Talk:Birkbeck, University of London

Requested move

The pages on other University of London colleges generally follow the current styling of the individual institution. Current Birkbeck literature and signage is consisently for Birkbeck, University of London. Moving the page there will bring it in line with the other colleges. Timrollpickering 23:37, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~

Support

1. Support. For Birkbeck, but each institution in the University of London should be decided on a case by case basis. Philip Baird Shearer 17:14, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

Only those institutions which belong to University of London (http://www.lon.ac.uk/) which are not well known in their own right seem to need to emphasise (or even mention) that they are part of London University. For example neither of these institutions mention the association on their main web page:

• The London School of Economics http://www.lse.ac.uk/
• Imperial College London http://www.imperial.ac.uk/

Is Birkbeck http://www.bbk.ac.uk/main not very well known in its own right? I see that King's College London http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ is not very sure of its standing[1] ;-O -- Philip Baird Shearer 01:07, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a bit more than that. I'm not sure when Birkbeck adopted the current style, but it may have been not long after they absorbed the University of London Extra-Mural Studies (I think that was in the late 1980s) and they may have felt the need to acknowledge the University more widely.

Or, at the risk of drifting into conspiracy theories that recurr frequently throughout the Univeristy, note that the two you cite have both at times been linked to proposals to go it alone, possibly destroying up the federation in the process (and even taking the name). King's has also been linked to proposed mergers with Imperial on occasion. It's possible that some in the other colleges feel the need to emphasise the name as a way of reinforcing the University in the staff's and students' mindset. Timrollpickering 10:03, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"drifting into conspiracy theories" like these? -- Philip Baird Shearer 10:57, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I was actually specifically thinking of the proposed Imperial/UCL merger from the other end of 2002 but it seems that people at Imperial have thought about merging with half the University at one point or another! Timrollpickering 13:25, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Decision

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. violet/riga (t) 22:18, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In nocte conciliem

Translated by the caption as "study by night". Doesn't it rather means: "Night brings advice (council)"? Lapaz

"Study by night" or (more rarely) "by night, study!" are the only translations I've heard in use around the institution itself. A quick search of the Birkbeck website on its own search engine doesn't yield any use of the term at all. Timrollpickering 18:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

It gets even stranger - this Birkbeck exam paper (doc gives the translation as "Study by night". A Google search for "In nocte consilium" birkbeck generally only turns up mirrors for here and very few other references - I suspect the college isn't making much use of its motto at all, which doesn't help for clarifying exactly what the official translation is meant to be.

If Birkbeck themselves are using "Study by night" then I think it should be used in the info box as the form given by the institution itself - for other examples see University of Kent (which gives the prayer book {mis}translation) and Cranfield University (which uses the university's given translation). Timrollpickering 15:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that consilium ("counsel", "advice": verb would be consilior, "I take counsel") is distinct from concilium ("assembly" or "council"). Latin mottos are often taken out of context from a classical poem, or some such, and given a liberal translation. I see no especial problem with the translation Birkbeck has adopted. — mholland (talk) 16:33, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Reorganisation

I've reorganised the page, roughly following the guidelines set down in Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities, with a little adaptation (as the guidelines are fairly US-centric), and added some information to flesh the various sections out. The student life and sports, clubs and traditions sections could do with expansion by somebody with first hand knowledge. The history section could also do with being organised into narrative paragraphs rather than short sentences, this page has penty of information if anyone wants to take on the task. --Daduzi ^talk 00:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I've had a go at fleshing out the history section, although it could do with more work. If anyone's got access to the Birkbeck magazines that have run stories about the college there may well be a rich source of information there.

The School of Continuing Education or whatever it's called this week ("Faculty of Continuing Education" is still used a lot) has somewhat separate origins, dating back to 1876 (the London Society of the Extension for University Education), becoming part of the UoL in 1903 (Department of Extra-Mural Studies) and only becoming an integral part of Birkbeck in 1988. I'm adding a subsection to the history for the Continuing Education programmes but this needs a good deal of information. For that matter I don't think there's currently a Wikipedia page on extra-mural studies and I'm not sure of the best way to link the subject (or try to write one myself).

I've merged the student life and sports clubs and traditions sections together - quite apart from the nature of Birkbeck making sport a less notable affair (their downs and ups on University Challenge are rather more notable) for a lot of UK universities the students' union and societies rather straddle these two sections, which are very US-centric. Timrollpickering 14:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Category for students and alumni on Wikipedia

Category:Wikipedians by alma mater: Birkbeck, University of London has been created for all current Birkbeck students and Birkbeck alumni editing Wikipedia. Timrollpickering 21:07, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Birkbeck Stratford

A page for Birkbeck Stratford has now been created. Timrollpickering 14:06, 26 November 2006 (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 00:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

What is the correct pronunciation? I am familiar with the pronunciations Birbeck and Birkbeck. I have read that the former, i.e. with the first k unpronounced, is the correct one, if less commonly heard.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 18:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

"Birkbeck" is by far the most common I've heard around the college itself. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm a student a Birkbeck, and my tutors, fellow students, and all the other folk I've spoken to pronounce it as it's written, although someone was once talking to me about George Birkbeck and didn't pronounce the 'k' when they spoke his name. I suspect that after more than a century of being in print, it has become normal (and so correct) to pronounce it 'birkbeck'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Semafore (talk • contribs) 22:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

'Its staff members have diverse research reputations.'

What does that mean? It sounds like it means that some of them have stellar reputations but some are a bit substandard. Perhaps the correct meaning ought to be spelled out or the comment deleted.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 11:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Faculty of LifeLong Learning

Somehow I can't understand the history of The School of Continuing Education. "It was integrated into Birkbeck in 1988. Initially known as the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies, it has also been called the Faculty of Continuing Education before adopting its current name in 2005." So far so good, in 2005 it was called "School of Continuing Education", right? Then come the following sentence "In 2009 the Faculty of LifeLong Learning was incorporated into the main College structure". The Faculty of LifeLong Learning? what is this, and what connection does it have with The School of Continuing Education? Looking at the official history of Birkbeck I found no mention of "The School of Continuing Education", on the contrary I find that on "1 October 2007 - Faculty of Continuing Education officially becomes the Faculty of Lifelong Learning". Explanations? Avihu (talk) 20:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The confusion is that this part of the college had multiple name changes across the decade and either there was singing from different hymn sheets for point or some reversions of titles. The names "Faculty of Continuing Education" and "School of Continuing Education" seemed to flip back and forth before "Faculty of Lifelong Learning" (can't remember the precise capitalisation) was adopted in 2007. The section needs a bit of reworking to clarify all the names floating about. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The section needs more then a bit of reworking to clarify all the names floating about. It should be incorporated with the history section. It starts with a promise about "long separate history.", then tell that long separate history in just two sentences and the rest of the section deals with it's history within Birkbeck. Apart from name changes the article also hints about s structural change in 2009 but does not specify what was the change. One thing more. The reason I read the article is that I intend to translate most of it for the Hebrew Wikipedia and I found several other faults with it. First, there is the sentence "'Its staff members have diverse research reputations." which user Oxonian2006 already remarked about 5 months ago. Second, how an article about Birkbeck fails to mention the achievements of the crystallography department under John Desmond Bernal: discovering the structure of the the tobacco mosaic virus by Rosalind Franklin and Aaron Klug and inventions of the magnetic drum memory and Booth's multiplication algorithm by Andrew Donald Booth? Third, what about the fact that Birkbeck is going to open the first British Institute for the Study of Antisemitism and that the Wiener Library, will be relocating to Birkbeck? Avihu (talk) 10:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

So what with the revert

Dear Aloneinthewild, sources have been provided. It takes time and effort of making such edits, but easy to remove them, aren't they? --Tubslubeamorepersempre (talk) 22:26, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

"Rankings" is written with bold characters in contents

Why is "Rankings" written in bold, in the contents? It stands out (on purpose?). This is the first time I have ever seen such a usage of bold in any wikipedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.135.92.184 (talk) 10:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Fixed now Aloneinthewild (talk) 14:01, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• John Philippe Rushton.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Notable People

Hello fellow Wikipedians. I notice on this page Birkbeck, University of London that the list of notable people includes the name of my aunt Shirley Toulson. Of course I understand that it would not be appropriate for me to create a page for her but if we can agree that such a page would meet the requirements of notability maybe someone else would like to create one. Bughub (talk) 12:31, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bughub: She and one other has been erased from the list now. Please see WP:LISTN and WP:WTAF for context. Enking yow, 2A02:C7F:BE04:700:3C7C:E121:F045:4DFA (talk) 13:22, 30 January 2021 (UTC)