Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Higher education and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Shortcuts

Archives (index): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13: 2 months

WikiProject Higher education was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 30 August 2010.

WikiProject Higher education

Main pages

Main project

talk

Participants

Participants category

Manual of style

Higher education stubs

talk

Departments

Assessment

talk

Collaboration of the Month (inactive)

Outreach (inactive)

Articles

Articles for Deletion

Content dispute regarding rankings and reputation of the University of Michigan

There is an ongoing content dispute at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Grouped citations and summary phrasing about whether the University of Michigan article can include general assertions about the university's reputation or merely specific mentions of representative university rankings. The specific contention is whether P2/P3 of WP:HIGHEREDREP and good ol' WP:SYNTH allow people to say something along the lines of "The University of Michigan is generally considered one of the nation's highest-ranked and selective public universities," or whether we must resort to something more specific (and, almost by definition, clunkier) like "The University of Michigan was ranked a top-five public university by U.S. News, Times Higher Education, and My Mom's Notebook."

To save everyone the bother, I'm linking to some possibly relevant discussions

The underlying dispute (although I don't think it's worthwhile to read the entire thing): Talk:University of Michigan#SYNTH?
A never-closed discussion from WP:Higher Education 2023 about a similar issue: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education/Archive 13#Multiple articles and discussions being contentiously edited to add or remove "prestige" and rankings in the lede

My prior is that WP:HIGHEREDREP boils down to "too many people are trying to use Wikipedia to right great wrongs and that we have to put a pin in it somehow, but it would be absurd to suggest that Princeton isn't one of the world's most prestigious universities, so let's leave things open." I feel the same way about UM but let's see how the process plays out. Namelessposter (talk) 02:16, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disagreement about the inclusion of a person in List of University of Michigan alumni

Can others please take a look at the recent history of List of University of Michigan alumni and the newest section in its Talk page? There is a disagreement about the inclusion of a person between two editors that requires input from others. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 12:38, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Rublamb (talk) 15:31, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

PLNU 2025 Update (Final Sprint)

Hello,

Would anyone be available to look over the last of PLNU's 2025 updates? So that all desired updates are ensure to meet Wikipedia editing and revision standards.

Thank you, Kylieamiller (talk) 20:01, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to expand Wikipedia entry for Peter Hans

Hello,

I’d like to request an update to the article on **Peter Hans.** The current entry briefly notes his position as president of the University of North Carolina System but does not include any sourced information about his five-year tenure, which began in 2020. The article also contains two factual inaccuracies (educational degree details and political party affiliation). Reliable sources are included below. I posted suggested edits to the Peter Hans talk page in August, but have not seen any action or response. I'm wondering if someone here could provide guidance or assist with these changes.

### Proposed update

In the “Career” section, after the paragraph about the North Carolina Community College System, please add:

“In August 2020, Hans became the seventh president of the University of North Carolina System, leading one of the nation’s largest four-year public university systems with more than 250,000 students. Under his leadership, the UNC System has maintained a multi-year tuition freeze for in-state undergraduates and implemented financial aid reforms such as creating the Next NC Scholarship. During his tenure, graduation rates increased and student debt upon graduation decreased, and the System put new resources into student mental health services. The System also expanded programs serving adult learners, military students, and transfer students, while investing in campus renovations and healthcare partnerships, creating ECU Health and endorsing a collaboration between UNC Health and Duke University to build the planned NC Children’s Hospital.”

### Corrections

· **Education**: Hans earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies from Harvard University.

· **Political party**: Unaffiliated (per the [North Carolina State Board of Elections voter registration lookup] (https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup/VoterInfo/))

### Sources 1. *The News & Observer*, “UNC System’s Peter Hans reappointed president,” June 2025.

2. *UNC System Press Release*, “Peter Hans Named Seventh President of the UNC System,” June 2020.

3. *Inside Higher Ed*, “Data show strong return on investment for UNC grads,” November 2023.

4. *Business North Carolina*, “Power List interview: Peter Hans,” January 2025.

5. *Public Ed Works*, “UNC System signals flat tuition for 9th straight year,” January 2025.

6. *College Board*, “Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2024”, p. 15 (in- state tuition ranking for NC public universities – third lowest in US)

This update reflects verified, publicly available information, written in a neutral tone consistent with Wikipedia’s biographies of living persons policy.

Thank you for your time and review. Camelliasea (talk) 19:24, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Image gallery of selected former students

There is a discussion about including a gallery of selected former students at Talk:Bowdoin College#Image gallery of selected former students.

Your input is welcome. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:44, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This comes up all the time. Let's please have a discussion about putting something at Wikipedia:College_and_university_article_advice#Other_sections_and_material so that we have somewhere to point that's not just other article talk pages. Sdkb ^talk 19:36, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia isn't a photo album. A school article is suppose to be primarily about the school, not the students that attended it; similar to city/community articles where they are suppose to be primarily about the community, not the people that lived in it. The same would go for other types of articles too. Apple Inc. doesn't have a section for "Notable employees" and their photos. iPhone doesn't have a section for "Notable owners" and their photos. If a "people" article exists for a school, then students / alumni / faculty photos should be off-loaded to the people article. If a "people" article doesn't exist, then would need additional clarificaion of what is acceptable or not. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 13:23, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's a ludicrous comparison. Profiles of universities will frequently list well-known alumni, and profiles of people will frequently list where they went to university. The BBC runs a quiz show (Christmas University Challenge) between alumni teams. This is obviously completely different from what type of phone they use. The 'notable people' section is a well-established part of university articles on Wikipedia and is included in our WP:UNIGUIDE.

As the section exists, it should be "Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio" (WP:GAC), and following MOS:IMAGES. So, some illustrative images of alumni are clearly in keeping with Wikipedia policy and guidelines, but the question here is whether an image gallery is acceptable.

The relevant policy is WP:GALLERY. This states that: "A gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images."

It seems to me that this is a standard unlikely to be met by a gallery of images of alumni, where, for example, the diversity of fields in which the university has notable alumni can be illustrated by individual images. The policy also states that the gallery images "must collectively add to the reader's understanding of the subject without causing unbalance to an article or section within an article". Large galleries can easily tip the notable people section into WP:UNDUE territory, making it look like the alumni are the most important aspect of the article.

For both of these reasons, galleries of alumni are rarely appropriate. Robminchin (talk) 15:59, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Schools exist to teach students so it's essential to have some discussion and content about those students in these articles just as Apple Inc. has lots of discussion and photos of its computers and other products. Having some images of notable alumni is perfectly acceptable. What's much trickier in many articles is determining which images should be included and how many and that's where some articles and editors fall short, sometimes defaulting to "let's include every image that any editor wants to include" instead of having a cohesive, defensible selection criteria or process. That - suggesting and helping to support reasonable selection criteria - is perhaps where we can be most helpful in our advice and practices across many articles. ElKevbo (talk) 16:50, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do the images add to the understanding of the article? WP:IMGCONTENT and WP:IG in the same policy. Whether the image helps is a judgment call and usefulness varies between readers but images that are just there for presentation and show and do not act as visual aid to deepen the understanding of the article shouldn't be included. Graywalls (talk) 18:07, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As noted above, I think images can help show the diversity of fields of alumni. So, for example, unless a university just turns out politicians it shouldn't have images of just politicians, even if those are the most famous of their alumni. Robminchin (talk) 20:25, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another couple of selection criteria I've applied in the past when trimming down lists were:

1) Removing non-graduates. A famous person who took a single lecture course is technically an alum, but it's a pretty tenuous connection so if there's a need to trim they should be removed.

2) Removing people who never actually attended the institution but attended a different college that later became part of the institution. Taking over a college in the 1990s doesn't re-write history to say that people who attended that college in the 1810s now attended an institution that wasn't even founded then. (This is different from when two institutions merge to found a new institution and are generally acknowledged to be predecessor institutions of the new, merged institution). Robminchin (talk) 16:27, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support including pics on lists of people. It adds to the article. Some guidelines would be helpful. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 18:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Per the first sentence, there was a request for discussion, not voting, yet. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 19:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NPOV related input requested at CCNY page

Talk:City College of New York. There is currently a dispute about including things that are factually correct but the inclusion worthiness is in dispute given that much of it is primary sourced trivia. The one inclusion proponent is arguing that other higher education articles have them. I am asking here so nuances relevance to higher education subject matter can be considered. Please comment on the article talk page. Graywalls (talk) 15:46, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:University of North Texas Health Science Center#Requested move 29 October 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:University of North Texas Health Science Center#Requested move 29 October 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. LM at UNT Health (talk) 20:07, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Undergraduate degree

Please see this Afd, relevant to this project: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Undergraduate degree. Thanks Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:17, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Adtalem Global Education

Hello! On behalf of Adtalem Global Education, I have submitted a few COI edit requests to improve the article from a Wikipedia perspective. The article has had two warning banners for over a decade and my requests are related to acquisitions and divestitures, history, campuses and enrollment, and finances.

I'm seeking editor assistance to review and implement the requests appropriately, if any project members are interested in taking a look. Thanks for your consideration, Inkian Jason (talk) 19:55, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Francis Amasa Walker

Francis Amasa Walker has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 03:57, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disagreement about inclusion of large table in Public Ivy

There is disagreement about whether a large table should be included in or removed from Public Ivy. Suggestions and views from other editors are invited. ElKevbo (talk) 12:48, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of American College of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine

The article American College of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Unsourced. Spam for spam. Not notable.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion based on established criteria.

If the proposed deletion has already been carried out, you may request undeletion of the article at any time. Bearian (talk) 00:56, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion about WikiProject banner templates

For WikiProjects that participate in rating articles, the banners for talk pages usually say something like:

"This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale."

There is a proposal to change the default wording on the banners to say "priority" instead of "importance". This could affect the template for your group. Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Proposal to update wording on WikiProject banners. Stefen 𝕋ower ^{Huddle • Handiwerk} 19:44, 6 December 2025 (UTC) (on behalf of the WikiProject Council)[reply]

Honorary degrees in alumni cats

This has been discussed in the past. Should an alumni cat be added to someone with an honorary degree, such as done at Category:University of Arizona alumni? I recommend not including them. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 01:32, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not - they are not alumni. ElKevbo (talk) 02:21, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. As ElKevbo said, they're not alumni. Robminchin (talk) 05:11, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]