that have portraits use a table structure. This is no surprise, as they don't go together well. Several months ago, this page had the usual structure that most such pages use, text with right aligned portraits (no tables). An attentive reader will notice that there is an additional problem with the table structure: it is very inefficient with space in that some cells have multiple lines (sometimes quite a few at lower resolutions); for example, I didn't have to go beyond the first section to find a cell with 11 lines of text! So, I have to ask, why was there no discussion of changing the usual structure used by most such pages (including ALL such pages with pictures) before changing this page to tables? The advantage of collumn structure is very small compared to the much parger problems tables introduce here. The page needs to be changed back, but it looks like it might require a lot of work, probably more than I have time for. Comments? Opinions? -DoctorW 02:13, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:List_of_Cornell_University_alumni&oldid=68565494"