Style guide for alumni pages

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The following is the formal WikiCU style guide for alumni biography pages listing Columbia degrees after alumni's names. NB: This style guide departs from styles used in many official Columbia publications, which are themselves hardly uniform.

  • The degrees will be listed directly following the name, with no intervening commas, parentheses, or birthdate information (the latter can be placed after the degree info; this is WikiCU, and the content of one's Columbia affiliation is more important than the span of one's mortal life). Only permutations of the alumni's names can come prior to degree affiliations.
  • Both the degree title/school and the year of graduation will be wikilined. In cases of ambiguous wikilinking (such as the wikilink to CC), the link will be disambiguated.
  • The year of graduation will only be abbreviated with an apostrophe if occurring after 1920.
  • The degrees will appear thus:
Columbia College (BA): CC
General Studies (BA): GS
SEAS (BS): SEAS
Barnard (BA): B
GSAS (MA): MA
GSAS (PhD): PhD
Business School (MBA): MBA
Journalism School (MS): J
Law School (LLB/JD/LLM): Law
Med School (MD): MD
Social Work (MS): SW
GSAPP (MS/MArch): Arch
SIPA (MIA): SIPA
Arts (MFA): SoA
Teachers College (MA): TC

...all remaining degrees have no uniform style as of yet.

  • The appropriate categories will be added corresponding to degrees received, including the last name of the alumnus/a in order to place him/her in alphabetical order in the category.
  • Nongraduates will neither have degrees listed as above nor be assigned alumni categories. Instead, they will be assigned to the appropriate drop out category.


Proposed Nomenclature System

These guidelines are intended to harmonise existing conventions in common use.

1. Is the degree an undergraduate degree awarded by the three traditional undergraduate schools associated with Columbia: Barnard, Columbia, and SEAS? If yes, denote it with school and year (eg. CC '07, BC '07, SEAS '07). If no, go to question 2.

2. Is the degree UNIQUE or NEARLY UNIQUE to a school (eg. technically the business school grants PhDs, but the overwhelming majority of them are granted by GSAS)? If so, go to question 3. If not, head to 4.

3. Does the school award other NON-UNIQUE degrees? (eg., the Business School is the only school that awards MBAs, but also awards PhDs, and MSes). In either case, denote it by the degree (eg. MBA '07, MFA '07, MArch '07, JSD '05, PhD '06).

4. If the degree is NOT UNIQUE to a school (MS, MA), are the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF DEGREES granted by the school THIS PARTICULAR DEGREE? (eg., the Journalism school grants almost all MAs, with a few rare MSes in there). If so, denote it by the school (eg. Journalism '07). Else, go to question 5.

5. If the degree is NOT UNIQUE to a school (MS, MA), and the school does NOT overwhelmingly grant THIS PARTICULAR DEGREE (GS grants both BS and BAs, GSAS grants both PhDs and MAs, etc.), then denote it by the degree, the school/faculty in parenthesis, and the year (eg. MS (Business) '51, PhD (Business) '05, MA (Journalism) '07, MA (Arts) '04, BA (GS) '03, BS (Nursing) '02). This also covers any remainders.

6. Degrees granted honoris causa should be denoted (Hons).

7. Degrees that must cite school or faculty should cite the faculty/school that existed AT THE TIME, and not try to "retcon" anything in. Eg. de Bary is not MA (GSAS) '48, but rather MA (Philosophy) '48. William Barclay Parsons is not SEAS 1882, but Mines 1882, with appropriate links to indicate what we mean.

So:

  • CC '07 = AB from Columbia College, 2007
  • SEAS '07 = BS from SEAS, 2007
  • BC '07 = BA from Barnard, 2007
  • Journalism '07 = MA from Journalism, 2007
  • MS (Journalism) '07 = MS from Journalism, 2007
  • PhD '07 = PhD from GSAS, 2007
  • PhD (Business) '07 = PhD from GSB, 2007
  • EngScD '07 = EngScD from SEAS, 2007
  • MBA '07 = MBA from GSB, 2007
  • JSD '07 = JSD from CLS, 207
  • JD '07 = JD from CLS, 2007
  • MArch '07 = MArch from GSAPP, 2007
  • William Theodore de Bary, CC '41, MA (Philosophy) '48, PhD '51, LittD (Hons) '94.

This should get everything. Ttan 03:32, 29 November 2007 (EST)

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