Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of Michigan State University

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History of Michigan State University[edit]

This is the first nomination for an article prepared in conjunction with Wikipedia:WikiProject Michigan. This article has had a peer review. Project members are on stand-by to respond to any objections or address comments. Jtmichcock 01:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support [btw, this is Pulley, again, it's not registering at the end]. To whip this article into shape, I tidied a few things up, such as, w/ the 1st inset photo of campus, I reordered the list of building names to match those in the photograph, which wasn't done, originally. Also, there were other things: stylistically I changed: the possessive Holmes's to Holmes', which is not only the modern possessive form of 's'-ending names, it is consistent w/ other citations, like: Williams'. I changed (Williams) from "school president" to "college" president. Also, in the section where it was noted Abbot reverted the curriculum, I substituted "liberal" instead of "general" (in the phrase liberal/practical) because, in the academic context, the term "liberal" is more the yin to practical's yang than is "general". There were other spots that, while grammatically correct, needed tightening, like the section where we discuss the 1885 opening of the Mechanics program (eliminated: Michigan State University; added "which became its first full-fledged, degree-granting engineering program." Also, I bold-ed the name changes "Michigan Agricultural College" and "Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences" since, not only were these names (and corresponding dates) neatly referenced in an inset box near the article's beginning, it was consistent with other text, reference name changes. I doubt anyone should have any problems with these changes (if so, please say so).151.197.170.126 04:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Object - Two items that jump out at me. First, the lead is too short for the article size. Second, some more facts need citation. One specific example: "Despite these innovations, Williams ran into conflict with the managing State Board of Education. The Board saw the College as being elitist and extravagant, despite William's eloquent defense of higher education for the masses. Indeed, many farmers began protesting against the College's curriculum and called for its abolition." Fieari 02:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1) I have enhanced the lede by three sentences, providing more detail as to the content of the article. 2) I have reinserted additional page citations to the text. I am also looking to see if we need to get more cites to the latter part and I would appreciate any input. Thanks. Jtmichcock 03:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead is still insufficient for the size of the article, according to WP:LEAD. It should be three paragraphs. This is a sticking point for me, I'm afraid. I feel that the best wikipedia has to offer should follow standards like this. The "Co-ed College" section could use a few more citations in the first and second paragraphs. Other than these two points, the article looks good. Fix them, and you have my support. Fieari 21:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed. Good work! Support now. Fieari 18:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's not really helpful unless you can tell what it is missing. The article is about the right length for it's topic. - Taxman Talk 00:05, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support nice job. The article size is right for the subject, and it is well referenced. PDXblazers 04:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Very well done. I still think the riots issue is a little whitewashed. I mean there were police cars flipped over and burned, and I saw coverage of one of them on the news in California. I don't remember the estimates of cars burned and total damage, but some of them were fairly significant. And if I recall more than just the 2005 issue came after sports wins or losses so saying they were due to tensions over student drinking isn't very accurate. But that's a reasonably small issue, not too hard to fix, and ideally shouldn't take any more or even as much space as it does now. - Taxman Talk 17:12, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have revised the paragraph at issue so it is more even-handed. One problem is that local paper is probably not unbiased in its own coverage. The News and Free Press accounts were more balanced, but are inaccessible absent a large subscription fee. Jtmichcock 18:01, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is much better and simple enough. You should be able to get the News and Free Press at the library on microfiche if nothing else. If you had a source you could also note some (large?) proportion of those involved in the riots had no affiliation with the university and some of the events simply happened near campus. Interestingly enough, I happen to know the person that started the couch on fire in the Gunsen St riot and he wasn't a student and didn't live near campus. - Taxman Talk 19:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I created this article a while back and put a lot of work into it back in January, but since moving I've been too busy to work on it. Thanks to Jtmitchcock for fixing it up and nominating it. It looks good so far, I'll try to help out when I can. Lovelac7 20:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question Michigan State University has already been a featured article and fairly recently (I think... I may be confusing it with University of Michigan which was also a FA) as well, and as well as linking to this history article, also has a key section from the history article on its page. Wouldn't featuring the History of Michigan State University article essentially repeat this subject matter? Does this point disqualify this article? Bwithh 00:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This article is a daughter article of the Michigan State University and was started because its parent was getting too large. There are a number of similar articles throughout Wikipedia, particularly as it relates to institutions and places (History of Miami, Florida, which was made a feature article just recently, comes to mind). While there is a brief summary of MSU's history in the parent article, it is just that: brief. Same goes for the Miami, Florida article. Having information related to another article has never disqualified any article I have seen. Jtmichcock 01:40, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's in fact precedent for all the daughter articles being featured. See: Saffron, History of saffron, and Trade and usage of saffron. Fieari 21:10, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, Support Bwithh 21:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support One of the reason's for the daughter article is b/c of the history portions I wrote and expanded got to long for the mother article. However, in revising the intro paragraph, we need to be careful of our grammar as well as facts. Example "The school admitted its first African American student in 1899 and, shortly thereafter, the college began offering degrees in engineering and other applied sciences to students." This article is both facutally inaccurate (engineering degrees were offered immediately after mechanical engineering was offered in 1885) and grammatically awkward (the same subject listed twice with different names: "school", "college"). Therefore, if there are no objections, I plan to delete the latter portion of this sentence (leaving the African American 1st part) for it adds little and detracts a lot. Pulley14 03:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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