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The tone of this article, with its numerous boastful statements, is not consistent with the measured and objective tone of most other articles in Wikipedia about colleges. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.192.163.3 (talk) 06:53, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I've just removed the following paragraph from the entry:
If you poke through the history, you'll see that there's been a sentence resembling the first one in the entry for a few months. The current revision smells a lot like vandalism, particularly given the questionable NPOV of the author. (And, to be fair, my own.)
I'd like to hear opinions about including information on the pronunciation of the College's name. Given people's accents are parsed and used as a means for social inclusion/exclusion (see [shibboleth]) there's an argument to be made for including the accepted pronunciation as a service to outsiders (so they won't receive a frosty correction - but the frosty correction itself is open to derision like that above.) Pjmorse 21:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
There's wording in the town article (Amherst) suggesting that this is a local pronunciation (i.e. the College gets it from the town) so I've added wording to that effect to the article. - Pjmorse 14:38, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Isn't proper pronunciation relevant and factual, regardless of the social connotations or impact? The "H" is silent.71.57.125.225 (talk) 09:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
The Seal of the College is at least 20 years out of date. I can't find a decent image of the new one.
I wonder if "notables" should include the children of famous people? Did these folks do anything to merit a mention, or is their presence more an indication of Amherst's cache? If the latter, I'd delete.
Dwight D. Eisenhower II 1970, son of Dwight D. Eisenhower James C. Rehnquist 1977 and Nancy Rehnquist Spears 1981, children of Chief Justice William Rehnquist Margaret J. Scalia 2002, daughter of Antonin Scalia
I'm in favor of removing the "children of famous people" listings. Until they do something notable themselves, they don't necessarily reflect anything about the College the way its accomplished alumni do. They should also be allowed to make their own lives outside their parents' shadows. Here's who I've removed:
Pjmorse 15:09, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
I just yanked the link to www.umasslinks.com (or some such) with "All the Amherst delivery menus." I doubt it was maliciously spammed, but it seems awfully thinly connected to the College. Any comments? Pjmorse 02:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
So, what is the name of the water polo team? Pjmorse 13:25, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, I'm going to keep reverting additions of "YoHo" in the water polo team name unless someone can explain to me why they, in fact, know the correct name. There was a good explanation for the removal; I want to see a good explanation for its reinstatement. Pjmorse 21:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
The name of the Water Polo team is the "Yo-Ho Penguins," not the "Penguins." I can give you no other reason for why this is the case than that I am a current member of the water polo team and, as such, I know what the team's name is. The name may seem slightly ridiculous to you, but I assure you that it is real.
Emily Dickinson was not an alum of Amherst College, so it's odd to mention her in the first paragraph of the entry. There are many more illustrious alumni to mention off the bat, including Calvin Collidge, Daniel Webster, Francisco Flores, Harlan Fiske Stone, the Merrill and Smith that founded Merrill Lynch, etc.
How about books in the basement of the AC library which say "Property of Williams College" in them? I've heard a lot of AC students mention them. I can't personally vouch for this, but I'll try and find someone who's seen them (I'm abroad this semester, otherwise I'd look myself). - Che Nuevara: Join the Revolution 21:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm actually pretty sure that's not true. Can someone source it? UMass Amherst's fokloristics specialist told me he doesn't think there are any sources. A similar story is told about Pittsburgh, Easter Island, and several other places. - Che Nuevara: Join the Revolution 09:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The article was devoid of photographs of the campus. I've uploaded an angled shot of College Row, and I think it adds a tangible sense. Objections? I'm waiting for copyright permission of a truly gorgeous photograph of Johnson Chapel, which I think would significantly add to the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by AWBridges (talk • contribs) 12:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I've added that photo, but unless there's more text I feel bad uploading others. It might look like a picture gallery. -AWBridges
I reworded a recent addition which asserted that men's and women's swimming and diving had won more individual national titles than any other sport at Amherst. Checking here and here suggests that the swimming and diving teams have indeed won quite a few titles, but it's unclear about "most." This page asserts that five athletes from the track teams have won thirteen national titles between them, but that spans two seasons - is that "four" teams? The swimming record shows several relay wins: are they counted as four or as one? (Or even not as individual titles at all?) How many wins to how many athletes? And in which other sports are individual titles available? (Golf, tennis, squash, skiing, wrestling, what else? Yes, Amherst once had a wrestling team.)
It's cute trivia, but unless the numbers can be enumerated, I move the numbers stay left out. - Pjmorse 00:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I can not honestly believe that over 100 combined points were ever scored in a single baseball game. Is this the wrong sport, or the wrong score? - Che Nuevara 17:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I've seen some minor changes in the intro graph in the last few months which seem to be aimed at finding a balance between NPOV and communicating the College's "elite" status (e.g. removing "elite," then having it later replaced with "highly selective.")
Personally, I come down on the side of NPOV-caution here. The article already mentions selectivity (first sentence of the "Academics" section) so putting it in the intro does come off, in my mind, a bit too close to bragging. But I don't feel strongly enough about it to make an edit, and I'd like to see other opinions. --Pjmorse 15:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I don't think that "elite" is POV. Amherst is widely considered to be one an elite college (now, if it made the claim that it was the best then that would be a problem). However, I wasn't quite prepared to revert the removal of the word elite. I added "highly selective" in an attempt to mirror the Williams intro (which doesn't seem to be causing problems). Lordjeff06 15:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I was just looking through, and noticed this - "but the two groups tend to socialize separately at the Club since the Williams alumni are demonstrably more attractive and successful." Does this seem POV to anyone else?
I just undid a well-meaning edit which equated the Little Three (Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan) with the so-called "Little Ivies." Since Tufts University is also claiming membership in the "Little Ivies," with a citation no less, that seems unlikely.
I would have corrected the statement and swiped the cite from Tufts, but frankly I think the whole "little Ivies" label is a silly categorization hyped by admissions officers of colleges and universities with inferiority complexes. (Tufts' institutional inferiority complex about Harvard is, well, elephantine.) Schools like Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, and (even) Tufts aren't mini-Harvards, Yales and Princetons; they're something entirely different, and they should be regarded as such rather than reduced to some kind of younger siblings (or second string). So if someone else thinks the Amherst article needs a mention of "little Ivies", well, they can put it in themselves... --Pjmorse 23:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
When I was at Wesleyan, Amherst, Wesleyan and Williams were essentially referred to as the "Little Three". You also heard the term "Potted Ivies" every so often to describe the three schools. I certainly much prefer "Little Three".
Anthropologique 22:27, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
So, while I still feel that "elite" isn't really POV and that it ought to be included in the article (obviously I'm biased as to Amherst's greatness), I'm done reverting its removal. If anyone else thinks it should be included, you can go ahead and re-add it. Lordjeff06 15:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Amherst, I feel, is certainly in the "elite" category, as is Wesleyan, Williams, Swarthmore and a tiny handfull of other small liberal arts colleges. It seems that the site monitors at WIKI are not allowing use of such terms as "elite" or "highly selective" to describe any college that ranks in the "most selective" category. Some of my contributions to one college article that included such terms fell victim to the delete key. Seems there are growing complaints of creeping college boosterism...
Anthropologique 22:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I noticed that the athletics section has been re-written, but now includes no mention of the College's many club teams, such as Rugby, Water-Polo (see discussion above) or Ultimate. What is the rationale behind this? These teams are an important part of the athletic culture on campus, and merit either inclusion in the athletics section, or else at least their own section. As it stands now, there is not one mention of them in the entire article.
FashionNugget 04:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
It seems that there are some different opinions about the section. I am afraid I've started the editing by this edit: My impression has been that the text
I guess my attempt to change the text backfired: The most recent version (which I've fully reverted because the author has not even attempted to use the discussion page to find a consensus) was:
Beyond the criticism mentioned above ("comments", "possibility", length of text), I think the text has become
Accordingly, I cannot agree with the changes leading to the abovementioned version. I'll be happy to hear your criticism of the version that I had suggested instead. (Yes, I do mean that!) I'm looking forward to finding a good solution that suits us all.
Finally, I would like to ask again to use the preview function (the button to the right of "save page") rather than saving every single change. Saving a document just once 1.) costs less space on the servers and thereby requires fewer funds to run Wikipedia; and 2.) (and in this case arguably more importantly) makes the history of the article easier to read because one look at the history shows everything that has recently changed. (If you have questions about the preview function, feel free to ask me or some other Wikipedian, e.g., at the Wikipedia help desk.) Thanks for your help! --Ibn Battuta 03:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
First, one cannot conclude logically, based upon a reading of the four corners of the "Constitution of the Charity Fund" (the "corner stone" and "the sheet anchor" of the new college--Amherst) (William S. Tyler, A History of Amherst College(1895), chapter one), that: "The college was intended to be a successor to Williams College...." (Wikipedia article) "No document sheds so much light on the motives of the founders of the institution as this Constitution of the charity fund. It therefore merits careful consideration." (William S. Tyler)
The most telling Article in this regard is the first. "The first article fixes the location of the Institution at Amherst, and provides for the incorporation of Williams College with it, 'should' it continue to be thought expedient to remove the institution to the county of Hampshire and to locate it in the town of Amherst [emphasis added]." (William S. Tyler) The removal of Williams College was not made a condition precedent to the founding of Amherst College. Nothing in the other Articles is inconsistent with the first Article. The Constitution is the primary and authoritative source regarding the founders' intent at the time, not a third-party interpretation of their intent or a subsequent reinterpretation of their intent. Moreover, more than a year before the creation of the Williams College petition (11/1819) and almost two years before the petition was laid before the legislature (2/1820), the board of trustees of Amherst Academy -- also the trustees of Amherst College (William S. Tyler) -- began building Amherst College on 8/18/1818 (William S. Tyler). In sum, Amherst College was not intended to be a successor to Williams nor was it founded as a successor to Williams. Neither the Constitution, William S. Tyler, Amherst College, Williams College, nor any analytical reference (other than Wikipedia or which relies on Wikipedia) that I can find adheres to Wikipedia's position. Omitted from the text in the Wikipedia quotation (from Tyler) is the following (after the Williams' petition for removal to Northampton had been rejected by the legislature): "The trustees of Amherst Academy, who had been quietly awaiting the issue of the application, judged that the way was now open to proceed with their original design according to the advice of the convention...." (William S. Tyler) This advice was based on the Constitution and had nothing to do with Williams or the removal of Williams to the town of Amherst. (See Tyler) (In an effort to bolster Wikipedia's position, bracketed matter has been inserted in the text -- in the quotation from Tyler -- that the proposed removal to Northampton [was near to Amherst]; in fact, the convention had determined that the new institution would be in Amherst and not in Northampton. (William S. Tyler)) The actions and intentions of the Williams' president (president Moore) or of the Williams' trustees must not be confused with the intent of the founders (the trustees) of Amherst College as expressed in the Constitution.
(Even if Wikipedia's misrepresentation -- Amherst was intended to be a successor to Williams -- has been a mainstay of Wikipedia since the inception of Wikipedia, the position is wrong, does not reflect well on Wikipedia, and I am advised is libelious per se as to Amherst College. The position must be reexamined and removed.) This misleading position in the Wikipedia article now stands in bold relief in that many other facts have been deleted.
Second, the omission of Noah Webster, an integral part of Amherst's founding and history, makes other subsequent references to him in the quoted text (by his last name only) puzzling and incomplete. The same argument--to a lessor extent--as to Emily Dickinson.
Third (since the "History" and "Origin of Name" sections have been collapsed), there appears to have been a straw man set up with respect to the editing concerning Lord A. The edit and re-edit, the removal and reinsertion included five or more edits containing a single short sentence reference or two short sentence references to this Brit with no mention of his efforts to "eradicate Native Americans"--who by the way were not a monolithic entity or a monolithic people or a monolithic adversary to Lord A. (who had Native American allies in the The French and Indian Wars). These edits were ignored in the posting on this page, yet the final result as to Lord A is at best what was already in the text before (and after) the long incomplete edit posted on this page. In any event, as with the statement that "Amherst College was intended to be a successor to Williams College....", I think there never should have been anything more than a bare mention of Lord A.; there never should have been an overreaching assertion that Lord A. sought to eradicate "Native Americans" without further specificity (if indeed the assertion was that he sought to eradicate all or any Native Americans). Although this question is now moot, I hope that in the future broad claims in general would be carefully examined both as to their necessity and validity.
Fourth, my last point concerns Amherst's endowment. The amount of the endowment was changed from 1.33B to 1.66B (to reflect the 6/07 sum). The entry in Wikipedia indicates that these amounts are approximations. In fact, they were virtually exact amounts. My attempt to round up the amount to 1.7B as reported in numerous news articles (and as done for other colleges in Wikipedia--including Williams) was immediately reverted to 1.66. The goose-gander rule or consistency appears to have no application here.
Having carefully researched and revised (and added to) 80-90% of the Amherst article and the list of Amherst people, I will leave these and any futher matters to the editors of Wikipedia. However, I shall not permit the misrepresentation discussed above (in the first, second, and third paragraphs) to stand (even if this means taking action outside Wikipedia). Wikipedia is too precious a (burgeoning) resource to allow such a significantly defamatory and damaging remark to remain in the text. Thank you. (Neimanx 22:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC))
So, the Notable Alumni section includes the following sentence:
Is it really an "even though" the college is small, it has a small group of alumni? I mean, isn't it predictable that a small number of students would yield a small number of graduates? I think the point (which is probably POV) is something more like: even though the college is small, its alumni are disproportionately notable. Lordjeff06 09:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
It seems like it isn't too hard to get rid of this trivia section. Edward Jones, William H. Hastie and even Raymond Smith Dugan (516 Amherstia) can be moved to the notable alumni page. The Ultimate Frisbee comment (do we have a source for this, by the way?) can be moved to athletics. That leaves just the alumni society (which if we want to keep it can be moved to notable alumni section) and the Latin honors comment, which I'm sure we could find a more appropriate place for.
Any objections? Npdoty (talk) 10:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
In making these changes, I removed the asteroid comment (after making it slightly more prominent in the List of Amherst College people article, but User:Ckatz still think it's relevant. I think as a piece of trivia, it isn't important to the Amherst College article. Any comments? Npdoty (talk) 07:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I've removed "elite" since I'm not sure it's encyclopedic, and there's already a lot of contention (here and on Williams College) about the term "highly selective". It doesn't seem to add much to the sentence that isn't covered by "highly selective" and what isn't covered by "highly selective" seems to me to be POV. If you think we should add "elite" or should get rid of "highly selective", please put your arguments here. Npdoty (talk) 08:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I would encourage anyone interested in this conversation to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Avoid_academic_boosterism where a group of editors is trying to come up with a consensus that could apply to all the articles in this category. In the meantime I've tried to create a compromise discussion of selectivity and ranking in the lead, but not in the first sentence. Npdoty (talk) 01:29, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
It might be interesting to mention that a former president graduated from Amherst. Maybe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.94.230.226 (talk) 19:20, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
User:ElKevbo has undone my change of undoing the bot that undid an anonymous user's significant contribution which happened to add a link to the YouTube archive of AAS (student association) meetings. I have read WP:EL and believe that this link qualifies as "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article" and provides value to the article.
In any case, it's very frustrating that this entire edit has twice been reverted because of an objection to one small portion of it. I guess I can do the editing to remove the link from the rest of the valuable content so that people/robots will stop reverting the whole thing, but given that I think the link is valuable, I think the burden should be on those reverting. Npdoty (talk) 22:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
The wikipedia article on Emily Dickinson says: "Emily Dickinson's paternal grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, had almost single-handedly founded Amherst College.[7]"
However, his name is not mentioned in the article about Amherst College.
BlueSkies999 (talk) 22:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I've done some work at Curriculum, including making sections for the different types of curricula at US colleges. Any work that people can do to expand the section on open curricula there would be much appreciated.