Talk:University of Manchester/Archive 1

Archive 1

Miscellaneous

I have cleaned this article up so it looks like something approaching an encyclopaedia article. It still needs some work, but it's better than it was. It appears that it was originally copied verbatim from [1]. I have contacted the owner for permission; if he refuses I'll revert to an older version. —Wereon 19:15, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

P.S. Do any Latin-speakers have a translation for the University motto, Arduus ad solem?

I asked the PR dept at U of M about the logo, and they have now inserted the current moto. They will also provide the approved translation in due course. Billlion 09:46, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It means striving towards the sun - P.Lai

Thanks, but that was the old Victoria University of Manchester logo. The new one is "Cognitio, sapientia, hvmanitas" and a Translaton is given .Billlion 21:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

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What's the section about the famous figures in Science on the bottom of this article for? If it's because there's a hall of fame at Manchester (I've never heard of it and I'm a student there) then that should go in a seperate article, if it even deserves to be in the Wikipedia.

(I think it was there because they're all either former alumni or staff of the university, it's on the Victoria University page now, but I think it needs some cleaning-up).

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I've slightly rewritten the introduction. I appreciate that the page is somewhat incomplete still, I shall add some more stuff when I have time. What I'm planning is something along the lines of: an 'About' section with a slightly more indepth overview of the the university, current research etc; then a 'History' - with a brief summary, then links to Victoria and UMIST pages for further details; 'Campus' - description of campuses, links to halls, subsections about notable buildings - Jodrell Bank and John Rylands, etc.; then perhaps a brief note about 'famous alumni', with a link to a more detailed alumni list. I shall also add a box (as for Cambridge, Harvard, etc) with a brief summary of facts about the university. If anyone has any good pictures of some of the more impressive university buildings and the John Rylands Library to add to this page that would be good.--Iceaxejuggler 13:39, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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The table on this page has some trouble with my browser/skin (Firefox 0.9.3, Cologne Blue); the text is overlapping the right edge of the table and 'bleeding' onto the background. Not sure why. Radagast 14:05, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Text bleeds to the right on konqueror 3.2.0 too. Must be a problem with the template rather than this instance? Billlion 15:36, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contact theatre

This sounds like an advertisement. Can some one who knows this theatre write something encyclopedic please. There is also a stub for the theatre that says less than here. Does not seem in place in this article Billlion 20:31, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Massive attack of POV

User:130.88.177.15 seems to have a campaign of posting large amounts of propaganda about the bright future of this institution from the University's web site. When this settles down can someone please revert it, or extract anything suitably encylopedic from this gush of optimistic rhetoric? Billlion 22:11, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have deleted the gush about the University's future. Nearly all university leaders say similar such nonsense and this isn't very encyclopedic. In any case there is already a reference in the introduction: "One of the stated ambitions of the newly combined university is to 'establish it by 2015 among the 25 strongest research universities in the world on commonly accepted criteria of research excellence and performance'" and a link to the strategy for those interested.--Iceaxejuggler 00:11, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am in two minds about this now. Direct quotes from Alan Gilbert are at least clearly POV. I think the thing that needs to be expressed is that the motivation for merger was to haul ourselves up the league tables rather than save money on efficiency savings. I had a go at editing the straight propaganda a bit, and I feel a bit more could be included. Its hard to be objective as those close enough to the university to know are likely to be biased. Billlion 08:17, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I moved some direct quotes by Alan Gilbert to his own page. Although that page seems a shade on the hostile side of neutral.Billlion 13:38, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Has the PR department been at work here? Although most of it's undoubtedly true, its tone is too promotional. The article needs to be more encyclopedic, i.e. more objective... Cal T 22:55, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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As far as I know the official name of the university is "The University of Manchester" and not "University of Manchester". Should the title of the article be modified to reflect this? I have not edited anything before in Wikipedia, so I am unsure of what should be done. --NavarroJ 08:40, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well yes in a way. See for example University of Manchester Act 2004, but the definite article in this act is also applied to The Victoria University of Manchester and The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. And it is wikipedia policy to avoid The in article titles. I suspect many universities have The in their Royal Charter, but in this case the University's PR people are trying to push the use of "The" as a branding issue. My suggestion is leave the The out Billlion 20:06, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Definite Article

It is my understanding that the University's policy is that its name shall be "The University of Manchester", with a capital T in "The". Is there any reason why I shouldn't move the article from University of Manchester to The University of Manchester? --Stemonitis 12:27, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I can't see why not. But remember to make the University of Manchester page redirect to the new one. David 20:09, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Done --Stemonitis 12:50, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is not to use the definite article (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)#Universities), so I've moved it back. - Green Tentacle 18:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Strength and standing

This could do with some sort of comment upon the university's current academic strength and its standing compared with other universities in the UK. I'm not in a position to do this, but the article is lacking something like that.

Very hard to do in an encylopedic and objective way. There are league tables of course but they are all flawed. Please add comments to bottom of Talk pages and sign using three tildes. Billlion 18:06, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

THE university of manchester

Its not 'university of manchester', but 'the university of manchester' i moved this page and added redirects, but its been moved back and renamed.? why? Rog 12:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

When did you do that, and what username were you using at the time? As far as I can tell, the page hasn't been moved for quite some time. Talrias (t | e | c) 12:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, i looked at that actually and couldn't see it either- think i did it as a guest? i guess it must have been about october/nov?. i don't come here that often.. the other thing i looked at after posting the above is all the other unis - so perhaps everything on wiki has the 'the' missing. i don't believe it should, i think it sounds disjointed and it is part of the actual name but you know, its sometimes worth bowing under the popular pressure eh.Rog 20:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

da da:

"Definite Article

It is my understanding that the University's policy is that its name shall be "The University of Manchester", with a capital T in "The". Is there any reason why I shouldn't move the article from University of Manchester to The University of Manchester? --Stemonitis 12:27, 3 September 2005 (UTC) I can't see why not. But remember to make the University of Manchester page redirect to the new one. David 20:09, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Done --Stemonitis 12:50, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is not to use the definate article (see Wikipedia,Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)Universities), so I've moved it back. - Green Tentacle 18:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)" Rog

Stuff the Wikipedia policy just use common sense. "The" is part of its name and so it should be used in the title of the article. By all means create a divert page but do things as they really are. Xania 18:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't have much sympathy for 'stuffing' wikipedia policy(!), but more importantly here the insistance on the use of "The" in the title is a branding/marketing decision rather than a part of its legal name as defined in its charter and statutes. It's really part of the rebranding exercise after the merger and is more marketing fluff than substance, sort of the emphasise "the one and only" University of Manchester. Billlion 19:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Oops, retract that! It is in the charter and statutes [2]

Doubly embarassing as I helped write them.Billlion 20:00, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Somebody has just added a redirect from "UMIST" to this article. This is plainly an error, as there is a separate article for UMIST (which can still be found under the title "University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology". I will remove the redirect (if I can work out how!) as it plainly makes it harder for people to find the UMIST article. Twilde 8 April 2007

Movement

The university has adopted a policy of moving almost entirely to the Oxford Road site

Source please, i've certainly not heard anyone mention this in my department (eee) and they still seem to be building some kind of new interdisciplinary research facility pretty close to the Umist end, not to mention all the work they've been doing to the Sackville street building recently (including the very posh new centre for excellence in enquiry based learning) Plugwash 02:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok its a bit better now but i still think its greatly exagerrating whats going on. i know they are building a new maths building (not sure if its going to be on the site of the one they are tearing down or not) but is there actually any expansion of facilities going on and if so what and where (i don't count tearing down a building to build a new one of similar size on its site as expansion). Plugwash 16:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The School of Mathematics is currently in four buildings. See campus map. Lamb and Newmann (89 an 88 on th map) buildings are temporary buildings either side of Booth Street East (on the "former UMIST" side of "former VUM" campus), while MSS Building (21) Ferranti Building (20) are on the former UMIST capmus. The new building (Called "AMPS" for the moment) has already been started ( pictures )and is located next to the west of Schuster Physics building (54) on what is indicated as "Car Park C" on the map. The site of the former maths tower is going to be a new student oriented complex with enormous lecture theatres as well as student support services. The recently completed Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (16 on the map) was commisioned by UMIST just before the Project Unity talks began, but nevertheless can be counted as expansion on the former UMIST site. One reason that the University tries to avoid talking of North and South Campus as distinct is because it bolsters its PR claim to be the biggest single campus university in the UK. In fact the former campuses of UMIST and VUM overlapped anyway. UMIST's School of Management was on the Oxford Road, and the Material Sciences Department was already a joint department.Billlion 19:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok so the maths departments moving as it consolidates, thats one new building and one pulled down so no significant change there! (there may be depending on what replaces the old maths tower of c is that planned in any way?) is there any other movement that could substantiate that paragraph or should i just rip it completely.

As I said the old maths tower site is to be used mainly for big lecture theatres and student facilities. I can't give an externally available reference for that yet. But as there are no immediate plans and only speculation on any of the buildings on the former UMIST site being sold off. Best to delete, and wait until plans are actually announced.Billlion 20:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

And what exactly do you mean by temporary buildings? actual temporary structures? locations that are normally used for something else? buildings rented from outside? Plugwash 03:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Lamb and Newman are two-story prefabricated buildings without foundations, they are temporary in the sense that they are will be moved and used for some other purpose when the AMPS project is complete. A picture makes it clear Lamb building, Newman building. [[User:Billlion

|Billlion]] 20:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The new project on the old maths tower site is provisionally called the SCAN building see eg [3] (word doc). [4]

Billlion 13:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC) S: I'm confused - not sure what I am doing - save some for me!

Famous old boys

As I understand it, quite a few famous people from 'Manchester University' have gone on to be succesful and from memory (OK just checked all the articles and they all state Univ of M except Zoe Ball so I'd be grateful for confirmation there), these include Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmonson, Steve Coogan, and Zoe Ball and Euros Lyn. Can anyone confirm that these people attended the university, and if so, should there be an additional section at the foot of the article to include these people? DavidFarmbrough 11:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Well most of those should be changed to point to victoria university of manchester (which was widely known as the university of manchester before the merger). The university described here was only formed in 2004 so i doubt it has many highly sucessfull graduates yet! Plugwash 12:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

section

the following was in the article Whitworth Park:

Whitworth Park is Manchester University's largest hall of residence with over 1000 residents, located on Oxford Road, part of the 'City Campus'. It is in a central location on the University of Manchester campus, close to sports centre, libraries and Students Union. It comprises of eight low-rise houses containing one to three storey flats for groups of seven, eight or nine students. Accommodation is in single study bedrooms, with shared kitchen, lounge and bathroom in each flat.

Grove House houses the administrative and social centre of the community. Facilities include two squash courts, launderette, bar, gym and large dance hall. Whitworth Park has an Active Residents Association. Postgraduate students are housed in parts of Leamington and in Acomb. Acomb consists of twelve self-contained flats with 7 or 8 study bedrooms sharing kitchen, lounge, three showers and toilets.

I redirrected the article to here, and this can be incorporated into the text. Jon513 18:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, Whitworth Park is not the biggest of the halls of residence. Oak house is the biggest followed very closely by Owens Park 84.69.141.188 16:10, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Famous academic staff and alumni

This section breaks up the flow of the page and seems just to be a list. Wouldn't it be better at the end of the article or as a separate page altogether?Alex 11:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Also the category Category:People associated with the University of Manchester and its various sub-categories need to be populated and sorted, particularly to ensure that pre 2004 alumni are listed by component institute (and actually linking there). Timrollpickering 02:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The table of research incomes of leading UK Universities didn't really seem to belong here, since most of the information it contains doesn't really pertain directly to the University of Manchester. I've retained the figure for Manchester and the observation that it is the fifth largest in the UK, as a sentence in the section on "The present". Cambyses 09:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

University ratings

(I'm posting this to all articles on UK universities as so far discussion hasn't really taken off on Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities.)

There needs to be a broader convention about which university rankings to include in articles. Currently it seems most pages are listing primarily those that show the institution at its best (or worst in a few cases). See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#University ratings. Timrollpickering 22:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

School of Informatics

User:mholland wrote on my talk

Hi there. Category:Schools of Informatics seems to have been created and populated by User:Michael Fourman, but placing University of Manchester looks like good categorisation to me. The category page explains that it's for Universities which contain a school of informatics. And UoM is a member of Category:Nursing schools in the United Kingdom too. Would you reconsider uncat'ing it? (Ignore me if Manchester doesn't have such a department at all!) — mholland 15:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I take your point. First of all UoM used to have a School of Informatics. It was formed from the Department of Computation at UMIST after merger but has since been absorbed in to other schools. Secondly I would say the category is wrongly named, but that issue does not matter much here. Billlion 15:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. Thank you for clarifying. — mholland 15:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

North and South Campus terminology

I have reverted an edit that removed the terms North and South Campus, on the grounds of the terms as not being 'official'. What exactly is the definition of 'official' in this context? The terms seem to be used in various places, and documents on the university website, as a site search or Google site search will reveal. Surely this, and their use amongst students and staff gives the terms some de-facto legitimacy, and at least a justification for their inclusion in the article. I think they ought to be included, though explain their 'semi-official' status by all means. -- Fursday 14:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

As it says above under "The largest single site University in the UK" there is not really much of a gap. Actually the official policy just after merger was that the terms "vicinity of Sackville St " and "vicinity of Oxford Road" would be used an no official documents would say North and South Campus, perhaps to help the claim to be the largest single site university and avoid any confusion about the two parts being distinct campuses. The map [5] shows fairly well that the gap caused by the Mancunian way is pretty small, but there is a kind of waist separating the two parts. In any case I agree that the terminology is used informally. However I do not think it is a useful distinction. It is not even a clear way to divide former VUM and UMIST buildings as Material Science and Oddfellows, Aquatic Centre for example were joint and the UMIST part of what is now MBS is in the thick of the mainly VUM part. Please revert your revert. Billlion 16:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of the perceived usefulness or official status of the terms, they are nonetheless being used and that justifies their mention. From what I can tell, there seems to be confusion around the various disparate parts of the university as to their status as official terms, with some parts using them and others not. I have reworded the paragraph in question to this end. Fursday 17:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the merge proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the merge proposal was no consensus.

Proposal to merge articles

Strongly Agree

Hi Twilde, Fursday, mholland and all the others. Thanks for your comments and I am sorry that I have not written out the reasons for my prosposal. Two universities have merged to one much larger institution, which is called very similarly to its predecessors. I believe that people, who are not familiar with the topic, get easily confused (very few knew that Manchester University had a Victoria in the name until 2004). Although UMIST gained its Royal Charter in 1956, it became a fully autonomous university only in 1993. previously its degrees were awarded by the VUM (in contrast to Twilde's point that UMIST existed for 180 years as a separate institution). In fact, the two separate universities were actually never that "separate", shared the same accommodations (and to same extent also administration) and have the same roots. Moreover, Twilde argues that "proponents of the 2004 merger between UMIST and Manchester Uni made very clear that the new Manchester University should be regarded as a completely new university". By contrast, the university advertised itself as "The University of Manchester - combining the strengths of UMIST and The Victoria University of Manchester". so it does not really distinct itself from both of those that preceded it. However, Twilde's 3rd point that the the article would get too long is certainly true. I suggest the "new" University of Manchester should have one main article, whereas UMIST and VUM could belong to a newly-formed "History of Manchester University"-article. Otherwise, the Mechanics' Institute (predecessor of UMIST existed for almost 60 years) and Owens College (predecessor of VUM) also deserve separate articles. Miriam234 11:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

p.s: the VUM-article does NOT have any information that is not mentioned in the current University of Manchester part; the amount of duplication is vast. Hence, a redirection from VUM to the new UofM is in my opinion definitely justified Miriam234 14:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The redirects will not be justified unless a consensus agrees to your merge proposal. As long as the Victoria University of Manchester and University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology articles exist, that's where the redirects should go. I disagree that the two universities share the same roots. The History sections of both will affirm that they were both set up for entirely different reasons, and for quite a while the Mechanics Institute, as was, didn't even issue degrees. It was completely common, up until the 1990s, for colleges and technical institutes to use the local 'Red Brick' Universities to issue degrees for degree courses, and there is nothing 'special' about the relationship between UMIST and the old Manchester University in this regard, Manchester Polytechnic did the same thing, for example. Because UMIST was not a proper university for so long, and was started as something completely different from a University, it deserves a separate article on those ground alone. -- Fursday 16:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Miriam234 has posted a tag on the UMIST article page proposing that that article should be merged with the (new) University of Manchester one. The tag includes a link marked "Discuss", which points at this talk page. So far as I can see, there has been no discussion yet, so I hope to start one. I am strongly opposed to Miriam234's suggestion. I think the three articles (UMIST, Victoria Uni of Manchester and Univ of Manchester) should be kept separate. There are several reasons for this: (1) even given a small amount of duplication at present, merging them all would make an extremely long article. (2) the proponents of the 2004 merger between UMIST and Manchester Uni made very clear that the new Manchester University should be regarded as a completely new university, distinct from both of those that preceded it. They did this to suggest that the proposal was for a merger of two univerisities rather than a takeover of UMIST by the Univ of Manchester. Wikipedia correctly reflects this intention by having three separate articles. (3) UMIST existed for 180 years as a separate institution. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and NOT a directory of currently-existing university institutions. Like all encyclopedias, it contains many articles concerning objects, people and institutions which no longer exist. UMIST is one such. No number of mergers in the present, however complete, can alter the fact that UMIST was a separate institution in the past, and therefore requires its own article in Wikipedia. Twilde 11 April 2007.

Strongly Oppose - for more or less the same reasons as stated above. The logistics of merging would be quite nightmare-ish: The new article would be far too big, and it would be quite difficult for a reader wishing to learn about one of the two original universities to separate this information from that of the other institution and that of the current institution. I see little argument for this merger. -- Fursday 22:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the articles on UMIST and VUM should be preserved and improved like all other articles about defunct intitutions. Additionally, I have reverted Miriam234's edits to UMIST and a few other redirects which she pointed towards this article instead of the parent institutions' articles. Should a consensus be found for the merge, it would of course be appropriate to point all redirects to University of Manchester. I refrain from casting a !vote: I hope this is a discussion, and not yet a straw poll :) — [Edit: I am a fool. What I meant to say is: UMIST has been re-redirected, I have done Victoria university of manchester and a couple of others.] — mholland (talk) 22:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Oppose for the same reasons as those given by User:Fursday. --Lost tourist (Talk) 15:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose The articles about the former institutions are about the histories and are distinct. Theay are likely to grow as well. As for the article University of Manchester it is largely about the present state of the institution, and will be added to as well. A merged article would be too long, and as for the history it would have to either be two articles pasted together or for each period it would have to flip between 'Owens' and 'The Tech' for each period. Completely unworkable. Billlion 21:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the UMIST part, the history bit there is too long to put it into the University of Manchester (UofM) article but what about VUM? The article about Victoria Univ. of Manc. does not have any information which is not already mentioned in the one of UofM. So I suggest to redirect the VUM to UofM and leave the UMIST article as it is. what do you think about that? Miriam234 22:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The Victoria University is reason enough to keep the article separate in my opinion. Although little is presently written about the federal Victoria University that encompassed what is now Liverpool and Leeds universities, as well as Manchester, I feel that this subject has sufficient potential to warrant separation from the main University of Manchester article. -- Fursday 00:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

There is an article about the federal Victoria University and one concerning the Victoria University of Manchester. Which one are you referring to? former should definitely be preserved and - if possible - extended, however, latter only consists of a short paragraph regarding its history and a long list of famous alumni. Both have been taken over to the new UofM article and substantially extended. So from this point of view, Victoria University of Manchester is rather confusing than informative.Miriam234 15:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

More of a case to rewrite the VUM article so it is only about the history of a defunct university like the UMIST one, and then make sure UoM has enough 'see main article VUM or UMIST' after a brief summary of history. Billlion 08:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Comments are getting a bit out of sequence! But I say again, re-write VUM article editting it down so it is VUM specific. Remember that UoM is a completely new University formed by the dissolution of the two former institutions, so it does not make sense to have a UMIST article and not a VUM article. Actually another option occurs to me. Perhaps the VUM and UMIST articles should be History of the Victoria University of Manchester and History of UMIST to make it clear. That way the UoM article can stay with a brief summary and then refer to the history articles...? Billlion 17:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, though the VUM should definitely link to this history you propose, not to this article. -- Fursday 20:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Great idea, Billlion !!! Miriam234 22:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we remove the tags and gt on with it then...Billlion 21:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

May I request that VUM and UMIST stay where they are for the time being? The articles will be historical by nature, and moving them to "History of..." seems unnecessary to me (and out of step with the other articles in Category:Defunct universities in England). I would agree that there's no consensus here for the proposed merge. — mholland (talk) 21:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Clubs and Societies

Shouldn't these be at University of Manchester Students' Union rather than here, as official societies are operated and administered by the Union, rather than the University itself. -- Fursday 22:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a sensible suggestion, but it was either never done or has been reverted. If people are ok with it I will expand the societies and move it to UMSU, leaving a short section and a main article link here. Billsmith453 (talk) 23:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

No it is not sensible. Many of the clubs and societies mentioned are funded through the athletics union and are nothing to do with the Students Union, this even includes some "non-competitive sports" club like Scuba diving.Billlion (talk) 08:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Didn't know that. Can I then restructure the section a little to explain what types of clubs societies there are, who runs them, etc. I definitely think this section is not the place for some of the stuff that is there like StudentDirect, Fuse FM and the Manchester Academy. Perhaps the best format would be to describe AU societies here, pointing out that UMSU runs other societies and providing a 'see also' link to the UMSU page. Billsmith453 (talk) 09:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me.Billlion (talk) 11:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Famous people

I edited out People associated with the University of Manchester from the section in Victoria University of Manchester. But then found it was essentially a subset and not as good as the section in this article. As this article is too long already, how about move most of that section to People associated with the University of Manchester, and just leave a few really famous people, eg Nobel prize winners and such like? Billlion 09:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is this article too long? And why should the section with the famous alumni be put into another article? Manchester is one of just a handful universities in the UK that can claim to have a wide and unique range of famous alumni, some of them were pioneers in their fields, received Nobel Prizes or are head of states. The institution has any reason to be proud of these people and can afford to put it into the main article. So please, before making such a substantional move there should be a general agreement about that. This is the reason why I undo your last changes. Miriam234 11:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Billlion, a sensible move. -- Fursday 13:31, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I also think that the list here is becoming rather unmanageable. The page is currently 46kB long, and the notables are ripe for forking. I would support reducing the Famous academic staff and alumni section to a prose summary, linked to the main article on notables. I would also like to see People associated with the University of Manchester divided by UMIST/VUM/UoM, so it could be appropriately linked to from the other two articles as well. — mholland (talk) 14:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is the list becoming unmanageable? The reader does not need to jump from one article to another. the list is at the end of the article, not in the middle, and does hence not disturb the "text flow". The reader can either stop reading where the NHS hospital section ends or can continue and see the list of people that are associated with the university. Other Russel Group universities such as Birmingham, Warwick or Southampton also mention notable alumni and even Vice-Chancellors; the articles about oxford, cambridge and LSE reach a similar lenght as the one of Manchester.

Regarding your second idea, many of the people on the list have in fact studied or worked at both institutions, and the newly established UofM can hardly have famous alumni yet. Miriam234 15:06, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The list is perhaps not unmanageable, but it is certainly unmanaged. If I were looking to prune this article aggressively, I'd remove most of the text following the names - that's what the biographical articles themselves are for. None of the articles you mentioned (Oxford, Cambridge, LSE) has a similar list. In fact, the section at LSE is an exemplar of the sort of thing I'd like to see here.

There's no harm done to any of the encyclopedic content by forking and hyperlinking material, but there are compelling technical and practical reasons why a single page should not be allowed to grow too long. — mholland (talk) 15:35, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The text behind the names could be indeed shortened but on the other hand it shows their connection with the university and what (pioneering) research they have done. In any case, I assume that the alumni list has reached its full lenght by now and hence suggest to leave it as it is. In my view the current version article is well-structured and still includes a lot of interesting information and facts about the university without having a "promotional tone" or meaningless sentences. Miriam234 00:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we have a majority if not a consensus. I will reinstate my stub section on famous people, and then we can continue developing that with a few highlights and any further people are added to the new article People associated with the University of Manchester summary of argument:-

• Article is too long, see WP:Article size. The article is 46.5 kB and the maximum size is 32k. If anyone does not agree with don't cutting this section they need to propose what to cut instead.
• The list will continue to grow anyway, two more names were added during this debate and there are clearly missing sub headings.
• Exemplar University articles have only a brief summary section like the one I started (but was deleted by Miriam234). Obviously this needs to be expanded and there will be a debate about who to include. Roughly the guideline is Nobel prize or extremely well know outside their own field. Billlion 06:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

"I think we have a majority if not a consensus." - we are in the middle of the debate, I would like to discuss the points you mentioned:

The article is indeed long, but its not longer than other university articles (see other Russell group members or universities in the US). What difference does it make to have two 24 kB or one 46,5 kB article? Having the names in one article doesnt make it necessary to jump from one article to another, and I assume that the list of names have almost reached its full lenght. What we can do is shortening the list, for instance, "the arts"-section, but the names in the chemistry and physics section are mainly pioneers in their fields and therefore deserve to be mentioned (zB John Dalton, who did not receive a Nobel Prize, but still achieved a lot more than most others). discussing who is worth to be mentioned and who not isn't might be ridiculous. Though we can leave out the descriptions for the physicists. Furthermore, I doubt that the list will grow much longer and I believe that the way it is now, is fine, readable and manageable. I would appreciate if you could reply to the postings before moving half of the article to another (some sort of hidden) site. Miriam234 12:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Btw, before we continue to change anything, we should at first merge or complete following lists:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_associated_with_the_University_of_Manchester
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_associated_with_the_Victoria_University_of_Manchester
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_associated_with_the_University_of_Manchester_Institute_of_Science_and_Technology
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Alumni_of_the_University_of_Manchester
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Alumni_of_the_Victoria_University_of_Manchester
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Alumni_of_the_University_of_Manchester_Institute_of_Science_and_Technology
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Academics_of_the_Victoria_University_of_Manchester
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Academics_of_the_University_of_Manchester
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Academics_of_the_University_of_Manchester_Institute_of_Science_and_Technology

I think that the list will obviously continue to grow, because research continues at Manchester, and because there are plenty of missing biographies for past academics who might populate this list. It is by no means at its full length. I also think that selectively pruning figures from the arts from this list would be POV, and something that wouldn't be countenanced on a forked list. My opinions on forking or otherwise aren't very strongly held, because it shouldn't make any difference to the encyclopedic content (it just seems like a natural split to me). Those categories, on the other hand, I would very much like to keep separate. Merging them would not be helpful categorisation. — mholland (talk) 14:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes of course the cats will continue to grow. There might be a case for merging them in the long term, as i wonder if after a few years no-one will be that interested in if someone was at VUM or UMIST. At the moment though people do seem to care about it so I suggest we keep most of these Cats. Billlion 06:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

And as for "I assume lists have reached full length", no, they are certainly growing. I think even the second derivative is positive. Billlion 06:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I dont think its right to delete what others have written. Billion did not only delete all the names but also what "Umair2300" has added as an alternative. Why? Can you give me a reason why the text should just be as you might like it. Seriously, the (impressive) list of famous alumni stretches the article a bit, i agree, but it also demonstrates Manchester's contributions to science and -more important- it was a motivational factor since quite a few joined and added some names. I guess that it made some passive wikipedia readers to active wikipedians (and even i, who is not a 'traditional' user, might be interested in the additions that were made). Thats the reason for putting the list back on. anyway, its getting late and im tired. enjoy yourself ps: Manchester Uni(ted) rulez TheDanNr9

I agree that the list should not be deleted, and it hasn't been. It is at People associated with the University of Manchester. I would ask that for simplicity's sake, that only one copy of the list should be in play at any time: at the moment, there is a majority opinion (if not a consensus) for the list to be separate. If editors would like to discuss bringing the material back into this page, I would welcome a merge proposal. — mholland (talk) 23:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:SS Should now be vital reading for everybody who is involved in this section now. -- Fursday 19:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I hadn't seen that. Is there some way we can tag the section to discourage people from adding people to that rather than the sub article? Billlion 16:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I would just like to point out

I would just like to point out; "I" posted a warning on this page, relating to the activities of the University; & its socio-political make-up. The use of psychological testing; in the open community of North-West England, has gone on for over 7 years now; & has now reached a "Group Delusional Level", within the academic make-up of the area. In specific; on bank holiday weekend "I" made 2 emergency calls to the "Home Office"; relating to the Universities use of paid; psychological testers; & "I", "Simon Jon W", coined a phrase, especially for them; "Psychological Kamakasi's". In short; for over 7 years; University "Kids", have been deliberately winding people up; & testing for a reaction. I do realise that the majority of Europe, has been of a Group Delusional; Paranoid, Socio-Economic Dynamic; ever since Dianna died. However; this does not make things better. I do hope; nothing like this was at fault, in the Virginnia Tech shootings; for that would make the shooter a victim also; a victim of rush to judgement; & a victim of Nazi academics; that have yet again, come back after 60 years, to haunt the world in the name of totalitarianism. After all; you can build; one hell of a network, over 50 years. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.150.92.153 (talk • contribs) 21:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC).

Fair use rationale for Image:Manchester University Crest.jpg

Image:Manchester University Crest.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 03:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually the rational was already there. Please read Wikipedia:Logos Billlion 18:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Using the crest as an university's logo for this article requires an explanation or rationale? This sounds absolutely ridiculous given that it's already in line with the 'Fair Use Guidelines' and the crest is undoubtedly a university logo.TheDanNr9 16:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The message comes from a bot, and a bot with a fairly long list of complaints. So, I wouldn't take it too seriously! Coldmachine^Talk 16:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: looks like the image got tagged because it was given the logo copyright tag but didn't have a subsequent fair use rationale: I've just added one. Coldmachine^Talk 16:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Category:University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology

I have (re-)nominated the Category:University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology for deletion; please see my reasons, and leave comments, at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 July 6#Category:University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. Thanks. Mike Peel 18:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge of Xxi club

I've proposed that the content at Xxi club be merged into the Clubs and Societies section of this article. The XXI Club doesn't seem to have enough Notability to stand on its own as a separate article. Comments? - Fordan (talk) 21:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Tabley House

This property should not be listed under "Campus and facilities". T.H. is just a piece of real estate, owned by the university, but not used for teaching or any other academic-related activity. --Jotel 07:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Done --Jotel 12:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Sale of assets

I deleted the sentence about the defecit triggering sale fo assets. Despite the the headline in MEN [6] the sale of various pieces of real estate was in the Project Unity plan to fund the building programme, and is not related to the defecit in revinue that triggered staffing cuts. To quote teh article:

But a spokesperson said: "It's important to make clear that the disposal of buildings is not a recent decision and was envis-aged in the original merger plans developed in 2003-2004.

"To date, £388.5m has been spent on new buildings across campus. The disposal of buildings is a consequence of these new buildings coming on stream, and the funds from these disposals are principally to fund this capital programme."

And it is not as if Fairbairn is a key partof the university, it is an office building across the road from former UMIST capmus. Of course, if the assets were been sold hasily for less than their value one could make that case, but I have not seen any claim that that is the case. Billlion 05:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I moved the information elsewhere, Any connection between the sale and the deficit is now left to the reader's discretion. --Jotel 10:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Logo

File:University of Manchester Est1824 logo.gif got deleted as it was orphaned but had a fair use rational, then the big version was deleted because it had no fair use rationale! This is all getting a bit sill. 06:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to split the History section

As it stands now, this section is of the 'all in one' variety. Apart from the actual history, nearly a half of the text is about present-day finances, rankings, glorious plans and academic (or is it administrative ?) structure.
I suggest the copy starting from "The newly merged University of Manchester" be moved to another section, called for example 'University today'. This name is simply the best I can think of, any other suggestions are welcome.
Comments, anybody?? --Jotel 10:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Also (in a separate edit), removed the duplication of the ranking information, now all in the new section. --Jotel 13:00, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Reputation section

I just reverted the deletion of this section. I am not sure myself about the need for this section and table, and if there is a need for it I'm not sure what we can reliably say about the reputation for which we can find verifiable sources. The section is about league table position at the moment. This has something vaguely to do with reputation but is not a direct measure of it. In any case the reason I reverted is that the league table positions are notable, and they have been moved here from other sections. I am certainly not happy with this information being deleted. Billlion 16:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I already commented why i believe there is no necessity to add an "academic reputation section": academic reputation is not necessarily measured through rankings, especially when they vary so significantly and from one subject to the next. furthermore there are dozens of rankings - each valuing different measurements. for instance, the times guide, one of the major rankings, is heavily influenced by student satisfaction surveys: not only do some unis (oxford, cambridge, etc.) not even take part in those surveys, they are simply not telling anything about academic reputation. search in google and see how many rankings exist; IMHO there are useless for evaluating academic reputation. instead an academic institution might better demontrate its quality through its success in past and current research. Manchester has apparently 23 nobel prize laureates among its alumni, and brought out many more pioneers and inventions. these should be mentioned, rather than statistical nonsense and vague tables. Youractor nov 4th —Preceding unsigned comment added by Youractor (talk • contribs) 18:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Please engage in discusion rather than just reverting (and note you can use four tildes to sign and date a comment automatically). My point was at the very least instead of simply deleting the section some of the ranking information should be added to the article. For example the information on the change in the score Academic Ranking of World Universities is mentioned in the Alan Gilbert article. Gilbert has made it clear that such measures (which of course are much simpler than local rankings and are weighted heavily on number of Nobel Prize winners and Fields Medalists) are expected to improve in line with the 2015 agenda. I agree that newspaper rankings are a poor indicatior of a University's reputation, but that is a POV. However not taht some people (especially prospective UK undergraduates) do pay some attention to them so it does have some influence on the reputation, or at least a Univesity's ability to recruit good undergrads.Billlion 21:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually,i just noticed that all the info is currently (back?) in the section University_of_Manchester#University_today,Billlion 21:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I created the academic reputation to bring it in line with other university articles. I included a table of the newspaper rankings. As very often as university articles on wikipedia just quote their best position in the rankings. I agree that the rankings are not a way of measure an academic reputation. Could we re-insert the table on the section heading of Newspaper rankings?--Benjaminevans82 23:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

There seems to now just be a section squashed into 'the university today' mentioning the THES ranking (which incidentally is our best ranking). If no-one objects I'll (re)make a proper objective section on rankings and academic reputation. I quite like the table format in university of bristol so I think I'll nick that. Billsmith453 (talk) 22:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

As you may read in the posting of "Youractor", there are some concerns about ranking tables. I agree with Billlion regarding the point that they have only vaguely to do with reputation but is not a direct measure of it. Moreover there are changing quickly, the measures vary from one ranking to another. In my view, rankings do not even need to be considered in an encyclopaedia such as Wikipedia. Maybe, but just maybe the Academic Ranking of World Universities and perhaps also the THES ranking could be mentioned given that Gilbert has distinctly referred to them many times in his 2015 strategy plan, however, this might still be controversial among other users. Whether the various rankings are mentioned or not, they shouldnt stand alone but rather be integrated into the text, i.e. no separate section 2hiyup2 (talk) 01:16, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand some of the concerns but I think the use of rankings in a POV way is a problem if we are selective about which ones we use. Furthermore I'm not sure what the general problem with them is, i would say they have a significant influence on prospective university graduates and taken as a whole they do fairly accurately represent perceptions of the university amongst people generally. My preference would be for a section which discussed the general academic standing of the university and also gave a tabled list of as many rankings as are available. That should give a fair overview without bias and cuts out any problems of differing standards, change over time etc. Looking at youractors comments basically emphasises what I think, he suggests listing past nobel laureates (which makes us look good)in favour of the rankings(which don't so much), it all just looks very biased to me. Billsmith453 (talk) 00:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, University of Glasgow, Oxford, Cambridge and UCL all have a seperate reputation section with three of those having a table of ranking results and as far as I can see they're the only 4 UK university pages to have GA status. Soon as I have time I'm making a new section. Billsmith453 (talk) 07:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree and as 2hiyup2 said above, I believe that rankings, especially due to its diversity in terms of measures, are a weak criterion to compare institutions. The only exception I would make concerns the Research Assessment Exercise results as they reflect the income that the faculties and schools receive from public funding (HEFCE, etc).

Manc photographer (talk) 19:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I get that rankings are weak measures, but that only makes having just one or two of them on this page even more nonsensical. I'm suggesting a table which displays several in a NPOV way, surely that's better than the status quo. And again I'd point to the four articles I mentioned, if they represent good examples then why are we chosing a different system (which just happens to be the one that makes the University look best). The analogy I would pick as an example is the Wiki page on poverty, which refers to GDP per capita. It's a rubbish measure of poverty but it's still relevant and should be included, ditto with the rankings. Billsmith453 (talk) 00:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that the way it is written now is just fine. IMHO there is no need for a separate section or even tables.Manc photographer (talk) 13:59, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh well, it's there in the history now if people change their minds. Billsmith453 (talk) 23:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Billsmith453, thank you very much for your understanding and your contributions Manc photographer (talk) 20:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Endowment

Where exactly is the source which confirms the endowment figure for 2007 of £640 million? Seems a bit high to me, compared to other universities such as Durham, Birmingham, Surrey etc.. Asdfasdf1231234 (talk) 23:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The Sutton Trust [7] gave a table n 2003 and that says £90m for Manchester. Now that was pre-merger but ts still a big jump. 06:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The annual income is [8] £637m, maybe that is what was meant? In any case I will simply remove the figure for the moment as we do not know. Billlion (talk) 10:55, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually there are figures in the published accounts [9] for 2007. On page 16 it looks like £146m is the figure we want? I'll put that in for the momentBilllion (talk) 11:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Billlion,

I just took a look at the Manchester accounts and the number you mentioned is just said to be "endowment assets"; the total income is indeed 637million and the "new endowments minus realisations" are set to be 647million for the fiscal year ending in July 2007. I'm not expert on financial statements, but the numbers given by Sutton Trust seem to be far too low compared to the respective balance sheets or if you compare them with the endowments of similar big universities in other countries. However, I might still be wrong and please correct me if that's the caseManc photographer (talk) 13:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

They will certainly be low compared with US universities. Outside of Oxford and Cambridge seeking to have any significant endowment is quite a new idea in UK universities, as the Sutton trust points out. But you have to be careful what the word means, and I think in an international setting like wikipedia the most common meaning is the US sense. Remember UK universities get the vast majority of their income from the government.Billlion (talk) 08:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Digital 60

Manchester university recently held Digital 60. (Celebration of the first computer)Should we put a reference to this in? Vitual aelita (talk) 16:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the events really look significant enough to add to this article (which does already refer to the computer itself), but a mention of it could fit in Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine after the current sentence on the 50th anniversary celebrations. --David Edgar (talk) 17:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Bogle Stroll

I think the Bogle Stroll should probably be mentioned somewhere but I'm uncertain as to where. As I recall (as a student in the 1970s) it had something to do with UMIST, at least I recall seeing strollers limping in to the Barnes-Wallis building (UMIST was still a separate institution at the time and Barnes-Wallis was their student's union HQ). I suppose somewhere there ought to be a definitive history of the Stroll, and presumably someone is responsible for organizing it nowadays. --TS 12:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton is listed in notable current staff yet he left (rather controversially) in the summer and now works at Lancaster University. 86.29.226.167 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 18:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC).

The largest single site University in the UK - not!

The article begins (began) with a claim to be the largest single site University, yet further down the page, it describes the University as being split between the old UMIST site, the old VMU site and "a number of other sites". The Open University has more students, Warwick University probably has a bigger single site (mostly green, but so what?). The University of London also has more students, though one could argue that the federation is very loose. But MU's claims need to be substantiated.

The former UMIST and VUM sites are very close, certainly closer than Gibbet Hill or Westwood sites at Warwick are to their main campus. In fact the two Universities overlapped for example at the School of Management, and some shared departments and facilities before merger. However the claim from the University of Manchester's publicity is that it is larger in terms of having more full time students that any other UK University, apart from the "University of London", which of course is only a "single university" in name, UCL, Imperial, KCL etc being fiercrly independent. The claim is really "the largest number of full time students if you don't count University of London as one unit" Billlion 07:14, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Here are some student numbers quoted from Wikipedia.

• University of London total 115,000, eg UCL 3,800, Imperial 10,731
• Open University 180,000
• University of Manchester 35,546
• Manchester Metropolitan around 20,000 full time and 10,000 part time
• Leeds 31,500
• Oxford 17,000
• Warwick 17,904

University of Leeds has 7,228 places.

I can't see any other British university larger than Manchester. Open University doesn't count as it's not a conventional university and the University of London is a lose collection of London based unis. David 19:19, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Although the University of Manchester is often described as on two sites, this is purely a legacy from when the Universities were separate entities. The campus although clustered in two distinct areas (Oxford Road and Sackville Street) these are linked together by a number of buildings along Oxford Road and Upper Brook Street, including a number of new buildings under construction, such as the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre, and the AMPPS Building 23:24, 15/08/2005

Fully agree here - the University of Manchester is certainly the largest in the UK, the OU must be excluded on the grounds it does not have full time undergraduate residential students. Two say "two sites" is quite stupid - look at the UMIST management school it's *next* to a VUM building. The University of London argument is equally daft - they are seperate entities - the day that you apply via UCAS to the "University of London" and not LSE/KCL/UCL etc... I'll let you change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boby1001 (talk • contribs) 15:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the Open University and London University aren't "proper" universities. However, I disagree with the use of the phrase single site. Fallowfield Campus is significant, even if not much teaching happens there. Can anyone think of a better phrase? Really, the site isn't so important as the fact that it is isn't split into colleges and the majority of students are full time. Perhaps something like "the largest full-time united university in the United Kingdom." Yaris678 (talk) 20:39, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps, rather than trying to find a clever form of words, we should just describe the situation as it is. "The University of Manchester if the largest university in the UK, with the exception of the Open University (which specialises in correspondence degrees) and the University of London (which is more a collection of separate institutions)." Yaris678 (talk) 12:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Clarification required - is it actually the largest university outside the Open University and the University of London? According to HESA Statistics (Higher Education Numbers) [10], Leeds Metropolitan University came in at second place to the OU with 41,215 students whilst University of Manchester had 37,360. This is mirrored on the wikipedia entry for the list of Uk universities by size [11]. If we are talking about the size of the institution in terms of student numbers, this needs to be revised. Smartcasual89 (talk) 11:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Well spotted! Do those numbers include Harrogate College, which separated from Leeds Met in 2008? Either way, Leeds Met may still be bigger - I don't know how many student are at Harrogate. If we can work that one out, I would suggest adding Leeds met to the list of exceptions.

I know Manchester like to use the term "largest single site uni" but Manchester does actually have more than one site.

Yaris678 (talk) 12:29, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia Entry, Harrogate College separated from Leeds Met in August 2008, which would suggest that the HESA figures for 2007-2008 are figures from the pre-separation period of Harrogate College and Leeds Met. As HESA figures for 2008-2009 have not been released this is definitely a grey area, as a quick look at these figures would give a definitive answer. The Wikipedia entry for Leeds Metropolitan University also describes the university as the largest university in the UK. Obviously this conflicting information in both Wikipedia entries is not good practice and therefore, without a valid source of information for the claim on this article it should be changed in line with the only (current) valid primary source of information, which in this case is the HESA figures for 2007-2008, unless another source can be found which backs up the claim (There are many secondary sources though without raw data or statistics, such as articles on BBC News (reference 6 on the main page) and therefore these claims are dubious). Adding Leeds Met to the list of exceptions is probably not the best approach since it is a full-time university in the same way as the University of Manchester (unlike the OU and U of London as previously discussed on the talk page). Maybe it should be changed to the 'second largest university in the UK' until the claim can be verified. I also note that there is no reference given for the claim in the article, however the HESA figures for 2006-2007 are used for the Student numbers in the article, and it is indeed references at the bottom of the page. This should be updated for the 2007-2008 figures. This all being said, if a source is found to back up the claim, then the claim on the wikipedia entry for Leeds Metropolitan University should be amended.

I have seen the term 'largest single site' being commonly used , however you (Yaris678) are correct, Manchester does actually physically have more than one site. I note you have used Fallowfield Campus as an example but isn't this a site purely for halls of residence, rather than for teaching? I would argue that there is a gap between the main site and the old UMIST site, and therefore it is in fact two sites. There are buildings not owned by the university that separate the two sites, and therefore this does not constitute one continuous site. Likewise, if Fallowfield Campus is deemed to be an additional site, then this makes three. Clarification is required on this subject. Maybe the university could be classified simply as the 'largest' or 'second largest' non-collegiate university in the UK, rather than calling it a single site university. Smartcasual89 (talk) 14:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I was at the presentation by Manchester Uni the other day and they actually used the "largest single-site" term themselves. Possibly it is a term invented by them for marketing purposes. If you look on the Fallowfield campus article there is non-residential stuff, but I don't think much teaching happens there, which is surely the important point. Hmmm... think we'll just have to use keep an eye on this one until the 2008/9 numbers come out. Yaris678 (talk) 12:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Ranking Table!

Manchester university needs to have a ranking table as we see on many other universities wiki page ie:UCL,kings,edinburgh,aston,Birmingham, and many more. There should be no "special" exception for manchester.The full ranking table trend with times,guardian, and independent rankings should be noted. I read the usual argument above "the ranking tables are inacurate..ect..ect".But why is the RAE rankings being mentioned if this is the case?The data should be made available and the reader can make his/her judgement —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.191.121.148 (talk) 10:52, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you mean newspaper university league tables. I don't see that that is encylopedic in itself, as the newspapers just compile arbitrary weighted sums of various published data. Unless there is something interesting to say about it, for example if the history of the university was changed in some major way by good or bad league table results. Otherwise we should stick to the primary sources. For example we could include data from the DELHE survey, or other HEFCE data, or results from the student satisfaction survey. The RAE results are very different from arbitrary newspaper tables, in particular they have a big effect on a university's finances. Departments close or expand as a result of RAE results.Billlion (talk) 13:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean,The validity of any university ranking system will always be a controversial issue.However I disagree with you there,Its very well proven that the RAE rankings do not dictate funding.The Rae results and endowment funding of 2008 shows this.A good example is LSE,LSE is ranked number 3! yet it lost significant funding and the same goes for southampton.

The Overall point I am trying to make is Wikipedia needs to adopt or somehow muster a more appropriate standard for conveying these results.I really do believe that many of the university articles on wikipedia suffer from "Statistical manipulation".I.e:noting their best results/rankings or using outdated data.

these ranking systems ,hate them or love them unfortunately they still and will continue to play a significant role in how students choose unis peoples and investers opinions.and this will indeed impact a universities finances directly or indirectly,therefore i would consider them fairly significant in terms of the bigger picture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.191.121.156 (talk) 11:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Billlion and disagree with 41.191.121.156. The RAE is a state-run initiative according to which funding is allocated. Albeit some exceptions that you mentioned (LSE, for instance, has submitted mainly non-science subjects that will generally receive proportionally less money than in the past), the funding is based primarily on RAE rankings and is done approximately every 7 years to assess research quality. The future of many departments depend on them and they can therefore be regarded as "encyclopedic" or at least more than the numerous rankings published by the countless amount of journalists and bloggers whose sources and weightings vary from year to year. Just because "UCL,kings,edinburgh,aston,Birmingham,etc." have it - which by the way were all created by one and the same user - does not mean that it should be seen as a benchmark for other wiki-articles.2hiyup2 (talk) 16:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

If the user who contributed those tables to the other articles chooses to do for Manchester, that's fine with me. But that doesn't mean that we need to put effort in ourselves to generate them. Donal Fellows (talk) 16:24, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe this should be discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities. I notice rankings get a mention on Wikipedia:UNIGUIDE but it doesn't actually say they should be included. Yaris678 (talk) 17:15, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

As the person who added the RAE scores, I should explain. Newspaper league tables are not particularly encyclopaedic in themselves; they effectively constitute a subjective opinion and it is unclear whether these have any specific impact on a given university.

On the other hand the RAE is state-run research assessment programme, compiled through an exhaustive process, and so can be considered a far more objective source. Also I felt adding research evaluation in the article introduction for the University of Manchester appropriate given its character of being a large research-led university. Together with its impact on research funding, this makes the RAE encyclopaedic and suitable for the article whereas newspaper league tables would not.

As for stating that RAE does not have an impact on research funding, that is not correct. The amount of money a university receives IS based upon the RAE scores, albeit using complex formulae. The reason some universities get less research funding despite high scores is because the science bodies tend to have a lot more money for research grants than the arts, which is why Imperial gets far more than LSE for example. So yes funding does depend on the RAE, but in a roundabout way. Frodz (talk) 18:52, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Red Brick

This article refers to Manchester as a red brick university. List of UK universities by date of foundation does not. I can see arguments both ways, but it would be nice to have some consistency. Yaris678 (talk) 17:55, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MizaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 60 days and keep at least four threads.--Oneiros (talk) 18:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done--Oneiros (talk) 14:55, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in University of Manchester

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of University of Manchester's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ARWU":

• From University of Sheffield: Academic Ranking of World Universities
• From University of Birmingham: "Academic Ranking of World Universities 2008" (PDF). Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Retrieved 2009-09-30.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 07:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Ranking table/Reputation section

I apologise for not opening up this thread earlier but it seemed that my last entry from two days ago was not saved. Nevertheless this topic has already been discussed in length before (See [12]). In summary I argued - as was mentioned earlier - that those rankings are based on arbitrary sets of surveys and published data and this is not only controversial but cast doubt on its encyclopedic value. The RAE may be regarded by some as equally controversial but it is the determining measure for the allocation of public funds. The reputation section including the ranking table is anyway longer than the history part and if some find it still necessary to mention it, then maybe in a separate (sub-)article. TheDanNr9 (talk) 22:04, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Whitworth Park Halls of Residence

Three months ago the consensus was to merge useful content into University of Manchester. However much of it is also relevant to Wilmslow Road so it has been copied there provisionally. Please comment if you approve or object.--Felix folio secundus 07:23, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

See my comment at Talk:Wilmslow Road#Whitworth Park Halls of Residence. Yaris678 (talk) 14:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Whitworth Park Halls of Residence

Picture

A picture of one of the halls would be useful.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 21:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

University of Manchester

The University of Manchester article now includes the relevant content of the W P H R article so there is no reason for not deleting it.--Felix folio secundus 09:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

• Copied from the old discussion page.--Felix folio secundus 06:05, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Out of date

Someone - preferably someone dispassionate, so that rules me out - bring this up to date please. Alan Gilbert has gone, Nancy Rothwell is now Vice-Chancellor, and Terry Eagleton hasn't been on the staff since he was pushed out in 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.62.90.137 (talk) 17:53, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Even more out of date now (27 July 2010)- will someone please get a move on and update? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.38.117.2 (talk) 12:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Science and Engineering improvement drive

I am proposing that we have an improvement drive for articles about Science and Engineering articles related to the University of Manchester. If people are interested we will have the improvement drive for the month of July 2011. I am hoping to

1. Improve the biographies of scientists and engineers associated with UoM, including sources and pictures
2. Elevate the article on the Schools in EPS and FLS above stubs, especially with respect to the history of these subjects at VuM and UMIST.

I have not been involved in an improvement drive before so any advice appreciated! Billlion (talk) 20:13, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Mechanics' Institute

This "The English chemist John Dalton, together with Manchester businessmen and industrialists, established the Mechanics' Institute (later to become UMIST) to ensure that workers could learn the basic principles of science." gives Dalton a leading role which is at variance with the account given in the article on UMIST.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 09:00, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Only four faculties

"Despite its size, the University of Manchester is divided into only four faculties, each sub-divided into schools:" I just reverted this edit [13] which User:Rangoon11 flagged as pov. Do we really need a source for most large UK Universities having more than 4 faculties? Bristol has 6 [14], Southampton 8 [15] etc.Billlion (talk) 07:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Jean McFarlane

In 2009 a new building of the University of Manchester was named the Jean McFarlane Building. It is sited to the east of University Place and is one of many completed in recent years. // I am not sure how to include this.

--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 08:22, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Organisation/finances

I think the finances could be updated. I'll look into this soon, along with the reputation stuff IcyEd (talk) 16:19, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Note the financial info is already for the year ending 31 July 2011, it was updated a few weeks ago. Work on the rankings section is much needed though. Rangoon11 (talk) 16:38, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Rankings and reputation

I think this section is a little out of date and also very crowded. I will try to update it and make it easier to read. I could also add a new ranking; "University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP)" published by the Informatics Institute of Middle East Technical University from 2009... I hadn't heard of it either, but it is cited on the Harvard University page? I’m not really fussed, but I’ll include it if someone thinks I should.--IcyEd (talk) 00:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, the section needs updating, trimming and tidying. Personally I would prefer not to see details of the rather obscure University Ranking by Academic Performance added. Rangoon11 (talk) 01:32, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

It reads as if it has been written by MU PR people. I know British universities are pretty desperate to attract high flying students from around the world, but this sort of boosterism is out of place in Wikipedia. --87.114.2.115 (talk) 19:03, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Lead info-box problems

The lead infobox is destitute of a visual representation at the prominent top end. This is because the coat of arms is constantly deleted due to it being recent and having been captured from official university sources. The best solution is that it be drawn by someone with the skills and software to do so. It therby becomes someone's own work and no legal objection can be raised.

In the meantime I think that the university logo should be moved up to the top of the box, so that there is at least some visual representation of the university available in a prominent location. Urselius (talk) 15:26, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

In the absence of any contrary argument I have carried this into effect. Urselius (talk) 08:25, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect University Name

Shouldn't it be 'The University of Manchester' and not 'University of Manchester'? The logo and their Website has the university's name as 'The University of Manchester'. Would it be possible to change the name of this wiki page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.173.4.187 (talk) 16:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The definite article is not usually considered as being part of a real noun, even if it is usually employed. It is not used in the titles of other universities on Wikipedia, neither is it used in the titles of articles on countries such as United Kingdom or United States, though both are invariably prefixed by "the", Urselius (talk)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080403092000/http://www.manchester.ac.uk:80/aboutus/news/display/index.htm?id=133663 to http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/index.htm?id=133663
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070612212440/http://www.busa.org.uk/page.asp?section=00010001000200010005&itemTitle=Championships to http://www.busa.org.uk/page.asp?section=00010001000200010005&itemTitle=Championships

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Foundation dates

The present University of Manchester was created in 2004 as the result of an amalgamation of two previously distinct entities, each with its own history. The histories of both previous universities were continuous, with changes of name and evolutions of function, back to the inception of their earliest forms, for VUM it was Owens College in 1851, and for UMIST it was the Mechanics Institute in 1824. The date of the granting of a royal charter as a university is not the same as a 'foundation date' as an educational establishment. If the present university wishes to assert 1824 as its foundation date, reflecting the earlier of the two foundations of its component parts, it is entitled to do so. Urselius (talk) 13:02, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

The University is free to assert whatever date it likes, but an institution's preferences cannot be binding on an encyclopaedia, which needs verifiable facts presented in a way which is not misleading. Far too many Wikipedia pages on British universities are clearly extensions of their subjects' marketing effort and I think this is a challenge the Wikipedia community needs to face. People who come on to edit essentially on behalf of their employer are damaging Wikipedia's neutrality and reliability. UMIST was in no sense essentially the same as the Mechanics' Institute established in 1824 which eventually morphed into UMIST and then joined with VUoM in 2004 to create the present university. No ordinary encyclopaedia user would think that a Mechanics' Institute - essentially a night school - was the same thing as a university. I have added information on to the paragraph relating to Owen's College - making plain that this was the starting point of VUoM - and relating to the Mechanics' Institute as the ultimate forerunner of UMIST. I think this, in combination with my other edits, will make the situation clearer to readers who lack a detailed prior acquaintance with this university and its institutional history.Merehouse (talk) 20:10, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Urselius - I would draw your attention to the page for University of Reading as giving a good example of how the complex beginnings of universities can be successfully resolved in a way which makes matters clear to the reader. I had no involvement in writing this page, but went to it because I am aware that Reading had a complicated background, including the most significant part of the institution being derived from an extension college established in 1892 by Christ Church, Oxford (founded 1546). It is irrelevant to the discussion that Reading does not seek in its marketing material to assert a foundation date earlier than its charter in 1926, let alone claim to be "established 1546".Merehouse (talk) 20:30, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Please use indents in talkpage discussions. At UMIST the VUM was colloquially known as 'Owens', just an instance of perceived continuity. I do not think that you are entitled to impose your ideas on the article without discussion or consensus, certainly not if anyone is actively challenging them. Please stop unilaterally altering the original text until some form of agreement is reached here. This is Wikipedia policy. There is considerable variation in the treatment of foundation dates for British universities, see University of Oxford for example. The logo of the present university includes 'EST 1824', in order to not confuse readers unnecessarily, some prominent feature of this date in the infobox should be retained. The infobox of the University of Birmingham, where the foundation dates of all constituent parts which were ancestral to the present university are included, would be a useful compromise. Urselius (talk) 20:41, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I notice that the University of Leeds infobox has the same layout as the Birmingham box, making a useful double precedent. I would envisage these being included in the infobox: University of Manchester 2004, UMIST 1966, Victoria University of Manchester 1904, Victoria University 1880, Owens College 1851, Manchester Mechanics Institute 1824 Urselius (talk) 21:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree (though UMIST should read 1956 not 1966) - I did in fact say so, but the entry here seems to have disappeared/failed to save for some reason. In the circumstances, I think that should be done, but my addition to the main text, with sources for dates, restored.5.83.11.49 (talk) 22:17, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I will alter the infobox on the model outlined above, the order of institutions and exact phrasing may need some experiment. Restore your text, and we will see how it flows in relation to the rest of the section. Please note that Owens does not have an apostrophe, as the man's name was Owens rather than Owen. Urselius (talk) 11:14, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. I have now restored my text - not exactly as it could not be reverted owing to intermediate editing, but it's roughly the same. I have omitted the stray apostrophe from Owens, thank you for that information. I'll consider the whole flow and its connexion with the rest of the article and put here any comments about suggested amendments. I will keep an eye out for any views you post on this point.Merehouse (talk) 16:49, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

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Citations in Lede

For details on the use of citations in the lede see WP:CITELEAD CalzGuy (talk) 09:45, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Solve your dispute here

@Urselius and Japanmomo: Please sort your dispute in the edit war on the Manchester university page out here rather than continually undoing each others revisions. Once a consensus has been reached we will decide how to proceed. EvilxFish (talk) 13:30, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I consider that it is beholden on anyone seeking to alter an article that is as obviously well-patrolled as this one, to take proposals to the talk page, especially anyone seeking changes to the lead or introduction. The same obligation does not, in my view, extend to someone simply upholding the status quo. I am, as always, happy to engage in discussion. Urselius (talk) 14:37, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

_______________________________________

Let us begin with facts and history. University of London, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford are all three collegiate research universities.

• • University of Oxford has 38 colleges and six Permanent Private Halls.
  • University of Cambridge has 31 colleges.
  • University of London has 18 colleges, nine research institutes and a number of central bodies.

• The beautiful fact is, each of the constituent colleges on any these 3 universities, have their own dress code, admission requirements/standards, alumni meetings, faculty meeting. Any candidate who applies to any of these universities, has to apply to a specific college not the university in general.
• Also the beauty of the fact is, when Great Britain once ruled the entire world, the super majority of colonial administrators (Colonial Service and Indian Civil Service) were members and graduated from these 3 collegiate universities.
• University of London "collectively as one" has 85 Nobel Laureates (this is excluding numbers from Imperial College that has formally left). The honorary doctorates of UOL formally include King Edward VIII, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Albert Einstein (1936) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941).
• University of London International Programmes is a legendary body of UOL. The alumni here include 7 Nobel Laureates, 2 former Judges of ICJ, 5 President/Prime Ministers and notable academics.

University of Manchester was established as "University of Manchester" in the year 2004. However University of London has been existing from 1836, graduating people from the entire world. University of Manchester was once part of the University of London International Programmes (as external). How is it that UOL is not taken as one University which has 1 Chancellor and 1 Vice Chancellor? How is it that Oxford is one university with several independent colleges inside it? How is that Cambridge is one university with several independent colleges inside it? If Cambridge is counted as one and Oxford is counted as one, then UOL has to be regarded in the same standard.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Japanmomo (talk • contribs) 19:13, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Rather than forcing editors to search back through the history to find out what the dispute refers to, perhaps we could have a simple, unevidenced, explanation of what is at dispute? Rather than ploug straight in with the evidence from one side? CalzGuy (talk) 19:38, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@Japanmomo: I agree with CalzGuy please state what exactly you take issue with in the statement "has the largest number of full-time students in the UK, unless the University of London's colleges are counted as a single university." and "Manchester University has the third largest number of Nobel laureates in the UK, only Cambridge and Oxford universities having a greater number." Regards EvilxFish (talk) 19:46, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@EvilxFish: Is your native language English or do you really not understand the statement? "unless the University of London's colleges are counted as a single university" UOL is one entity and a single university, PERIOD. Oxford is one and Cambridge is one. Who gives you the right in being vague on an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia has to be facts and not opinions and feelings.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Japanmomo (talk • contribs) 19:13, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@EvilxFish: "Manchester University has the third largest number of Nobel laureates in the UK, only Cambridge and Oxford universities having a greater number." Another bullshit!! UOL as a single entity has 85 Nobel Laureates. Oxford as a single entity has 28 Nobel Laureates. Cambridge as a single entity has 95 Nobel Laureates. So in order of numbers, Cambridge then UOL then Oxford then everything else.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Japanmomo (talk • contribs) 19:13, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I suspect that one of the problems here is that Japanmomo is not aware of the distinction between a collegiate university, such as Oxford, and a federal university, such as London. The colleges of Oxford are not nearly as autonomous as the federal colleges constituting the University of London. If you look at List of UCAS institutions, you will see that the universities of Cambridge and Oxford are unitary in regard to applications to study, whilst the constituent parts of the federal university of London: Kings College, Queen Mary College, University College London etc., are listed separately. There is, therefore, considerable precedent for treating the University of London as being merely an envelope concept, whilst the constituent colleges are the equivalent of other universities for comparison's sake, Urselius (talk) 20:35, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@Urselius: Hi, I think it is best to allow Japanmomo to define the exact problem regards EvilxFish (talk) 20:43, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@Urselius: I already knew this. A candidate who graduates from either All Souls or Balliol or Nuffield are graudates from their respective colleges and also they are graduates of the University of Oxford Brand name. That means a Balliol graduate cannot say/claim "or write in his CV/resume" that he/she graduated from Nuffield/All Souls/or any other constituent colleges. In the same way, when a candidate graduates from either UCL, KCL, LSE, SOAS, LSHTM, UOLIP or any other, they become a graduate of their constituent college and an formal alumni of the University of London. This means if a UCL student in his/her CV chooses to not write which college he/she graduate from, but simply states UOL, that would NOT be a crime/offense.

I would merely add that List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation treats the constituent parts of the federal university of London separately, as do all the independent university rankings (such as QS and The Times Higher Education). You seem to be swimming against a rather overwhelming tide. To make your intended edits here valid, you would have to change any number of other Wikipedia articles, and also successfully lobby a number of institutions worldwide to change their criteria. Urselius (talk) 20:59, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@Urselius: QS and The Times Higher Education) are private companies. They are for-profit making, ranking companies, and not NGOs. They can write any bullshit they want. Tomorrow, if I started a startup company and reverse everything they write. Will the publication be any true. Rankings are for the weak and illiterates.

I am inclined to agree with Urselius, as for the statement "unless the University of London's colleges are counted as a single university" serves to remove any abiguity also @Japanmomo: please read this. There is no need for comments about if English is my first language or not. Also please remember to sign your posts with 4 tildes regards EvilxFish (talk) 21:05, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@Urselius: and @EvilxFish:: I am happy to say that UOL knows who it is. The central administration of UOL is not confused. What I cant get is "how is it that University of Machester (established in 2004) graduates who are administrators here are extremely falsely biased?." I have many friends who graduated from one of the constituent colleges of UOL, some do mention their constituent college; however some dont (they simply write UOL). The reason for this is that when UCL and LSE is known through out the world, other small and specialized colleges of UOL have not got enough media exposure on what they do.

I am a graduate of three universities and I am not an administrator on Wikipedia. Urselius (talk) 21:18, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@Urselius: Well understand this concept here. A candidate who graduates from either All Souls or Balliol or Nuffield are graudates from their respective colleges and also they are graduates of the University of Oxford Brand name. That means a Balliol graduate cannot say/claim "or write in his CV/resume" that he/she graduated from Nuffield/All Souls/or any other constituent colleges. In the same way, when a candidate graduates from either UCL, KCL, LSE, SOAS, LSHTM, UOLIP or any other, they become a graduate of their constituent college and an formal alumni of the University of London. This means if a UCL student in his/her CV chooses to not write which college he/she graduate from, but simply states UOL, that would NOT be a crime/offense.

The relevant information here is that the constituent parts of the federal University of London are treated as separate institutions, by international comparison agencies, by UCAS, by research funding bodies and by the UK government. Urselius (talk) 21:31, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Again sign your posts please @Japanmomo:. I am still inclined to agree with Urselius on the basis that there is nothing factually incorrect in the encyclopedia and he is right in that the rankings and the Nobel laureates list both treat the constituent parts as separate entities, after all they are independent institutions. @CalzGuy: What is your take on this? EvilxFish (talk) 21:33, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@EvilxFish: QS,The Times Higher Education and other international ranking agencies are private companies. They are for-profit making, ranking companies, and not NGOs. Ranking is nothing but a simple business, like, a software company. They can write any bullshit they want. Now for the UK Government, I can frankly say, that it does what it does because each constituent colleges want their own funding resource. LSE recently claimed that it is dreaming of a £1 billion endowment. Nothing but a stunt for private investors.

"For most practical purposes, ranging from admission of students to negotiating funding from the government, the 18 constituent colleges are treated as individual universities." From the wikipage on the university of London. Hence it is a reasonable statement to say that if they are treated as a single university because for certain things they are not. Also I would argue there is nothing factually incorrect with how it stands now and there is no need to remove information or change it. EvilxFish (talk) 21:50, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Again Japanmomo you must, must, MUST, indent and sign your talk page contributions. It may be considered disruptive if you don't.

TBH, I'm not really happy with the sentence construction on '... unless the University of London's colleges are counted as a single university....' It really does not read very well. I'm concerned that it is somewhat weasel and is equivocation. Really if used, that entire clause should be a footnote {{note}} and the preceding text should be cited and written much stronger. As to whether one bunch of Nobel Lauriates is more worthy than another, I really think it's an argument about angels on the head of a pin. I'm not sure it really matters either way. CalzGuy (talk) 22:16, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@CalzGuy: University of London is not a weseal word as it was established by royal charter in 1836. Illiteracy is not an encyclopedias problem. University of London officially has a Coat of arms, logo and a seal. It also has 1 Chancellor and 1 Vice Chancellor. UOL owns and operates 8 intercollegiate halls of residence and 3 Garden Halls. Any member/student of UOL or its constituent college can live and use it.~— Preceding unsigned comment added by Japanmomo (talk • contribs) 19:13, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Japanmomo You must indent your contributions. Not doing so is extremely disruptive. If you are unsure how to do this, then please let us know and someone will take you through it step-by-step. Also unnecessarily bolding entire contributions, as you did above, is also considered disruptive. Please don't do that. And please remove the bold you previously added. Bold should be used for emphasis of a particular word or phrase. Adding bold to an entire sentence is just shouting. BTW, I never said UoL was a weasel word. What I said, ias you will see f you reread it slowly and carefully, is that the entire clause is somewhat weasel. There is a big difference. It seems that Illiteracy may well be part of the problem.CalzGuy (talk) 08:02, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

@EvilxFish: University of Oxford has 38 colleges and six Permanent Private Halls. University of Cambridge has 31 colleges. University of London has 18 colleges, nine research institutes and a number of central bodies. Each college in each university have their own academic dress, admission standards, alumni meetings, tutor support, faculty pay, graduation ceremonies. Stop bullshitting!!~— Preceding unsigned comment added by Japanmomo (talk • contribs) 19:13, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@CalzGuy, Japanmomo, and Urselius: Based on all the discussed points may I propose the following resolution. Maintain the text "has the largest number of full-time students in the UK." but qualify it with a citation and a footnote saying that the source (which it will) treats UOL colleges as separate universities. Do the same for "Manchester University has the third largest number of Nobel laureates in the UK, only Cambridge and Oxford universities having a greater number." (both a citation and a footnote). Are there any objections to this resolution? Regards EvilxFish (talk) 22:49, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

@EvilxFish, CalzGuy, and Urselius: University of Manchester was named and established as "University of Machester" in the year 2004. This would mean that the previous entity of University of Machester was part of the central body of University of London as external graduates of the University of London International Programmes. I assume that the Nobel Lauretes that University of Machester claims its own are its own alumni since 2004 and not before (UOL via its International Programme (then external programme).User:Japanmomo (talk) 22:16, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

No, you are entirely wrong here. The federal Victoria University was granted a royal charter as an independent university in the 1880s, and the Victoria University of Manchester (a successor institution of the Victoria University) in the 1900s. Independent means: entirely autonomous and empowered to award degrees ab initio. Urselius (talk) 07:35, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok I will wait a period of few days to allow any for any other users to object if there are no objections after that I will implement the above changes and consider this matter closed. The Nobel Lauretes (and hence the number) will be based on the source, if you object to the number stated please add to the text rather than deleting based on this rule for dispute resolution remember to cite your sources. EvilxFish (talk) 01:25, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Go for it CalzGuy (talk) 08:04, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Due to the lack of objections this issue is now resolved and the changes detailed earlier will be implemented when I get some free time (or if any of you would like to add them that would also be great). Kind regards EvilxFish (talk) 12:21, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

Please stop the edit war, let's solve it here @Urselius: and @Woodopal:. As it stands I am inclined to agree with Urselius, Woodopal please state your case as to why we should change the article the way you want. EvilxFish (talk) 09:04, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Here's a list of universities that were founded by mergers: University of Wales Trinity Saint David, University College London, Royal Holloway, University of London, City, University of London, University of South Wales and Ulster University. This is just short list, I'm certain there are many more examples but you will note that there has not been additional clarification in any of the aforementioned pages, Manchester should not be an exception, it's not consistent. The fact that the dates of establishment dates are in the past are enough of an indication that they are predecessor institution.

I would firstly like to say that User:Aloneinthewild also reverted the same edit, therefore I am not alone in my opinion. The merger that created UoM is very recent, dating to 2004, which is a distinction. The merger was also of two institutions each with a long history, the predecessor institutions of UoM, therefore, do not form a linear list, but a binary one. UoM explicitly claims 1824 as the date of its establishment (incorporated into its logo), this being the formation date of the earliest forerunner of UMIST, therefore the predecessors of the university are considered important to the modern institution. The relationship between VUM and UMIST was complex, from 1966 to c. 1993 UMIST was for most purposes an independent university, but at the same time it constituted the Faculty of Technology of VUM. The easiest and most succinct way to flag all of these unusual aspects of the history of UoM in the infobox is to have some sort of heading flagging the predecesor institutions, as is the case now. A more precise approach within the infobox could be to overtly state that the 2004 foundation was formed by the merger of UMIST and VUM, then to list the predecessors of UMIST and the predecessors of VUM separately; but I think the result would be an enormously extended infobox, which might be objectionable itself. Urselius (talk) 07:40, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Indeed I did revert first. I believe it needs to be clear that Manchester was the combination of two former universities (as in the lead sentence). It doesn't directly follow from institutions that it succeeded, compared to UCL, City. Maybe this needs to be clearer. I think it was in a previous version of the article. Aloneinthewild (talk) 11:52, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Maybe something like the old version of the article would be better :

2004 - Manchester University (predecessors UMIST est. 1824; Victoria University of Manchester est. 1851) Aloneinthewild (talk) 12:02, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I suspect that this approach would attract editors who would raise the objection that Owens College and the Manchester Mechanics Institute were not, respectively, the same institutions as VUM and UMIST. Urselius (talk) 12:40, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

You're probably correct there. How about something that summarises Manchester was founded in 2004 by the merger of UMIST and Victoria University (and leave out the dates since their history is best explained in an article. Aloneinthewild (talk) 17:33, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Possibly avoiding the word 'established' would be useful, there is no doubt that VUM has a continuous organisational history (with changes of name and status) back to 1851, and UMIST to 1824. Perhaps wording such as "University of Manchester established 2004 - Resulting from the merger of Victoria University of Manchester, with origins in 1841, and UMIST, with origins in 1824"? Urselius (talk) 20:00, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Using both "established" and "previous names" in the infobox may make the distinction clearer. Woodopal (talk) 21:18, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

staff numbers

From the university's own current pdf [16] its staff numbers are:

Total: 12,800

Academic: 4,710

Research: 2,030

Administrative: 1,650

Clerical: 2,160

IT: 470

Manual/craft: 780

Nursing/medically allied: 30

Technical/experimental officers: 1,050 Urselius (talk) 13:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

For cross-comparability with other articles, it might be better to use the staff numbers Manchester puts on its returns to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which are supplied by all UK universities using a standard definition.[17] This gives 5,120 academic staff as of 2017/18 (broken down as 2650 permanent/open-ended and 2470 fixed-term[18]). Manchester also reports 5,580 non-academic staff (of which 1,710 are administrative/secretarial), for a total of 10,700. Manchester also has 3,415 academics on atypical contracts ("whose contracts involve working arrangements that are not permanent, involve complex employment relationships and/or involve work away from the supervision of the normal work provider") in addition to this, the most of any British university. Robminchin (talk) 20:30, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

I added the above because there is a fault in the infobox. From my experience if you add a number when editing the infobox to "| staff" the resulting number on the actual page is flagged as "Administrative staff". This seems to be automatic. Therefore, on a number of pages people have added the total staff numbers only for it to appear as "Administrative staff". An unregistered editor was adding the total numbers to the infobox of this page and it coming up as "administrative staff". When I reverted this to just showing the academic staff numbers he or she was re-reverting. Better to have no number than a false one. Urselius (talk) 10:49, 14 February 2020 (UTC)