Talk:Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

In looking through the list of alumni

I see Trischa Zorn, Law 2005, but on her page all it says about her university career is, "Zorn studied at the University of Nebraska, and, as of 2001, "teaches third and fourth graders with special needs in Indianapolis". Perhaps someone who actually knows (i.e., not me) can update her page. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 14:27, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

   This G-search for "Trischa Zorn, Law 2005" (where the quotes were included in the query) produces 5 hits:

1. liquisearch names "Wikipedia Alumni (i.e. our article) as source
2. Pr. G-berg credits "World Heritage Encyclopedia Edition" via a thumbnail and bottom of the page text
3. World Heritage Encyclopedia includes boilerplate that includes WP among its sources
4. Wikiwand duplicates the text of this talk page, including at least 1 contrib i added in the last few hours]
5. "Wikipeetia, the misspelled encyclopedia" lives up to its slogan by misspelling about 90% of our text, including of course "teh".

   Someone (even more obsessive/compulsive than i) may want to do a WikiBlame search in pursuit of greater clarity about when it disappeared, or examine our colleague Carptrash's contribs against the possibility that they did something about it themself. When you know when it disappeared, Wikiblame will probably be less frustrating as a tool for determining when it first appeared, which may be helpful in understanding, or at least in further investigation for a source or explanation.
--Jerzy•t 03:12, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Articles after IUPUI splits

Now that it's 2024, we ought to discuss how we are going to structure the Wikipedia articles on the two schools. As I see it, there are two possibilities:

1. Create two new articles, Indiana University Indianapolis and Purdue University Indianapolis. Each of these would contain history of IUPUI that is relevant to the particular university, and the current article would contain only the history and other information pertinent to IUPUI pre-split.
2. Create one new article for Purdue University Indianapolis, as above, and change the name of the current article to Indiana University Indianapolis.

What do you all think? Are there any possibilities that I overlooked? Indyguy (talk) 22:13, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

The first option seems to be a lot cleaner and easier. It also matches my own perspective about what is happening - what is/was IUPUI is being dissolved and its resources divided that the two parent universities are using to make new campuses/locations. It's even possible that one or both of these new "institutions" may not even merit its own article - I spoke with a Purdue faculty member about this yesterday and he indicated that this will be some kind of extension of the West Lafayette campus with little independence so it's possible that the Purdue portion of not-IUPUI may end up becoming a small section in Purdue University. ElKevbo (talk) 16:35, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't this (the under-emphasized nature the Purdue Indy campus) tip toward the second option proposed by @Indyguy? I think that the main history of the campus will be the story of one that once included Purdue, but was always (mainly) an IU campus. It would seem to me that retaining but renaming the current entry while noting the departure of Purdue is closer to what is actually happening. But ... I may not have enough distance. I'll be working for IUI soon. If it helps, see a similar discussion for the disolution of IPFW[1] -- Jaireeodell (talk) 01:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Satellite campuses often do have their own articles; see for example University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College and University of Cincinnati Clermont College. So a Purdue University in Indianapolis article is in order, especially since its history is much different than the main campus.

The main advantage of having a separate IUPUI article is that it's a place to put the pre-split history that wouldn't really be appropriate in an Indiana University Indianapolis article. There is a history section here and some opportunity to expand it. So I'd prefer the three-article plan. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 01:02, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I think each new campus needs a separate new article. IUPUI was formed by the merger of two campuses and has split into two new institutions. See IUPUI's Library of Congress name authority record: "Phone call to IUPUI Communications and Marketing, Sept. 29, 1999 (est. 1969 through the merger of Indiana University at Indianapolis and Purdue University, Indianapolis Campus; IUPUI is a joint campus, not a university in itself)." I don't want to pronounce on the nature of those new institutions; but, given that IUPUI was formed by a merger, not having two different pages for the two successor institutions would suggest that Purdue's pre-1969 campus merged into IU and never left. Waering (talk) 16:14, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

The IUPUI split is official on July 1, 2024

Hi all - I work for IU Communications and Marketing. The division of the two schools is complete as of today (July 1, 2024), and the new Indiana University Indianapolis website is now live, which may be helpful to your research. If you would like some general campus photos and the new logo, I am happy to get those to you.

If you have questions and want to speak with someone, let me know. Thanks! Ucmturn (talk) 18:38, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Ucmturn, thanks for offering to help. If you have photos that can be released under a Creative Commons or Public Domain license, that would be helpful. IU has many photos on its websites, but these are not available under an agreeable license. Wikipedia has a number of rules and policies that discourage using an IU website as a source for an entry about IU. I'm glad that you're interested and I'd be happy to chat with you about how we edit Wikipedia at IU [2] -- Jaireeodell (talk) 13:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Article name

IUPUI was officially Indiana University–Purdue University at Indianapolis (including the word "at") from 1969 to 1992. I'm not familiar with article naming conventions for organizations, but they were called IUPUI throughout their existence. Could that (IUPUI) be the article name? See the reference I just added to the article: Library of Congress, Name authority record for IUPUI. --Waering (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

No, "IUPUI" is just an acronym and articles usually use a full name instead of an acronym for a title. Also, the current title seems to be the one most commonly used by the school itself in press releases; I looked at several of the citations. Given that there is a redirect for IUPUI and most other common variants of the name, changing the title here is not necessary, IMO. Indyguy (talk) 16:19, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 12 July 2025

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis → IUPUI – IUPUI had three long-form names over the course of its existence: Indiana University–Purdue University at Indianapolis (with the word "at," 1969-1992), Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (official form, 1992-2024), and Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (most common form used on official publications, without the dash, 1992-2024). Regarding naming conventions, College and university article advice makes two relevant statements: (1) "This section is a complement to Wikipedia's naming conventions, not a replacement. Always consider the Wikipedia conventions first when naming a page." (It follows deeper below.) (2) "Never use abbreviations or acronyms in titles unless the institution you are naming is almost exclusively known only by including such terms and is widely used in that form. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations) for more information." According to Acronyms in page titles, "Acronyms should be used in a page name if the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject." Acronyms are usually avoided for disambiguation purposes, but I've never seen anything else called "IUPUI." I worked for IUPUI University Libraries in the late 1990s, and I created IUPUI's Library of Congress name heading within the Library of Congress's Program for Cooperative Cataloging, which is "IUPUI (Campus)." I did that after systematically surveying the presentation of IUPUI's name on its publications throughout its existence to that date, namely 1999. Given that IUPUI had one long-form name for about 13 years and two other long-form names for 32 years, the abbreviation "IUPUI" is by far and away the most common name used both by the organization itself and outsiders, and the long form virtually always appeared with the abbreviation. Therefore, both the general rule and the specific rule apply. IUPUI's article title should follow the example of NASA and be "IUPUI." Waering (talk) 18:22, 12 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 11:10, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Oppose. This is really a WP:COMMONNAME issue. I don't think the "at" variant is relevant since it was last used 33 years ago. Whether the dash should be used in this article title depends on a survey of actual usage, and doesn't support a change to the acronym.

Acronyms are only used as article titles in extreme circumstances, when the full name is so uncommon that it would confuse people with only a passing knowledge of the topic (for example, Laser instead of "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation"). This case is the opposite: "IUPUI" tells an unfamiliar reader nothing about the topic, while the full name is recognizable as a university in Indianapolis. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 22:36, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

I worked for IUPUI for three and half years, and it was literally my job to survey its publications to determine what IUPUI should be called in library catalogs worldwide. The full name is extraordinarily confusing, as evidenced by the message above, which asserts that it was a university, when it wasn't. It was a joint campus of two universities, with a name that strung together their two names (usually without even a hyphen between them) plus the name of the city with no explanation of what that meant. It's no wonder that their publications usually tacked on "IUPUI" at the end of the long form, so that people would know what was being referred to: Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, by contrast, is abundantly clear and straight forward, but its article is still entitled "NASA," because that's literally what everyone calls it, just like IUPUI. How often have you heard anyone refer to "Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis" out loud or even in normal written correspondence? Waering (talk) 02:14, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

One of the reasons the abbreviation is the overwhelmingly predominant form is that the long form is impractical when used by subordinate bodies. Those bodies almost always called themselves "IUPUI Department of English" instead of "Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis Department of English." The long form wouldn't even appear on their publications. It was so long that, when combined with the names of subordinate bodies, their names didn't have room to appear on computer screens. Before the name heading was shortened to "IUPUI (Campus)" we had to ask software vendors to change their displays to allow the subordinate bodies' names to wrap to the next line of displays. Waering (talk) 02:34, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

• Cautious support - I think that what IUPUI stands for is basically a trivia question, since everyone knows it as IUPUI. Red Slash 18:49, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Indiana, WikiProject Purdue, and WikiProject Higher education have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 11:10, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support In my experience as both someone who has spent their entire adult life in US higher education (with a PhD in higher education) and an Indiana University alumnus (and now working at another university in the same state), IUPUI is the common name for this now-defunct institution. ElKevbo (talk) 14:29, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Oppose: There is a difference between an abbreviation and a common name. IUPUI may having meaning to alumni, faculty, and staff or within its region, but it is meaningless grouping to letters many people. Thus, we should not change to the abbreviated name per WP:ACROTITLE. We could just as easily say that UCLA, NYU, UNC are the common names, but those articles are called University of California, Los Angeles, New York University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Yet, I suspect UCLA is more recognizable by the average person than IUPUI. Rublamb (talk) 01:51, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

The very policy that you've cited specifically says that "[a]bbreviations and acronyms are often ambiguous and thus should be avoided unless the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject" (emphasis added) which is the case here. I get that it's a silly-looking acronym and it's not the title of the subject but our policy is clear that our own preferences aren't the deciding factor. It may be annoying to many of us - myself included - but "IUPUI" is the name that prevailed for this subject. ElKevbo (talk) 02:36, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

I could care less what it looks like, but made a decision based on a name that is recognizable and meaningful to non-alumni and people outside of the area. You are familiar with IUPUI as the university's name because you went there. Of course, people didn't use its full name on campus. (I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but only heard people call it UNC, Carolina, or Chapel Hill). In addition, all of the usual secondary sources for universities use the full name, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, before using an abbreviation. Part of determining the common name is having reliable secondary sources, rather than personal experiences. Since the current name of the article matches what the university called itself and secondary sources, there is no compelling reason to make a change. Rublamb (talk) 04:16, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

No, secondary resources more commonly use "IUPUI" than the institution's full, formal name. This is evident in the Google n-gram counts. (I tried doing some other searches to compare the number of results for "Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis," "Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis," "Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis," and "IUPUI" but I am not confident that the results are at all accurate as randomly selecting some of the results showed several hits that should not have been included. Tellingly, in every case those were materials that were included in search results for "Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis" or one of its variants that didn't actually include that phrase but only included "IUPUI.")

That sources use an abbreviation instead of the awkwardly long full name of the institution should not be surprising. And that sources use something other than the institution's formal name should also not be surprising. In other cases where a different name is more commonly used for an institution we follow policy and use that other name e.g., we have Stanford University instead of Leland Stanford Junior University and Georgia Tech instead of Georgia Institute of Technology. I sympathize that "IUPUI" isn't meaningful without context or explanation but that sometimes happens with names that come into common use and is not a reason for use to ignore our very clear policy and the practice we use in many other similar cases. ElKevbo (talk) 12:09, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Shortening a name, as in Georgia Tech or Stanford University, is a great example of using a common name for an article title. However, we are discussing using an abbreviation, rather than a common name, for the article's title. I know of no example in Wikipedia where we use a university's or college'a abbreviation for an article title. That would be like calling the Georgia Tech article "GTU" or the Stanford article "LSJU". (Again, UCLA is probably one of the best-known U.S. college abbreviations/nicknames and we do not use the abbreviation for its article title). The closest thing would be LIU Post but that is actual name that institution uses on its website and marketing materials, meaning it is the institution's preferred name rather than an abbreviation. As mentioned above by someone who worked at IUPUI, the university used both the full name and its abbreviation in its formal communication; this confirms that the institution's preferred name was not the abbreviation by itself, in contrast with LIU Post.

Before reach my opinion, I too ran a Google search which is usually a good metric. In this case, Google does not work well because articles on IUPUI might have the full name in the title and first paragraph, but go the the abbreviation elsewhere. Therefore, I looked at reliable secondary sources that specialize in higher education, such as U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges (full name for entry), The Journal of Higher Education (29 hits for the full name, 3 for the abbreviation), The Chronicle of Higher Education (139,146 hits for full name, 66 for abbreviation), and the [[Fiske Guide to Colleges] (full name used for entry). I have yet to find a major higher ed publication with an article that only referred to the university by its abbreviation. Even within Wikipedia, the full name is used in nearly 600 articles (like with Google, the count for abbreviations in somewhat inaccurate as it includes website addresses and articles where the full name is stated first). Thus, I stand by my recommendation to keep the current name for this article Rublamb (talk) 18:50, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

(And I'm not familiar with IUPUI because I "went there." I attended Indiana University's main campus in Bloomington. I'm much more familiar with IUPUI as a higher ed scholar because it was a unique and special collaboration between two flagship universities who, in a rare moment of wisdom and care, decided to partner to improve their state instead of bickering with one another and wasting valuable public resources in the process.) ElKevbo (talk) 12:09, 22 July 2025 (UTC)