Talk:University of Wales, Lampeter

old comments

Is Jack Higgins the author really a UWL graduate? I can't find any corroboration.

I was wondering the same thing, a search on Google has thrown up a couple of links (here and here, but I'm not entirely convinced - for the time being I'll remove him Twrist 12:56, 7 Apr 2005 (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 21:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Copyright violation?

Chunks of the article appear to be copied from the official site, in this edit. Specifically, the first two paragraphs of the History section and much of the third, as well as most of the "The Old College" subsection, appear to be plagiarized from this source. -- makomk 18:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, no. I wrote the edit you are referring to, by the looks of things, and it wasn't copied from anywhere. I had a burst of enthusiasm after reading DTW Price! :) - I have noticed that the official site and the wikipedia article have 'converged' somewhat though, and I'm not sure how to account for it. It is perhaps true that we are 'sharing' information, but I have spotted sentences which I have written in the wikipedia article appear in the Guardian amongst other places, so its all rather odd! Twrist 16:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

An image on this page may be deleted

This is an automated message regarding an image used on this page. The image File:1822lamp.svg, found on University of Wales, Lampeter, has been nominated for deletion because it does not meet Wikipedia image policy. Please see the image description page for more details. If this message was sent in error (that is, the image is not up for deletion, or was left on the wrong talk page), please contact this bot's operator. STBotI (talk) 17:26, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal/HEFCW review

This section was removed with the comment "Not true", but the merger proposal is listed on both Lampeter and Trinity's websites under the headline "New University for Wales?", and the connection between the proposed merger and previous critical QAA and HEFCW reviews is sourced from Times Higher Education and the Independent. Part of the Independent article reads:

'The trigger for the merger talks was a critical review from the Quality Assurance Agency for Wales that gave the university a verdict of “limited confidence”. So worried was the Welsh Higher Education Funding Council that it commissioned a report from external consultants that uncovered “very real problems of leadership and management”. The institution was bedevilled with staff disputes and “disconnections” between the senior management team and academic staff and lay members of council, the report said.'

Before removing this section again, please discuss here on the Talk Page. ThomasL (talk) 19:45, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello Thomas. Well, it wasn't me who removed the section in the first place - that the merger is going ahead is clearly true - but this large number of zealous reverts today seem a little aggressive. To have such a large section in the first section of the article about Lampeter's 'problems' is an odd decision. The QAA report's verdict of 'limited' confidence is passed on a number of institutions in the year, Lampeter is certainly not alone in that one. In fact, that report went on to say that it didn't believe there were quality issues with Lampeter degrees, only with quality assurance. HEFCW commissioned the subsequent report specially to find out 'what the problem was', and that second report pointed to management problems. This is not a fundamental systematic failing, and will be easily rectified in the short term, whether the merger goes ahead or not. The way you have worded the article makes it sound as though the walls have fallen down, and I think is really quite damaging to the institution and its reputation, and as such, I am going to reword what you have written. If you have an axe to grind, please discuss it here before reverting once again. Regards Twrist (talk) 16:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

My only motivation for contributing to this article is my general interest in Higher Education articles in Wikipedia. I have all the Universities in my watchlist, and read around the subject in my spare time. I have no axe to grind, and no connection to Lampeter either for or against (more for than against, if anything), but the merger issue and its causes are well covered in independent media sources, so should really be recognised in the article. Claiming that it is "Not true" without offering counter-evidence seems partisan. The claims are well sourced, according to Wikipedia guidelines.

I'm less certain about your rewrite, which at least admits that problems were involved in motivating the merger, but it seems strange to remove the quotes and references that point out what these problems were, and who pointed them out. The Independent article seems a fair summary of what is going on, and the Times Higher offered a virtually identical reading of the situation.

Since the section that I added this to was discussing the ways in which the University was surviving as an organisation (by joining the University of Wales, by pioneering distance learning) then their survival again by joining merger talks, and the reason for these talks, is clearly relevant. Maybe this whole section belongs in a different part of the article, but it should be there somewhere. As for aggresive reverts, as somebody claimed this was untrue, I went and found additional (and more detailed) sources, and added the QAA's judgement which was printed by the Independent.

Generally speaking, I think removing significant and sourced material because of "the institution and its reputation" runs counter to Wikipedia's guiding principles. The QAA and HEFCW reports have resulted in proposed changes to the entire organisation and the institutional identity of Lampeter. Why is that not relevant to the article? ThomasL (talk) 17:28, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I have added the Independent reference in footnotes, and named the organisations involved in the reports. Is that a reasonable compromise? ThomasL (talk) 17:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello again ThomasL. Yes I'm quite happy with the additions you have made. I will add that I didn't remove any of the references that you found, but rather moved them a little further down in the article. I agree that the merger is relevant after the spiel about pioneering distance learning etc, but I thought having the direct quotes in the first section was a little much and gave too much of a negative feel to that first section, hence moving them further down. In fact, a number of articles now appear twice in the reference list, which seems a little sloppy to my eye, but I am not going to change this again for fear of launching an unintended revert war!

To repeat what I said earlier, the 'not true' edits have nothing to do with me, and I was happy for you to revert them.

I quite agree that removing material because of fears for an institution's reputation is a dangerous precedent, but as I have already pointed out, I didn't remove any of the material you added earlier. I think it is extremely important to find a balance in these cases. Often the Wikipedia article, and mirrors of it, are the first thing that people find about an institution after the institution's own webpages, and for the introductory section to have such a negative spin is going to cause untold damage. I won't make any secret of the fact that I'm extremely fond of, and biased in favour of Lampeter, but for the article to be truthful and balanced is my top priority. Apologies for getting a little defensive earlier!

Regards Twrist (talk) 18:01, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I hope I wasn't sounding too heated, electronic messages can sound more intense than they were intended to be. Apologies for not noticing that you had moved the references rather than deleted them. That seems the best option, I think. ThomasL (talk) 18:12, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Trinity Saint David

Please help out, and contribute to a new article on the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, in my userspace - User:Twrist/Trinity_Saint_David. Hopefully we can have a really good comprehensive article ready to go for the launch of the new institution. Cheers! Twrist (talk) 19:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Saint David's College

Hello, I created a page for Saint David's College, in reference to Trinity St David.

It probably goes against a couple of wikipedia rules, but it is just an idea of what we could do!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Xequ/Saint_David's_College,_Trinity_Saint_David

Xequ (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC).

I'm not entirely convinced that we will need separate entries for the two 'colleges', since they will be operating as a single entity, but let's wait and see how the new university pans out :) - In the meantime, if you want to contribute to the Trinity Saint David article that I've started, that would be fantastic :) Twrist (talk) 15:48, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The Vice Chancellor has made statements minuted by the Lampeter Students' Union to the effect that the distinctiveness of the two colleges, and the two colleges' syllabuses will be central to the success of the new institution. In light of this, there is a case for having two separate pages. Perhaps just an importantly, this would help to keep the Trinity St David's page clean, clear and coherent.194.80.178.253 (talk) 15:14, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Not only has the Vice Chancellor spoken to this effect, but policy around the location of departments is bearing out the uniqueness of the two colleges with Trinity Carmarthen continuing to excel in vocational education for local students, and the policy in St David's College Lampeter supporting more academic subjects aimed at a wider more international level of engagement. In light of this practical distinction, a clean and simple Trinity Saint David's page pinning together two cut-down college/campus pages would seem the most sensible option at the moment.XVI Chancer (talk) 02:03, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Licences and PDDipTh

• The University awarded a number of Licences Theology (LTh), Religious Studies (LRS), Islamic Studies, Latin, Classical Greek (Lic)). From 2010 these qualifications will be re-named Graduate Diplomas and be awarded by the University of Wales. The academic dress will be the Wales BA gown with the diploma black hood, part lined with black silk and twisted cord of the University colours. In the past holders of Lampeter's Licences may have worn the academic dress of the University of Wales: University of Wales BA gown, with the old Lampeter BD hood with Square and in sub-fusc. The University also awards a post-doctoral Licence, LicDD. This will also be re-named as a post-doctoral diploma (PDDipTh). There will be no distinct academic dress for this award other than the candidates doctoral dress.

Can someone tell me from what source this paragraph comes from? My colleagues who are connected with Lampeter have not heard anything about this... --Charlie Huang 【遯卋山人】 20:49, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I spoke to the director of the postdoctoral programme, who had no idea about any of this. This is either completely unsubstantiated, or if it is true it needs to be reposted with proper citation. The user SamHampton who, if I am not mistaken, posted it in the first place, should explain where he got that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.71.136.48 (talk) 18:37, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

promotional tone

The tone of this article is so promotional that this article needs a check for copyvio from the university site and other university publications. I have tagged it accordingly. DGG ( talk ) 03:25, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

We have already discussed the copyright vio issues and it has long been established that there are none. If you would like to discuss this in more detail with me that I am quite happy to open a conversation, but you can see from the long long history of this article that much of it was built up layer by layer by myself and other contributors with some link to the institution. I am removing that tag for the time being.

If you would like to elaborate on which parts in particular you feel are inappropriately promotional than I'm sure someone will be happy to look into that. I have to admit that from my point of view, and just skimming the opening paragraph - I do struggle to see how talk of bankruptcy and management difficulties reads like an advertisement! I will add that the college will cease to exist in less than a year, and so the idea that we are pushing a product feels a little off-kilter. Nonetheless I'd be happy to revise any passages you are unhappy with Twrist (talk) 22:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

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