Talk:San Jose State University

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Redirects: San Jose State, SJSU, San José State University, San José State , California State University, San Jose, San Jose State College

San Jose vs. San José

Accent marks (San José State University vs. San Jose State University) are included because they are part of the official name of the university (cf. its website) Joelwest 07:05, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

• This is true. even the city of San José is very adamant about that " ´ " in its name. Davodd 07:17, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

I've never seen San Jose spelled with an accent. The San Jose newspaper doesn't use an accent. http://www.sanjose.com/ doesn't use an accent. http://www.sanjosesharks.com/ doesn't use it. If they do it on their official websites, that's decidedly odd. Do we start putting accents on Los Angeles? RickK 16:36, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

To jump in on this, as both a San Jose resident and a SJSU alum, the city and the university are pretty much the only instutitions that use the accent, the rest of us ignore it. I believe the accent was adopted in the late 1980s or early 1990s to show off our "cultural heratige" as the oldest city in California. It is a symptom of SJ's inferiority complex. Gentgeen 22:46, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The website http://www.sanjose.com/ is a cybersquatter that has no official standing other than they grabbed the name first. The Sharks (http://www.sanjosesharks.com/) can call themselves whatever they want -- just as a business could call itself San Jose Bar & Grill or San Josie Bar & Grill -- but it's not as though the city leaders would change their city name to reflect that. (This is reverse causality).

Gentgeen is right that the switch is comparatively recent. I personally agree with him it's a silly affectation, or, more likely, kotowing to political correctness. As a voter in San José and an employee of SJSU, I am not doing this because I agree with the names, but because I want Wikipedia to come up with unambigous guidelines to head off edit wars.

Whether the name choice is serious or silly, the principle seems quite clear. If Cassius Clay wants to call himself Muhammad Ali or Louise Ciccone wants to call herself Madonna, the press, electronic databases and paper-based reference materials honor that. For an organization, whether the Girl Scouts of America or the Department of Defense, the only fair test is what they choose to call themselves. For wikipedia, the only practical test is what name is used on the official organizational website. By such tests, both the city of San José (http://www.sanjoseca.gov/) and San José State University (http://www.sjsu.edu/) require an accent. Joelwest 06:17, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

On a side note, my mom's a fairly high level voluanteer in the local council of the Girl Scouts, so I know their official name to be Girl Scouts of the United States of America[1] (http://girlscouts.org). I should go and suggest they move the article, but NAH.

Back on topic, the use of the accent isn't universal within the city. The fire department[2] (http://sjfd.org) and the public library[3] (http://sjlibrary.org) use it, the police[4] (http://sjpd.org) and chamber of commerce[5] (http://sjchamber.com) do not. The city charter (http://www.sanjoseca.gov/clerk/Charter.htm) has no accent mark over the "e", and neither do the seal (the bundle of wheat thingie) nor the logo (the sunset thingie with "The Capitol of Silicon Valley" under it). Now, SJSU's a little different, as the accent is used universally, except for the university's seal, which does not have the mark. I personally don't care where the articles reside, but do think that wherever is chosen, the other needs to be a redirect.Gentgeen 07:49, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure it actually matters what they call themselves as our naming policy states we use whatever is most common in English, which is not necessarily the same as what the city decides to call itself. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) for example. Angela. 19:32, Jan 12, 2004 (UTC)

I agree the question is "most common", but "most common" among what universe. Gentgeen is right we have to redirect all variants (as is already policy). For that matter, I have no problem with having the main database link be without accents (whether for San José or anything else) since people won't tend to type them. It just seems as though the proper name should be listed in the beginning of the entry (as with any other dictionary or encyclopedia) cross-referenced to common variants. Joelwest 22:56, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Gordon Moore

SJSU lists Intel cofounder Gordon Moore as an alum here (http://www2.sjsu.edu/sjsuhistory/FamousSJSUAlums.htm). They don't say what degree he recieved, or when, but I'd assume the university knows who it's alumni are, so I'm going to restore him to the list. Gentgeen 17:09, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia's entry for Gordon E. Mooreclaims he spent 2 years at SJSC before transfering to Cal, which was common back then (my mom made the exact same transition about 8 years earlier). And his wife (http://pr.caltech.edu/events/moore/) is a graduate of SJSC.

A quick google check shows the smoking gun of an oral history (http://www.stanford.edu/group/mmdd/SiliconValley/SiliconGenesis/GordonMoore/Moore.html), where he says "I went through grammar schools here locally, Sequoia High School, two years at San Jose State, where I met my wife-to-be, and then transferred to University of California at Berkeley for my junior and senior years." So the oral history has been added to Wikipedia's biography and we can say that Moore attended but did not graduate from SJSC. JoelWest 22:38, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Not suppried, as the practice is still common. I've got a freind who made the same transition only 7 years ago. Gentgeen 23:33, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Famous Faculty

I removed "Donald West - chemistry" because he is not listed as current faculty. I don't think there's a problem in including former faculty, but since he doesn't have his own Wikipedia entry and there's no information about him on the SJSU site, his significance should be noted to justify listing him ahead of several thousand other faculty. JoelWest 18:51, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Doctor West is one of the authors (with Douglas Skoog from Stanford University and James Holler from the University of Kentucky) of Analytical Chemistry, an Introduction (my edition's ISBN 0-03-097285-X), which is the standard analytical chemistry textbook in the world, translated into dozens of languages, and used to train generations of chemists (my aunt still has her first edition Skoog/West from the 1970s). A google search for Skoog and West and Holler and Chemistry [6] (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=ISO-8859-1&q=Skoog+AND+West+AND+Holler+AND+Chemistry&spell=1) yields 2,280 results, and if you remove Holler (who became involved in the 5th edition, I think) you get 4,110 results [7] (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&q=Skoog+AND+West+AND+Chemistry&btnG=Search). Dr West was a professor emeritus when I was there 6 years ago, teaching one class a semister. It's possible he's completely stoped teaching by now. Gentgeen 23:06, 10 May 2004 (UTC)