Talk:Upper Canada College

Prince Philip and Howard Book - notes on recent edits

Hi there Miesianiacal A few notes on recent changes.

• Prince Philip is the official visitor but, according to UCC's most recent information is not on the Board of Governors [as per here]. Furthermore there is no citation for his involvement in the 1958 fundraising activities.
• The other issue is the use of the Howard book. There's a bit of WP:SYNTH going on here. The book doesn't say that UCC was especially modeled after Eton, it just notes curricular similarities. I am sure I've seen a reference to it being modeled after Elizabeth College. I'm looking for the reference. I'm assuming that you'll let that pass if I find it? Simonm223 (talk) 18:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

My copy of Howard's book is at home. I'll try to check it over the weekend. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to see if I can find my source regarding Elizabeth College and perhaps we can swap notes and decide how to represent it after we both look up our references. Are you ok with the Prince Philip changes though? The current BoG doesn't include him after all. Simonm223 (talk) 23:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, no, I'm not entirely okay with that, since this UCC page says he is a member of the Board of Governors. It also mentions Eton as a model school. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:14, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, so the UCC website contradicts itself there a little bit apparently. I'll see if I can dig up that Elizabeth College ref for you my copy of the Howard book isn't at home so it'll have to wait until Monday if it was there. Simonm223 (talk) 01:51, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I am the UCC Archivist and have been watching this page and its changes with interest. I'd like to provide some background. I took up post in late 2011 and since that time have wanted to make some changes to the College Archives pages on the website. However, during this time, there have been service provider changes for website which have caused me to delay these changes. In fact, the content currently onsite reflects information likely created prior to 2008 and changes in staff within the College Archives.

There is digital documentation available on archive.org which supports the correction that Elizabeth College was in fact the model for the creation of Upper Canada College.

Reference via the Internet Archive <archive.org>:

Documentary History of Education in History: From the passing of the Constitutional Act of 1791 to the Close of Rev. Dr. Ryerson's Administration of the Education Department in 1876 (Vol. 1: 1790-1830), page 288

Also, recent research through UCC Acts held in the College Archives reveal the structure of our Board of Governors over its history. It does not include HRH Prince Philip, our official visitor since 1955, as a member.

I invite you both to contact me directly as I am happy to provide direction to online sources to support these changes. As an aside, I plan to update the Archives webpages. These changes will include those described above.Jmds archivist (talk) 20:57, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Time to update references to Prince Philip as "visitor", perhaps using some past-tense, or Too Soon? (Anyone know what happens in a visitor-interregnum?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.41.219.93 (talk) 13:24, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute - Socioeconomic diversity

The leader includes the claim that "However, UCC is today fully independent and the student and faculty populations are culturally and socioeconomically diverse". I have noted that this claim is dubious, vague, and possibly original research. It is dubious because tuition at the College is in the realm of $30K as reported by the article, and a quite calculation reveals that the 15% of students who receive financial aid still end up with an average bill of $10K -- not to mention the 85% who receive nothing. It is possible that the College's recent shows at improving diversity have completely undone the damage of history and expense, but I would like to see some numbers demonstrating that.

I could have removed the claim entirely, but I left it in because I believe it more clearly telegraphs the nature of the article when accompanied by the tags than removing it would. The casual reader, seeing the tagged claim, will know that the socioeconomic diversity of the College is something that some editors are attempting to assert without factual support -- this will imply in her mind that she should proceed with caution and know that the rest of the article is likely to be heavily biased in an attempt to cast the College in a rosy light -- as is often the case with articles about tiny clique-ish institutions on which reputations ride. This might be missed if the claim were removed entirely.

The reason for all this detail on a minor edit is that I actually came here looking for the criticism section. I am aware that the College has received its share. But the section's not there! I read the table of contents, checked a few likely bits, scrolled to the bottom: nothing. It was only after scanning parts of the talk page that I learned the controversies have been hidden in the "History" section. Those quotation marks are meant to signify that while that section is labelled "History", that label relies on a definition so tortured as to be worthy of Torquemada (another proponent of historical torture).

It should be obvious to anyone that putting current controversial events in a history section is ridiculous. The most recent event mentioned there is from 2014 which, for reference, was a month ago. One person on this page has suggested that history can mean three months ago (an oddly specific cut-off). By this definition, everything in this article is history. For example, the most recent reference in the curriculum section dates to 2010 -- there is no evidence about the curriculum for the on-going 2014/2015 academic year. I therefore suggest that the curriculum section be relegated to a sub-section under "History", along with the rest of this article.

All that is to say: numbers, please. As obviously vague, self-serving and (ironically) a-historical a claim as that, "however", the College is "today" now "diverse" will not go un-marked. Numbers should be cross-referenced against demographic data for Toronto generally. JohnKoziar (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

The sources are in the article body. The lede is a summary. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your valuable contribution. I have noticed that there are no sources which speak to this claim in the article, so I corrected your revision on your behalf. I apologise that I did not make this factor clear in my earlier explanation -- the point was lost to an earlier draft. There is one citation in the article which speaks to a similar claim: that financial aid was expanded in order to increase "socioeconomic diversity". The cited article does not exactly support this claim (it speaks to economic diversity and in fact suggests that increased financial aid might decrease cultural diversity); but that aside it is clearly unrelated to the question of whether or not socioeconomic diversity has in fact increased. If there is some source which substantiates this claim you can point to in the article, we can put it in the lead with all the other citations there.JohnKoziar (talk) 19:22, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

The student body is already socioeconomically diverse; the scholarships aren't offered to boys who don't need the financial assistance. What the source in the article is saying is the college wants to increase the diversity. Then perhaps the answer is not some censorial blanket deletion but simply change the lede to say "the student and faculty populations are culturally diverse and the college aiming to improve the socioeconomic mix." --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:33, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Your comment is not responsive to my issues. I agree that the article we are discussing includes a claim that the College wants to increase diversity. You claimed that there was a citation supporting the claim that the College is "socioeconomically diverse". I said there wasn't but that you should feel free to demonstrate that I am incorrect. You haven't. You have simply re-asserted your claim. This does not seem constructive to me. "Censorial blanket deletion" is not an appropriate label for Simonm223's action, which was to remove unsourced and vague content. Your suggested "answer" repeats the problematic claim. Since I have not detected any reason for your reversion of my and Simonm223's changes, I will undo your reversion. I am not certain whether this is appropriate and I recognise that it might be viewed as combativeness. My apologies if you view it that way. However, because I do not know why you reverted Simonm223's changes, I can't say that your reversion is appropriate. I do on the other hand understand why Simonm223 made the change he did, as he explained it clearly in the change-log. See also my below comment.JohnKoziar (talk) 17:53, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

It's relatively clear from your short edit history, actions, and words above that you're new to Wikipedia and unfamiliar with its policies and guidelines. You've been alerted to WP:BRD already. Please read it. Additionally, deleting long-standing disputed content is not the way to deal with disputed content, unless a consensus is reached to do so; that goes doubly for sourced material (Philip on the Board of Governors). Please see WP:CONSENSUS. Lastly, a lede is a summary of the article. Removing material from the lede does nothing to alter the content of the article body. Simonm223 can defend his edits him/herself.

The Globe article does say 7% of students receive financial aid. Ergo, the socioeconomic character of the student body isn't monolithic; i.e. it's diverse. The school, as the article also outlines, wants to improve that figure to 25%. Regardless, I addressed your concern directly. I made a proposal that doesn't say the school is socioeconomically diverse, but aims to be, as sourced. Do you find it satisfactory or not and, if not, why? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:20, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Editor ‎Simonm223 has removed the offending sentence with my tags, and one other. I am happy that the unsourced and dubious claim is no longer part of the article. Unfortunately, removing the claim with the tags has had the effect I forewarned against in my first comment here: there is no longer a signal to the reader in the lead that Upper Canada College has had a long and divisive history and that a lack of diversity and sexual abuse controversies continue into the modern day, or that there are Wikipedia editors here who are actively trying to hide these on-going issues through a variety of fiendish manoeuvres. I am now going to think about appropriate ways to do this so that Wikipedia's readers will not be mislead. Presumably a banner of some sort is in order. JohnKoziar (talk) 14:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, not your personal opinions. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:33, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

This is ironic. If you have read the above you will have noticed that my issue is with a lack of reliable sources grounding your claim. In any case, it seems clear (based on the citation I mentioned above) that there are substantial competing views as to how diverse the College is and whether or not the College is truly committed to ameliorating the situation. (Though it does appear as if all of the views which cast the College in a positive light are from those closely associated with it.) In order to achieve neutrality, the competing points of view must be presented. Since they aren't I am going to add the relevant user warning. To be clear, there are two issues here. One is the claim about socioeconomic diversity; the other is that the structure of the article itself presents a bias. Though most of the competing view-points about the College have been presented, they are hidden in the History section and in an entirely separate "history" article. The skein is sufficiently tangled that it will take significant work to separate what is appropriately "history" back out from what should be in a controversy or criticism section on the main page. I am not going to that today, nor am I likely to begin that endeavour so long as a constructive discussion about it continues on this page.JohnKoziar (talk) 17:53, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I should also add that you "Miesianiacal" have reverted the page to the position it was in last week twice now, reverting changes by me and another user. This is two reversions, and therefore in violation of the procedure out-lined in the BRD page. "BRD is not an excuse to revert any change more than once. If your reversion is met with another bold effort, then you should consider not reverting, but discussing." JohnKoziar (talk) 18:01, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

The article is well sourced. If you'd like to make an amendment, please present some proposals here and their supporting sources

Keep in mind, "controversy" sections are discouraged and WP:UNDUE must be considered. Also understand that within the context of WP:SUMMARY. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:20, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Whatever other issues are on-going, it is inappropriate to remove the POV Dispute tag while this discussion continues: "An editor should not remove the tag merely because he or she feels the article does comply with NPOV: The tag should be removed only when there is a consensus that the disputes have indeed been resolved." As the article stands right now, I think it is in a satisfactory position and I do no intend to edit it further until this discussion has progressed. Specifically, the POV Dispute tag is on the article, "MIESIANIACAL" has appropriately marked the specific claim under discussion with an appropriate tag, and he has re-stored Simonm223's updated reference regarding Philip.

I intend to continue this discussion later. For now, I will repeat "Miesianiacal"'s proposal above: "the student and faculty populations are culturally diverse and the college aiming to improve the socioeconomic mix." The first half of this statement is unsourced in the lead and in the article: it is a repetition of the original claim of which it is a subset; the second half is disputed in the Globe article that's been discussed. I also do not think that 7% of the student body receiving financial aid would prompt most readers to form the judgement that the College is "economically diverse". For reference, that means that over ninety per cent of the student body can afford $30,000+ in yearly tuition. Any claim that the College is "diverse" will be somewhat vague, but a good referent is to compare the College to the surrounds. Now, neither I nor anyone else so far has produced data on this comparison, but I regard it as highly unlikely that over 90% of Canadians or Torontonians generally can afford that kind of tuition, or indeed anywhere near that per-centage. So perhaps if a claim of this nature is to be made, once data is found, it should say "although the College exhibits considerable economic diversity, the families of over ninety per cent of its students are in the top decile [eg] of Canadian families by income". The dependant clause of that suggestion was satire.

Lastly, please avoid the ad hominem attacks. I am not new to Wikipedia, but whether or not I am is irrelevant. I hope that my facility with its policies is evidenced by my ability to quote them in support of my comments. A blanket reference to a policy without an explanation of how you feel it is being triggered is not constructive. JohnKoziar (talk) 19:05, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

If you're going to put a tag that claims the entire article is in contravention of WP:NPOV, you have to start a discussion with an explanation of how the entire article is in contravention of WP:NPOV. All you've talked about so far is a claim made in the lede (look at the header you chose for this debate: "NPOV Dispute - Socioeconomic diversity").

At least "the student" part of the sentence "the student and faculty poulations are culturally diverse" is supported by:

• "The public image of UCC as a WASP bastion is long outdated, and any reference to it makes college members groan. 'We have a good deal of ethnic diversity here,' says Mr. Power, a statement that is reinforced by a glance at the classrooms... Some of the school's existing ethnic diversity has come from its boarders..." [1]
• "There has been a subtle change in the character of the student body. The growth of enrolment has increased the number of boys from a wide variety of backgrounds and decreased the ratio of those from old Toronto families. The address list now reflects Toronto's ethnic variety and resembles a small United Nations." Howard, Richard (1979). Upper Canada College, 1829–1979: Colborne's Legacy. Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada. p. 15. ISBN 0-7705-1843-5.
• "Students come from across Canada (50 per cent) and internationally (50 per cent), from over 20 countries, including those in North and South America, Europe and Asia." [2]

Perhaps the "faculty" part should go.

The Globe article says "as part of Upper Canada's new strategic plan announced last week, the school has pledged to vastly increase its financial-aid package so that fully one-quarter of its students will be subsidized within a decade..." That supports the statement "the college is aiming to improve the socioeconomic mix."

Additionally:

"Central to the [Strategic] Plan is the notion of accessibility and diversity: that by changing UCC from a school where only the financially advantaged can attend, to a school that is open to smart, talented boys of every background, we can realize Sir John Colborne’s founding vision for UCC...

"We believe that if UCC keeps its boarding program, this will present a remarkable opportunity to better fulfill the College's Strategic Plan, including contributing to the objective of accessibility and diversity.

"In fact, we argue, that with boarding, there is an extraordinary opportunity for UCC to position its accessibility commitment on a national scale—an opportunity which should be embraced."p.4

UCC kept the boarding programme. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 19:27, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

When I removed the disputed section from the lede it was because I thought pulling a relatively minor detail from the lede would be more encyclopedic than having the signs of a low-simmer edit war going on there with what appeared to be a bad case of tag-spam. I would heartily dispute that the article has a systemic WP:NPOV problem. If there are statements attributed to Principal Power which have been reported in reliable sources that the character of the school is changing, well, that seems noteworthy to me. Attempts to ascertain how much the family of the average student on Financial Assistance pays after scholarships are applied is obvious WP:OR and should be avoided. In general, what I'd suggest is a step back from both of you. I know that this article is important and significant to User:Miesianiacal and that he's taken steps in the past to keep it in what has largely been a stable build. And stable articles can be very good. That being said, improvement is possible to any article, and continuous improvement is a good thing, so too much protection can be detrimental in the long term. However an agenda of trying to characterize the school as being an armature of privilege or specific political parties, if there are reliable sources that suggest otherwise, isn't necessarily positive improvement. Perhaps, instead of dueling edits on the article the two of you should talk out your issues here, on the talk page, first, reach a consensus about what changes are necessary and then post them together.

As an after-thought, before assuming I object to this or that reversion or change of one of my edits, perhaps let me assess the situation first and speak for myself. Simonm223 (talk) 19:51, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

You'll note I welcomed proposals from JohnKoziar at 18:20. It's becoming increasingly difficult, though, to keep a handle on this, as he keeps shifting the goalposts.

The "WASP, Tory bastion" part is simply an element of the lede's summery of the school's history. I can't recall correctly, but, I think it's there because of the earlier efforts of another editor who was keen on having this article highlight the negative aspects of the school's past (which he also thought still exist). It isn't particularly controversial, though, because it's a sourced fact, and is fine (I think) so long as it's balanced with the facts about the changes in regard to the student body's makeup. There could be other ways to write the lede. But, deleting that stuff means the lede definitely fails to meet the standards of WP:LEADLENGTH (which it may not even now). --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:29, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

That's fine. I'm not particularly plussed one way or the other about the lede other than preventing it from being a battleground. At this point User:JohnKoziar has, I think, broken WP:3RR - I think - I'm going to leave him a friendly reminder on his user talk page before taking any further action but if he doesn't subside this may require admin assistance. Simonm223 (talk) 20:58, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

From my take, he seems to have only just missed breaching 3RR (by an hour or so). Definitely at the limit now, though. I already left a notice at his talk. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Past or Present Tense in the English Translation of the Latin School Motto: Palman qui meruit ferat?

"Palman qui meruit ferat" is the motto on the crest of Upper Canada College (UCC) and University of Southern California (USC). Discrepancy exists between how each school translates the Latin phrase into English. UCC translates it in the male gender pronoun and past tense as "Let he who merited the palm bear it." USC translates it in both gender pronoun and present tense as, "Let whoever earns the palm bear it." An edit to USC stating this discrepancy has been written by this author, who was a Seaton's House graduate in 1983. I studied under a Latin Scholar, 1979 ,. I would recommend that scholar be consulted to concur, reach consensus, or quorum among scholars as to the accurate English translation of the Latin phrase "Palman qui meruit ferat". The author would also request a monetary honorarium for this effort to reach the correct English translation of each school's respective motto. Author's email: reganfraser@yahoo.com ReganFraser (talk) 19:51, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

References