Talk:University of Chicago#Inclusion of public transit/shuttle program in transportation section

There is an ongoing dispute on how closely connected the current University of Chicago is with the Old University of Chicago. While this debate is worthy of transparent discussion on this talk page, there are mostly anonymous wikieditors making revisions to the University of Chicago wikipage without review that are meant to strengthen the association between these two entities. The majority of these changes are present in the second paragraph of the history section which I believe needs to be addressed. As an employee of the university, I do not have a NPOV, and will not make these edits myself. I am writing to request the input of neutral wiki-editors on how to move forward. Of my suggested edits, the second paragraph of this history section requires a number of revisions, clarifications and accurate citations for it to be a fair representation of the university's history. I would be happy to provide suggested revisions for review on this page if desired.

StickerMug (talk) 11:54, 8 Aug 2018 (CST)

I would suggest simplifying the entire History Section of this page and redirecting users to the History of the University of Chicago page for more detail. (This approach is similar to Stanford's succinct History section on its main page.) Ideally, having a singular wikipage that details the history of the university would allow all wikieditors interested in contributing to have a single place to discuss, debate, and apply agreed-upon changes.

StickerMug (talk) 11:59, 8 Aug 2018 (CST)

Suggested edit in History Section header: Change "Further information: Old University of Chicago" to "Disambiguation: Old University of Chicago". StickerMug (talk) 13:07, 8 Aug 2018 (CST)

The given translation, while attested, seems somewhat suspect - "Crescat scientia" is like literally "May knowledge grow" or "Let science grow" or something along those lines. And the second part is "enrich life" or similar. The translation given right now is some kind of exaggerated or aggrandized reading. 67.1.101.71 (talk) 19:11, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

:It appears the first part of the motto is actually a translation from Tennyson and the second part is altered from Virgil to suit a new sense in English. So the English "translation" is actually the original that was translated into Latin to create the official motto. See [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/archives/frequently-asked-questions-about-uchicago-history/#motto]. Robminchin (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

This article was de-listed from good article status four years ago primarily for having too many uncited claims. I've done my best to fix those, but is there a consensus on what else should be done before renominating the page? Charter6281 (talk) 03:20, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:Based on recent discussions I've been involved in, such as the nomination at Talk:University College London#GA Review and questions raised as to GA status at Talk:Durham University#GA concerns, the 'People' section is almost certainly overlong for current GA standards and is likely to need to be trimmed drastically to a few examples (following WP:UNIGUIDE's advice of "limiting the explicit list to very well-known persons (heads of state, historical figures, etc.) and adding a narrative summary of statistics on such things as Nobel Prizes, other prestigious awards, and so on").

:There are also still unreferenced statements in the article ('Student organizations' seems particularly bad for this), and references cited should be checked to ensure that they are reliable and independent or, if not independent, only used to back up statements that fall under WP:ABOUTSELF (e.g., it's fine to cite the university's website for factual information on the structure of the faculties, but not for a claim that the university is the world-leader in blit-processing). They should also be checked to ensure they actually verify the claim made. For example, the claim that the rugby club is 'one of the oldest collegiate rugby clubs in the United States' is referenced to the club's Instagram profile, which is dubiously reliable, not independent, and doesn't actually make this claim!

:Check for WP:WORDSTOWATCH and anything else that looks like WP:PUFFERY, such as 'famed core curriculum'. This is language that does not normally belong in an encyclopedia. Also, general editing to make sure that things are relevant and make sense, e.g., "The university did not provide standard oversight of Bruno Bettelheim and his tenure as director of the Orthogenic School for Disturbed Children from 1944 to 1973", which is pretty much meaningless as a stand-alone sentence and has little obvious relevance to the history of the university.

:Check that anything subject to change (such as office holders or admission statistics) is up to date and has an {{template|as of}} template or other suitable way of identifying how current the information is.

:Robminchin (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::Thanks for the great suggestions. I'm a new editor, so I'm unsure what the process is on drastic changes to articles (such as removing the majority of the People section and replacing it with a brief list or paragraph). Should I propose the change in the talk section here first and wait for a consensus, or should I make the change first and, if controversial, have it be reverted by someone else and a discussion opened? Charter6281 (talk) 19:55, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Either of these options works. You may want to look at the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle essay and the Wikipedia:Be bold editing guideline. In essence, these describe the second option you suggest - make a BOLD change and if other editors disagree they revert it and then everyone gets together to discuss it. Also, don't lose heart – the University of Oxford#Notable alumni section was recently cleaned up and drastically cut-down after having sat with {{template|summarize}} and {{template|excessive examples}} tags for around a year after initial edits did not gain consensus; it was previously a much longer list in the style of the list here but now looks a lot better. Robminchin (talk) 23:48, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Alright, I've made some fairly significant changes to the page to add citations and rewrite parts of it (although I'm not sure if they're quite enough). Do you have any suggestions on more things that should be changed before renominating? I am noticing that a lot of the citations are to university pages or not independent pages (such as the rugby page). In this case, when claims seem non-trivial and I can't find citations elsewhere, should I remove them entirely? Charter6281 (talk) 18:58, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

:Is there any consensus on whether this page is ready to be renominated or whether it needs more work? Please reply to this message with any suggestions on things to improve (for example, citations). Charter6281 (talk) 23:18, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::It's looking pretty good to me, at least in terms of content (I haven't looked over the sources)! You'll definitely get suggestions of improvement during the review, but that's part of the point!

::Separately: Thoughts on Wikilinking the different Nobel prizes? SSR07 (talk) 01:24, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Thanks for the comment! As for the Wikilinking - initially I thought it might make the paragraph too cluttered with links, but I made the change and it looks really good. Appreciate the suggestion! Charter6281 (talk) 05:45, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

{{Talk:University of Chicago/GA2}}

Hello, my recent edit adding a transportation section to the article as per the GA recommendations was reverted by @Melchior2006 due to its perceived lack of relevance to the page. I disagree, but am open to accepting the reversion if others agree with it. My case is the following: there is precedent set by other GAs and FAs in higher education, such as Washington University and Pomona College, which include public transit lines along with university provided transportation (such as shuttle systems) in their transportation sections. Furthermore, given that UChicago has sites both in Hyde Park and downtown Chicago, transportation options between the two seem particularly relevant. Admittedly, not all GAs on universities include a section on transportation, but given that one was specifically recommended for the University of Chicago page in the GA review, I believe we should add one before renominating the page. @It is a wonderful world, it would be great to get your input on this as well. If such information should not be included in the transportation section, what should be?

Below is the proposed addition (with slight modifications from the original) to the page:

:allow me to comment here: "unlimited rides on CTA busses and trains for undergraduate students" is not encyclo-relevant. Reads like an advertisement or catalog.

:: "All of these lines provide access to downtown Chicago from the Hyde Park campus" -- ditto.

:: "shuttle program that runs year-round" hmmmmm....

::: "the University unveiled" classic booster phrasing.

:::: That's why I deleted. --Melchior2006 (talk) 09:46, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

:This is fair. Do you think the information is inherently boosterism, or is there a way to phrase things to remove the catalog tone? For example, "the university introduced" instead of "unveiled", or "these lines connect Hyde Park and downtown Chicago" instead of "provide access", removing the "year-round" adjective in the shuttle paragraph, etc.

:Ultimately, I think we should still add a transportation section, so if you disagree with the relevance of the items below entirely, do you have any suggestions on what we could include instead? Charter6281 (talk) 14:38, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

::Let's think about why a transportation section is necessary. Is there something that makes UChicago stand out in this regard? Can you reference significant aspects of transportation at the school that are unusual in any way? Indeed, who is it that has anything to say about transportation there? Administrators, students? We need to find some relevance and/or point to some characterstic facts. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 17:20, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I'm confused. I'm new to editing on Wikipedia, so correct me if I'm mistaken, but I thought that the cursory recommendations provided in the GA review were considered uncontroversial additions that should be made to the article before it should be renominated (in this case, adding a transportation section). Are you saying that we can choose to disagree with the reviewer, and with talk page consensus, choose to renominate the page without fixing issues brought up in the initial review?

:::Beyond this, do transportation sections need to be particularly notable before being brought up in an encyclopedic article on a university? WashU's section doesn't seem to have anything particularly important to say, for example, other than general information on how students and faculty can get around campus. I think a brief summary of transportation could be reasonably said to be stock information relevant to any university, as it doesn't seem all that niche or tangential of a topic (although this is a matter of opinion).

:::To answer your question on relevance to UChicago in particular, it looks like one of the main reasons students and administrators bring up the transportation options is in the context of safety (based on student newspaper articles and university websites); e.g. getting around campus at night without needing to walk by yourself. The Via and shuttle programs seem relevant to this. Also, as I mentioned earlier, UChicago having two campuses fairly far apart is pretty unique, and information on how students move between the two (public transit, downtown shuttle) seems relevant. Charter6281 (talk) 20:12, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Providing opportunities to get "around campus at night without needing to walk by yourself" is standard for American campus life. Also, that there are bus stops on campus. Notice that your version is much longer than the WashU section. If you trim it; I think the result would be a good addition to the page. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 04:58, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Alright, how would you feel about the following trimmed down version:

:::::Transportation

:::::The Hyde Park campus is served by the CTA Red Line and Green Line, as well as the Metra Electric District Line and the South Shore Line, all of which provide access to downtown Chicago. The campus is also served by a network of CTA bus routes.

:::::The university shuttle program includes day-time and night-time routes, most of which operate within Hyde Park. In 2022, the university added a Downtown Campus Connector to its shuttle program, which connects the main Hyde Park campus to the Gleacher Center and downtown UChicago Medicine clinics. There are also a number of Divvy bike sharing locations on campus.

:::::In 2024, the University introduced a Via ride-sharing program ahead of the 2024-2025 school year, which provides unlimited free rides on campus in shared vans. Charter6281 (talk) 05:28, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::That looks much better! I would drop " There are also a number of Divvy bike sharing locations on campus." It sounds like a promotional and it might also be WP:Recentism. Otherwise, I think it's great. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 07:35, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Alright, I removed it and added the rest to the page! Thank you very much for your suggestions and willingness to go through and resolve this with me. I'll try to be more careful about boosterism in the future. Charter6281 (talk) 17:11, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

The university participates in the U-Pass program with the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), which provides unlimited rides on CTA busses and trains for undergraduate students during the school year.{{Cite web |title=U-Pass - Fare information |url=https://www.transitchicago.com/upass/default.aspx |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=CTA |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=CTA U-Pass {{!}} The College {{!}} The University of Chicago {{!}} The University of Chicago |url=https://college.uchicago.edu/student-services/cta-u-pass |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=college.uchicago.edu |language=en}} The campus is served by the CTA Red Line and Green Line, as well as the Metra Electric District Line and the South Shore Line.{{Cite web |title=Public Transportation |url=https://safety-security.uchicago.edu/en/transportation/public-transportation |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=safety-security.uchicago.edu |language=en}} All of these lines provide access to downtown Chicago from the Hyde Park campus.{{Cite web |title=Metra Electric (ME) {{!}} Metra |url=https://metra.com/train-lines/me |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=metra.com}}{{Cite web |title=Green Line (Route info, alerts & schedules) |url=https://www.transitchicago.com/greenline/ |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=CTA |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Red Line (Route info, alerts & schedules) |url=https://www.transitchicago.com/redline/ |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=CTA |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Stations & Map |url=https://mysouthshoreline.com/plan-your-trip/stations-map/ |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=South Shore Line |language=en-US}} The campus is also served by a network of CTA bus lines.

The university provides a shuttle program that runs year-round. There are both day-time and night-time routes, most of which operate within Hyde Park.{{Cite web |title=Shuttle Services |url=https://safety-security.uchicago.edu/transportation/shuttle-services/ |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=safety-security.uchicago.edu |language=en}} In 2022, the university added a Downtown Campus Connector to its shuttle program, which runs on the weekdays and connects the main Hyde Park campus to the Gleacher Center and downtown UChicago Medicine clinics.{{Cite web |title=Downtown Campus Connector |url=https://safety-security.uchicago.edu/news-alerts/2022-12-20-Downtown-Campus-Connector |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=safety-security.uchicago.edu |language=en}} There are also a number of Divvy bike sharing locations on campus.

In 2024, the University unveiled a Via program ahead of the 2024-2025 school year, which provides unlimited free rides on campus in shared vans. The program replaced the previous Lyft Ride Smart Program, which provided students seven rides per month, each subsidized by up to $10.{{Cite web |last=Ma |first=Amy |title=University Announces New Via Rideshare Service to Replace Lyft Program in September |url=https://chicagomaroon.com/43817/news/university-announces-new-via-rideshare-service-to-replace-lyft-program-in-september/ |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=Chicago Maroon}} Charter6281 (talk) 19:42, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

"Per MOS:CITELEAD, there shouldn't be any citations in the lead unless the material is "likely to be challenged" this means almost the material in the lead should not be cited. Citations are reserved for the body unless they are very important." {{Done}}

"There is an unreferenced paragraph in the "people" section." {{Done}} Admittedly, only lists of Wikilinks are provided instead of actual citations, but more rigor can be very easily added (at the expense of readability) simply by adding a citation for each name

"The schools could do with a little summary each for broadness, like in Washington University in St. Louis#Colleges and Schools" {{Done}} Maybe should add a summary for the College as well?

"This article is extremely reliant on self-published sourcing by the university. In the sections about the current facts (e.g. the "administration and finance" and "rankings and reputation" sections), this is largely unavoidable, however in the "history" section, better sourcing should be used. The book "The University of Chicago: A History by John W. Boyer" would be a fantastic source to integrate for this purpose. I'll send you a copy if you want one and can't access it." {{Not Done}}

"There is some unnecessary detail in the "history" section (e.g. the sixth paragraph should mostly be cut). The history section should be summary. Details can be moved to History of the University of Chicago." {{Done}} Still need to restructure history section as per above though; might cut this down further when doing so

"The "Administration and finance" section needs to be updated. Some of the information needs to be updated to 2024, and some of the information is cited to old references which can't be used to support statements in the present tense. If the information is still accurate, the citations should be updated to point to non-dead links on the university website. If the citations are already up to date, you can modify the access dates on them to reflect that the information was accessed recently. This section is also missing key information like the university's most recent budget and their total assets value." {{Done}} Although maybe more can be said about the administration's response to Palestine protests/reorganizing the finance section

"The "Reputation and rankings" needs to be updated too, and also it would benefit from expansion to include more of the university's current rankings. Historical information should also probably be in the history section like in other FA and GA university articles (e.g. Pomona College)." {{Done}} Although perhaps disproportionately many rankings for graduate schools included over rankings of the university itself

"The article is missing a "transportation" section." {{Done}}

"Per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, there shouldn't be information that is in the infobox only. The infobox, like the lead, should be a summary of the article." {{Done}} Still has a citation for being a "large city" in the infobox, but it seems like other good articles feature this too; if need be, it can be removed

"Many of the URL statuses are set as "live" when they are actually dead. Changing this reformats the references so the main link points to the live reference link." {{Done}} Probably should replace a lot of these dead links with updated ones though Charter6281 (talk) 05:38, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

:Hey @Charter6281. I've been watching your revisions from the sidelines (pretty busy at the moment). I have a few suggestions--take them or leave them. I might get to them next week, but feel free to make progress earlier if you're interested. Your hard work is admirable, especially for a newcomer !SSR07 (talk) 13:35, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

:* Reintroduce names of affiliated colleges

:* Keep the mention of the Keller Center being designed by van der Rohe

:* James and Paula Crown OF the Crown Family (I assume, unless the whole family participated? In which case maybe no need to mention the husband/wife duo)

:* Consider which rankings are used. Why isn’t Times Higher Ed used, for example?

:* Ravelstein in the pop culture section

:* Names under the people section currently under citations should be in notes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Note)

:SSR07 (talk) 13:35, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

::Thanks for the suggestions, I really appreciate it! I will probably add the names of the affiliated colleges when I rewrite (or re-source) the history section, although I'm not 100% sure if it's superfluous information (since the affiliation ended over a century ago). I added the information about Edith Abbott Hall being designed by van der Rohe (Keller was designed by Edward Stone) and a mention on Ravelstein. Also, we do mention Times Higher Ed in the article, unless you mean for graduate school rankings? To be honest, I just looked up "UChicago rank" online and chose the publications that seemed the most important/recognizable, so please let me know if you have other publications you want to cite.

::On the Crown Family - the source I use says that the donation was from James and Paula Crown AND the Crown Family, which I agree seems ambiguous and a little unnecessary. I left it like that to be more faithful to the text I was citing in case I was interpreting it wrong, but you can change it if you like (or we can use a different source).

::Finally, on the Template:Note - thank you for the suggestion! I'm not sure how exactly to format them though and could use some help with that. Also, on the top of the link you sent, it says that this is no longer the recommended method of citing sources - should we be using a different template? Either way, if you can post an example on the talk page of how the lists of names should be formatted, I can do the rest on the main article. Charter6281 (talk) 00:13, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Thanks! On the notes system, I think I sent the wrong link. There's a way to have a "footnotes" system separate from the sourcing/referencing system. See this example on the Oxford Uni page. They're pretty popular, especially on longer articles. I think this is probably the guide to do that, but I suck at Wiki markup so I'm really not sure. I'lll give it a shot, but we may need to get someone else to do this for us.... SSR07 (talk) 14:19, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::::On second thought: Is it even necessary to list out the recipients of these awards? It's a little inconsistent (we're not listing the Olympians, for example, or all of the Nobel laureates). I could imagine a page called something like "List of awards received by people affiliated with the University of Chicago", but I feel like that's a little outside of this article's purview. Thoughts on just getting rid of the lists altogether? Other university articles, with a cursory scan, don't list recipients. SSR07 (talk) 14:30, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::It's just because I have no other way to easily give citations to the claim that UChicago has produced X cabinet secretaries or Y heads of state, since the information is not collated and published elsewhere (as it is with the statistic 101 Nobel laureates, which is on the UChicago website). If we remove the lists (even if it's what the other university articles do), we ought to replace them with a different citation, but I'm not sure if that's possible outside of listing one citation for each person on the list to confirm their UChicago alumnus status.

:::::Also, by awards do you mean notable positions post-graduation? I don't think we do list names of award recipients in the people section. As for Olympians, yeah this is a problem, but at least we have a link to a Wikipedia article with all their names, and I would even suggest replacing that citation with a list as well (although in this case, perhaps a list of citations, since I'm not sure all these Olympians have Wikipedia articles). Then again, I have no idea what the standard way of citing something like this is, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Charter6281 (talk) 14:39, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Oh, unless you mean the Turing Award recipients - again, that was just because I couldn't find that statistic anywhere else. Charter6281 (talk) 14:41, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Oh, I didn't even realize that.

:::::::I double checked to make sure, but I think citing sources and adding them should be permissible under the "routine calculations" exception to the "no original research" rule, so we're clear there.

:::::::Looking to how other articles on prestigious universities treat award counts: Oxford doesn't cite at all (a problem!), Harvard cites articles that seem to have the accurate count (directories, announcements that include running totals, etc.), as does Yale, and Columbia. Princeton doesn't count (and is more generally a big mess).

:::::::Looking for running totals somewhere is likely the best option. If there isn't such a source and the list is short enough, a mixed reference/note system would probably be preferable, and if there isn't a good source and the list is quite long, might just be best to cut it....if there isn't a number anywhere published then it's probably just not notable enough to be counted on WP. Just my opinions! SSR07 (talk) 15:17, 27 May 2025 (UTC)