Talk:Durham University

Objection -- reputation and rankings section

Is there any reason why this section is inordinately long compared to, say, Cambridge? Propose it is heavily trimmed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.47.175.213 (talk) 03:17, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

The section in the Cambridge article is missing a lot of information – there's virtually nothing about national rankings, for example – and would need to be expanded to bring it up to Good Article standard. Robminchin (talk) 07:08, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Academic Year

Is it worth mentioning that the academic year ran along ecclesiastical lines in the past, with terms beginning on a Thursday morning, and ending at lunchtime on a Wednesday? Collections also started on the Thursday of Epiphany Term. Freshers' Week would effectively begin on the Sunday evening preceding term, with most events running Monday - Wednesday. This was certainly the case as late as the early 1990s. Illuminatusds; talk 10:53, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Endowment

The endowment figure is followed by "exclusive of colleges", which was added here in 2010. Is this correct? Unlike Oxford and Cambridge, the university accounts include all but two colleges. The accounts have a note 24 on Connected charitable institutions, which includes five college trusts, with a total value just under £3M, but that value is much lower than the university endowments and does not necessarily relate to endowments. TSventon (talk) 02:09, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I think it's correct, in that endowments held by the independent colleges or the college trusts are not included in the university endowment. Those endowments may be small, or even zero, but it's probably worth including for the sake of accuracy. Robminchin (talk) 05:24, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I would say "exclusive of independent colleges" as 15 of 17 colleges are included in the university accounts. I would ignore the Connected charitable institutions, which are not all college related, as they are small and I would expect that where universities have linked charities we would normally include or exclude them based on whether they are included in the university accounts. Apologies for the delay in replying as I have been busy over Christmas. TSventon (talk) 14:49, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

That would seem reasonable. Robminchin (talk) 20:51, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

The connected charities included in the accounts notes are only those that are not required to file separate accounts/ registered as separate charities so the likes of University College Trust , St Hild and St Bede Trust, Caedmon/Ceolfrid Trust as well as various JCRs, and other trusts such as the Ruth First Education Trust or DPET would not be included in the connected charities disclosure so it isn't correct to assume it is just the two independent colleges that are not included in the endowment figures. Some of these will be small admittedly but there are others than have endowments of a few million. Allialliw (talk) 08:48, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Allialliw, my thinking is that what needs to be noted about Durham is that there are independent colleges, which are not included. Other universities are likely to have associated charities and student unions/ JCRs, which may or may not be included in their accounts depending on the circumstances in each case.

I also haven't seen evidence that college charities have substantial endowments. St Hild and St Bede Trust has £8.6M, but only a small proportion of its spending goes to Hild Bede College. University College Trust has £15K in endowment funds, and the Caedmon/Ceolfrid Trust does not mention endowments. Ruth First Education Trust and Durham Palestine Educational Trust don't seem to be connected to individual colleges.

Pinging Robminchin and EmyRussell for their thoughts. TSventon (talk) 00:43, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree that the St Hilda and St Bede trust isn't really connected to the college. It looks like it was formed when the college joined the university, presumably to continue other activities in the diocese that the university wasn't taking on – its charitable aims are much broader than being a college trust. The only maintained college trust I've been able to find that isn't reported as a connected charity is the University College trust. Its endowment is very small, but I guess it could sometimes make a difference in the rinsing of the final decimal place.

However, we can't simply say 'exclusive of colleges' if any endowments for the connected charity college trusts (of which the are five according to the accounts) are being reported as part of the university endowment, while 'exclusive of independent colleges' is accurate at the level to which we are giving the endowment. I don't think including students' union endowments (and JCRs that aren't part of the university framework are legally students' unions), or the other various charities that give scholarships but aren't controlled by the university or its colleges, in with university endowments is a good idea. Robminchin (talk) 04:48, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I am not too familiar with the independent colleges of Durham and how they are run so I am happy to refer this judgement to those more well versed on their financial structures. However, you do raise a good point regarding how substantive these endowments are and whether they'd be large enough to make a significant impact on the overall value.EmyRussell (talk) 12:42, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

References

GA concerns

I am concerned that this article does not meet the good article criteria. Some of my concerns are listed below:

• There are uncited statements throughout the article.
• At over 12,000 words, WP:TOOBIG recommends that the article be summarised or split up.
• There are many potential sources listed in "Further reading" that should be considered to use as inline citations or removed.
• "Notable people" is too long and includes people who do not have a Wikipedia article.
• "Town and gown relations" is too short.
• "UCAS Admission Statistics" needs to be updated with 2023 and 2024 stats.

Is anyone interesed in fixing up this article, or should it be sent to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 02:49, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I'll have a look at it, but probably not for a week or two. I've had tidying up the notable people section on my to do list for a while. There are a number of related articles already, so possibly some material can be moved into those, although length is not part of WP:GACR. Fuller coverage of town and town would seem to be contrary to the aim of reducing the size of the article, but comprehensive coverage is only required for FA, not GA. I don't see any reason to remove any of the further reading entries; that is supposed to be a section for further reading, which all of these are, and a number of these are already used as references. Robminchin (talk) 03:34, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

UCAS statistics for 2024 won't exist until some time next year. The 2023 starts were published a few months ago, but the idea that the page is badly out of date is erroneous. Robminchin (talk) 03:42, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I've had a quick look over the uncited statements. These all seem like they can be dealt with fairly easily by either finding a citation or removing the statement (particularly where it looks like someone has just stuck something trivial onto the end of a paragraph, which would be a good place to start trimming anyway). Robminchin (talk) 14:50, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Most of the remaining uncited statements are ones in the history section that seen to have been orphaned when material was moved to the History of Durham University article and summarised here. I'll be moving those over as I get them checked. Robminchin (talk) 04:50, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Queen's Campus Detail

Do we need this much detail for the Queen's Campus section in this article, given we already have a dedicated article to it? A decent amount of what is written seems too specific for readers who just want an overview of Durham University, especially the new final paragraph. I'm also wary of the article length as already mentioned above. Harryb7 (talk) 21:44, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

It can probably be cut down, but the earlier version was giving out of date information so that needed to be updated. Robminchin (talk) 22:06, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I've done some more trimming of this and other sections. I'd note that we've slimmed down by almost 1,000 words since the concerns raised above and are now closer to 11k than 12k. Robminchin (talk) 22:26, 5 November 2024 (UTC)