Talk:University of California, Berkeley

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University of California, Berkeley is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 16, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
April 7, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
December 20, 2009	Peer review	Reviewed

Current status: Former featured article candidate

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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False information on alumni

The alumni section under "Notable People" mentions 14 Fields Medalists, but this is false (that would be literally every (or almost every) American Fields Medalist). Berkeley has produced 2 as alumni, but would count quite a few if you included faculty. FunctionalPhil (talk) 11:55, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to change it. We encourage you to be bold in updating pages, because wikis like ours develop faster when everybody edits. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. You can always preview your edits before you publish them or test them out in the sandbox. If you need additional help, check out our getting started page or ask the friendly folks at the Teahouse. ElKevbo (talk) 21:57, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Change on the nobel prize number of UC berkeley

According to the official website of UC Berkeley (https://inspire.berkeley.edu/get-inspired/nobels/), there are 55 nobel prizes awarded to Berkeley's faculties and alumni. The current link can't be opened and is not a comprehensive list of Berkeley's nobel winners. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1255979u (talk • contribs) 07:43, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Nobel site times out, but is that a permanent outage? The UC site lists the 55, while the Wikipedia article linked to in the lead also gives 21. There's quite a difference there. I can't quibble with the UC site, but we could use a more reliable source and should maintain consistency across Wikipedia articles. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The current count listed on the Nobel page also only accounts for university affiliations at the time the award was received. This means alumni, faculty and scholars who may have left Berkeley aren't counted. I remember the Nobel Prize count for Berkeley was as high as 107 on the Wikipedia page before, as it included alumni, former faculty and visiting scholars in the total medal count. There used to be a link that led to a separate Wikipedia page listing all of the affiliated scholars and their connections with the university. Columbia, Princeton and Harvard still have pages like this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_affiliated_with_Columbia_University_as_alumni_or_faculty). It appears this is an issue not only on the Berkeley page, but across multiple universities. Btn912 (talk) 06:29, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is not just the matter that the other universities e.g. Columbia etc., may have such list, there is no sufficient reason to delete (technically, redirect to another page).

Also, it is always no necessity to be affiliated to a university only for alumni with completed degree or faculty during a specified event. Bill Gate is always at the pages of Harvard even he dropped out.

It is already meaningful to have a page providing who are related to a university. I would suggest - may be have a vote, to recover to page of Nobel Laureates affiliated to UC Berkeley - as those of other universities. 218.250.208.166 (talk) 07:38, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 23 July 2024

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Updated Nobel Medal Count

This is the webpage to link for UC Berkeley's official medal count for only alumni and faculty, not including researchers: https://inspire.berkeley.edu/get-inspired/nobels/

Most universities and their respective Wikipedia include alumni, faculty AND researchers on their total medal count. They do not appear to use the official Nobel Foundation's list of affiliations at the time of award. This is why for example, Columbia University's Wikipedia list lists 103 prizes as they include researchers and visiting scholars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_affiliated_with_Columbia_University_as_alumni_or_faculty). Btn912 (talk) 05:54, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's meaningful to have such a page to any school.

The sentense in the article, "Berkeley's alumni, faculty, and researchers include 21 Nobel laureate", is totally different to the source refer to, as the Nobel official page just couts the current affiliation, NOT "alumni, (non-current) faculty, and researchers". This statement is misleading. Old Good Quaker (talk) 07:01, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: Disagreement by another editor: no consensus. ⸺(Random)staplers 22:54, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If there is no consensus, why hide/ delete the original page for laureates' affiliation and redirect to a page JUST for affiliation of the time awarded, not only UC Berkeley but also many others, e.g., Humboldt University of Berlin?

It is also inconsistent if many universities may keep such a page, e.g., UPenn (NOT suggesting deleting them all, but the pages of UC Berkeley and HU Berlin shall not be hidden/ deleted for the same situation, as you said, no consensus. Old Good Quaker (talk) 02:43, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Berkeley Endowment

A disagreement has been raised by BUjjsp regarding the endowments held by the UC Regents and the UC Berkeley Foundation.

According to the University of California Single Audit report for FY2023, "endowments and gifts are held and administered either by the University [of California] or by the campus foundations." For the "UC Regents" endowment, these investments are controlled by the Regents of the University of California, and "the portion of investment returns earned on endowments held by the University [of California] and distributed at the end of each year to support current operations for the following year is based upon a rate that is approved by The Regents." The "UC Regents" endowment is not owned or managed by the campuses and/or their foundations. The campuses receive a distribution if/as approved by the UC Regents.[1]

This ownership is reflected in the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE)[2] and Berkeley's own reporting to the United States Department of Education in IPEDS.[3]

Fiscal Year	Endowment (in billions)
Fiscal Year	IPEDS	NACUBO	Foundation
2022	$2.73	$2.65	$2.65
2021	$2.99	$2.92	$2.92
2020	$2.17	$2.12	$2.12
2019	$2.14	$2.07	$2.07
2018	$2.00	$1.94	$1.94

There is reliable data submitted by Berkeley to the federal government and further supported by the standardized NACUBO study. Based off of previous endowment discussions, ElKevbo and Smokefoot, please feel free to add to the discussion. Redraiderengineer (talk) 15:58, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Board of Regents annual report clearly says that the university has a total endowment of $7.4 billion. Yes, that includes $4.5 billion managed by the UC Regents for this particular university that don't seem to be included in what is reported in some other sources. But this figure seems to be more accurate so I don't see why we wouldn't use it in this article.

There is some merit to insisting on comparable definitions and reported figures for an article that exists explicitly to compare endowments for different institutions. But that is not what is happening in this article so we should use the most current and accurate information that is available. ElKevbo (talk) 22:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As mentioned, $4.5 billion in the GEP is held and administered by the UC Regents. However, the "University [of California] is both trustee and beneficiary" (not the campuses).[4] The purpose of the annual endowments report is to "provide the Regents' Committee on Investments with an overview." The report specifies that reporting the total of the endowments is an internal policy.

Both the Regents data and the figure from the NACUBO study previously in the article are from June 30, 2023 (end of FY2023).

How are you determining accuracy? Given that Berkeley reports endowment data to the federal government, why wouldn't that figure be accurate? Redraiderengineer (talk) 23:40, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If the system office holds endowment funds for the campus, why would we not include that in the article (as is done in the system's own report)? ElKevbo (talk) 22:59, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 22 August 2024

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There is a typo concerning the "History" section of the University of California, Berkeley page. Specifically, at the end of the 3rd paragraph under "Founding," the page repeats the section

"Although the University of California system does not have an official flagship campus, many scholars and experts consider Berkeley to be its unofficial flagship. In some cases, it shares this unofficial status with the University of California, Los Angeles.[36]"

I am requesting that the repeated sentences be deleted for the purpose of clarity and resolution of error.

Thank you, BB Ben Backwards (talk) 17:29, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done PianoDan (talk) 21:10, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WSJ Ranking

Berkeley is ranked 8th in the latest WSJ/Pulse rankings for 2025. This needs to be updated on the page. 204.14.36.84 (talk) 15:15, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 6 September 2024

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This page wrongly states that "Berkeley's alumni, faculty, and researchers include 21 Nobel laureates."

According to its official website (https://www.berkeley.edu/about/history-discoveries/#:~:text=For%20over%20150%20years%2C%20UC,winners%20and%2035%20alumni%20winners.), Berkeley states that it has in fact produced "26 faculty Nobel Prize winners and 35 alumni winners."

I request the current phrase be changed from "21 Nobel laureates" to "61 Nobel Laureates," since the current page grossly understates the actual number of Nobel laureates who were Berkeley alumni or faculty.

Thank you. 59.6.221.187 (talk) 07:23, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Berkeley's website seems to conflict with the number given on Nobel's website. The article List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation also only seems to list 21 laureates. Berkeley's website might be using a different metric to count laureates than the Nobel Committee/Wikipedia does. 〜 Askarion ✉ 14:00, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done for now: See above ⸺(Random)staplers 18:20, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 20 September 2024

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Change "Berkeley's alumni, faculty, and researchers include 21 Nobel laureates[21]" to Berkeley's alumni, faculty, and researchers include 55 Nobel laureates.

According to the official website of Berkeley (https://inspire.berkeley.edu/get-inspired/nobels/), the school has at least 55 nobel prizes laureates, not including many nobel prizes winners that taught in the university but hadn't been included in the record.

CI think it would also be better if we include that fact that Berkeley has been consistently ranked as number 1 public university in the US and even the world, according to US News global universities ranking 2023. Thanks! 1255979u (talk) 04:33, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done meamemg (talk) 16:54, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nobel list was limited to "This list shows the universities, research institutions or companies Nobel Laureates were affiliated with at the time of the Nobel Prize announcement. Only Nobel Laureates in Physics, Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine, and Laureates in Economic Sciences are shown in the list." Statement in lead was broader and included alumni, etc, so the 55 number seems more accurate. meamemg (talk) 16:55, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 2 December 2024

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Change 55 to 57 as Berkeley alum has just won two Nobel prizes and it has been updated to the reference too. 2607:F140:400:17E:589D:5F37:A31E:72C (talk) 04:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 01:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Berkeley Nobel prize number

. Tbh we really need to decide a set measure to uni Nobel prize number or clearly elaborate the stats we use in the article. Columbia and Chicago counts all of the Nobel prizes that grad or taught in the school, while Berkeley only count the alum and the prof receive the prize at the time when they r in Berkeley, which is a big differences as many previous/future Berkeley prof won the prize. Even this year, 2 Berkeley alum won the prize while the other 2 laureate r connected with Berkeley. In UChicago standard, 4 shall be added to the total count, doubling the current addition. 2607:F140:400:17E:589D:5F37:A31E:72C (talk) 04:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I count 59 prize winners listed at the university's "Inspire" site, which includes nine laureates since 2020. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 22 December 2024

It has been proposed in this section that University of California, Berkeley be renamed and moved to UC Berkeley.

A bot will list this discussion on the requested moves current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil.

Please use {{subst:requested move}}. Do not use {{requested move/dated}} directly.

Links: current log • target log • direct move

University of California, Berkeley → UC Berkeley – WP:COMMONNAME. Theparties (talk) 11:14, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The inadvisability of this proposal becomes evident when one looks at the full list of parallel (and idiosyncratic) moves the nominator is suggesting -- see Wikipedia:Requested_moves#December_22,_2024 -- such as San Francisco State University → SFSU and California State University Channel Islands → CSU Channel Islands and California State University, Northridge → Cal State Northridge. And making dozens of similar proposals simulataneously is a huge time-waster. Paging ElKevbo. E Eng 12:12, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The full name provides a WP:TITLECON consistent naming convention across all articles on universities and colleges in the United States. Many reliable sources like Forbes and US News and World Report still use the full name. The OP has also made numerous individual RMs on this same issue like this one, which may violate WP:ACROTITLE or use a shorter common name that is rarely used outside a sports/athletic context. Better to stick to the status quo. Zzyzx11 (talk) 14:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as unnecessary, unwise, and confusing for readers. ElKevbo (talk) 15:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, per the comments of Zzyzx11. —Eyer (he/him) If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message. 15:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for the reasons articulated above. --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]