Template talk:Infobox residential college

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Higher education

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Position of university name

For a residential college, what university it is part of seems of primary importance, and is often necessary for unique identification - just saying "University College" or "St John's College", does not identify a college; University College, Durham or St John's College, Oxford does.

At the moment, we relegate the university name to the list of details, below the college photo, arms, and scarf colours; which makes telling, for example, University College, Durham from University College, Oxford rather difficult unless you already know what they look like.

I'd suggest that the university name should appear at the top of the infobox, immediately under the college name, rather than in the list of details at the bottom of the infobox.

Any objections? TSP (talk) 14:53, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of implementation, I think I'd suggest replacing 'type' in the subheader2 position. Type seems to be used in very few cases, and the majority of cases I can see where it is used, it seems to mostly be to make up for the problem I describe by putting the university name in that position - e.g. Berkeley College (Yale University), Trinity College, Dublin TSP (talk) 15:40, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges are autonomous constituent colleges of their respective universities rather than conventional residential colleges (although Trinity College, Dublin is indeed a close parallel). Jonathan A Jones (talk) 15:56, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed; I don't think that positioning the university name immediately under that of the college makes any comment on that? Indeed, as I recall, the previous Oxford and Cambridge college infoboxes contained the university name prominently, I think above the college name. TSP (talk) 15:59, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Slight change of proposal - adding University as a subheader3 may be a better idea than replacing Type completely, having just looked at Westcott House, Cambridge which I think has a valid use for both (and currently hacks it using a <br> in the Type field); though I think in the majority of cases Type should be blank.

I guess the alternative would be to offer a Type joined by an 'of' to the University (e.g. Constituent College of the University of Oxford); but that might be overcomplicating the formatting (especially working out when to put in a 'the'). I think in most cases something like "University College / University of Oxford" will communicate all the necessary information.

I'd also like to put native name in italics to distinguish it from the other subheaders. TSP (talk) 16:27, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a fundamental objection to these proposals; my point is simply that you need to be careful in your arguments given that this infobox is used by a diverse range of institutions many of which are not "conventional" residential colleges like those at Yale. Westcott House, Cambridge is not, I believe, formally part of the University of Cambridge, but some sort of affiliated institution. The Oxford equivalent, Ripon College Cuddesdon, uses a different infobox entirely. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:48, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - Westcott's 'University' field would be best filled by Cambridge Theological Federation - which isn't a university, but infobox usage is often a compromise. I was just looking at Cuddesdon, which uses Template:Infobox church, weirdly enough, which seems clearly wrong. Oak Hill College uses Template:Infobox university - I think for theological colleges that aren't part of a university, that's at least equally valid. St Mellitus College uses Template:Infobox UK school, which again seems wrong. TSP (talk) 17:12, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've made that change; I think I'll leave it for a while to check it doesn't attract howls of protest, then go and edit some pages that currently use the template a bit oddly to get around its former shortcomings. TSP (talk) 16:52, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Endowment field

Looking at Category:Pages using infobox residential college with a free field, the overwhelmingly most common use of the free field is to note the financial endowment of Cambridge colleges. This seems a perfectly reasonable thing to include - Oxford and Cambridge colleges are notably (and variably) wealthy. Obviously it doesn't apply at a lot of other institutions, but then not all parts of an infobox have to be applicable to every use. I'd suggest we add a field for this to ensure consistency. Any objections? TSP (talk) 00:37, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've made this change.

We're now down to four uses of the Free field, each used exactly once - "Director", "Blocks", "Roll number" and "Visitor".

I realise that I am literally the only person who ever asks on here before making changes; accordingly this template now has an awful lot of options... Possibly an issue to look at in the longer term. TSP (talk) 16:44, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely there are a lot of options now. Not sure how we would shorten them, this template is an amalgamation of many former ones. Aloneinthewild (talk) 21:51, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Blazon"

Changed "Blazon" to "Arms" - a blazon is merely a technical wording describing form of arms; "blazon" = "description"; arms are described by a blazon, thus "Arms: (blazon here)", not "Blazon: (blazon here)". Works such as Debrett's Peerage state e.g. "Arms: Argent, a bend sable", not "Blazon: Argent, a bend sable".Lobsterthermidor (talk) 00:57, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Free spaces?"

Any chance of putting in some free spaces? The names of positions do not apply to all colleges- it would be helpful to have a 'Chaplain' field for example or unique titles for fellows etc. Dr Pusey (talk) 12:05, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No objection to adding chaplain, that's a distinctive role for some kinds of college, and is already in place on a few colleges by using the free text or vice head fields - happy to just add that as its own field unless anyone objects.

I'd also like to add 'Visitor' - someone has added these to a whole load of Oxford and Cambridge colleges using the free text field (the main factor in Category:Pages using infobox residential college with a free field having ballooned to 42 members); which seems like a sign that it should be in the template.

We do already have a changeable vice_head label, which can be used to add a single additional senior role. I'd be wary about adding many free spaces - an infobox is meant to be a brief summary of the most vital information; some colleges already fill in a large number of the fields like Principal, Dean, Provost, and also try to add additional fields, some of which seem relatively minor or change relatively frequently. I'm concerned about 'scope creep' with too many free fields, with relatively minor roles being represented, making the data harder to maintain and more likely to be inaccurate. If people want a full run-down of senior staff, the college website is the correct place for that. Are there specific roles, other than chaplain, that you feel are vital for the infobox and currently impossible to represent? TSP (talk) 09:46, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are actually effectively already four "free" positions - Head, Vice Head, President and Dean are all customisable, so you can fill them with any four titles you like; in addition to any you want of Master, Warden, Principal, Vice Princpal, Rector, Chief justice, Provost, Deputy provost, Officer, Administrator and Senior tutor. I'd suggest that, if anyone wants more titles than this, they may be exceeding the useful limits of an infobox. (I have added Chaplain, though, as well as Visitor, as I think these are important for some colleges and would be a misuse of any of the fields above.) TSP (talk) 23:06, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Add some content similar to University Infobox

Many colleges are using University template in place of using this template.

Can we expand on the template by adding few fields?

e.g.

affiliation
city, state, country, (or do we just use location)

Chirag (talk) 22:34, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give an example of some colleges using the University template that should be using this one? 'College' can mean a lot of things, and it's possible that Template:Infobox university is a better fit for many kinds of college.

This template is aimed at institutions like Oxford/Cambridge/Princeton/Rice/Durham/York colleges, Harvard houses, Notre Dame halls, Upsalla Nations, which are all constituent parts (in some sense) of a university; so I think it's fairly rare that they would have their own affiliations, and most will be located in the same city as their parent university. I'm not opposed to adding fields, but I'd like to see the use case. TSP (talk) 18:10, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On a sampling of colleges linked from the list of residential colleges, ones I found using Template:Infobox university were:

Whitley College, which is now a seminary rather than a residential college, but was previously a residential college of the University of Melbourne.
International House, University of Wollongong, which should probably be using the residential college infobox; it's in Wollongong and doesn't have affiliations other than the parent university, so no need for the requested fields.
Green College, University of British Columbia and St. John's College, University of British Columbia, both of which should probably be using the residential college infobox; they're in Vancouver and the affiliations listed are not true affiliations (both claim to be affiliated to Cambridge University, for example), so no need for the requested fields.
St. Andrew's College, Manitoba, which is an institution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada affiliated with the University of Manitoba, so correctly uses the university infobox.
Université de Saint-Boniface, another affiliate of the University of Manitoba and, as the name implies, a university rather than a residential college.
Conrad Grebel University College, a university college affiliated with the University of Waterloo, correctly using the university infobox
Brescia University College, a university college affiliated with the University of Western Ontario.
Innis College, Toronto (and other colleges of the University of Toronto) should probably be using the residential college infobox for some of the colleges, but others are affiliated theological colleges that are more debatable; the ones sampled are all in Toronto and don't have affiliations, so no need for the requested fields.
New Asia College (and other colleges of the Chinese University of Hong Kong) should probably be using the residential college infobox; the ones sampled are all in Hong Kong and don't have affiliations except for the parent university, so no need for the requested fields.
Collegio Borromeo and Ghislieri College in Pavia, which should probably be using the residential college infobox; they're both in Pavia and the only affiliation is a red link, so no need for the requested fields.
Oxford College of Emory University, which is a separate campus (in Oxford, GA) providing Associate of Arts degrees and articulation to the main university rather than a residential college.
Brown College at Monroe Hill, Hereford College and International Residential College (all the residential colleges of the University of Virginia) – should all probably be using the residential college infobox; all are in Charlottesville and don't have affiliations other than the parent university, so no need for the requested fields.
All of the Residential colleges of the University of California, Santa Cruz – should all be using the residential college infobox; all those sampled are in Santa Cruz and don't have affiliations, so no need for the requested fields.

There are a couple of examples of 'historic site' templates being used, but this is probably within editorial discretion. Additionally, Murray State University colleges appear to have rolled their own infobox as a table rather than using a template!

In summary, there are a few universities where the wrong template is used on all of the colleges, and a small number of institutions that shouldn't be listed as residential colleges, but I don't see any need for the requested fields on any of the institutions that are actually residential colleges. Robminchin (talk) 21:10, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Rob, that's extremely helpful. I've replaced the tables on the Murray State University pages with this infobox, as those seemed clearly wrong. I think making most of the changes you suggest above would be also sensible.

I have done a bit of reading on Pavia colleges, and they seem to fit the mould for this infobox; regarding the affiliation "CCULR" listed on those two colleges, there are no internet hits for that initialism with "Borromeo" or "Ghislieri" other than ones clearly derived from English Wikipedia - even the Italian version of our page gives no clue - so I've no idea what that's about! TSP (talk) 14:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's probably the Conferenza Collegi Universitari di Merito, possibly under a former name as the collegi universitari di merito also seem to be known as collegi universitari legalmente riconosciuti. However, neither of these has an English Wikipedia article (a bit of a shame as the Italian residential college system is a rare example of one that doesn't trace its heritage through Oxbridge, but that's a project for another day). Robminchin (talk) 16:36, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Murray State University colleges nominated for deletion

Putting this here because editors here presumably have an interest in residential colleges - all the residential colleges of Murray State University have been nominated for deletion due to non-notability. If anyone would like to make the case for keeping them, they should comment on the deletion discussions. Adding more third-party sources to establish the notability of the colleges would very much help the case.

TSP (talk) 08:40, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add senior student, common room president parameter

Hello all, I would like to ask everyones opinion on putting a new parameter for senior student and common rooms president in the infobox of residential colleges. I think this addition is potentially important as potential students would want to know who their common rooms presidents/senior students are. Also, some JCR/MCR have this role as sabbatical (paid role), which might support my argument. Any feedbacks on this?

Mrbearxx (talk) 22:32, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There have been discussions over the years about adding students' union presidents to the university infobox – see Template talk:Infobox university/Archive 1#Student body president and Template talk:Infobox university/Archive 6#Student Union President?, both of which decided against inclusion. While these are both from a while back, the argument that student leaders are transient and unlikely to be notable enough generally to warrant inclusion in the infobox is probably still valid. Robminchin (talk) 23:54, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]