Difference between revisions of "Ivy League" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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Before the actual establishment of the Ivy League, an informal agreement on certain matters relating to sports was enjoyed among the schools.<ref>{{cite news | author = The Associated Press | title = Colleges Searching for Check On Trend to Goal Post Riots | publisher = The New York Times | page = 33 | date = 1935-12-6}}</ref> Yet, despite such collaboration, the universities did not seem to consider the formation of the league as imminent. But on December 3, 1936, the idea of "the formation of an Ivy League" gained enough traction among the undergraduate bodies of the universities that the ''[[Columbia Daily Spectator]]'', ''[[The Cornell Daily Sun]]'', ''[[The Dartmouth]]'', ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]'', ''[[The Daily Pennsylvanian]]'', ''[[The Daily Princetonian]]'' and the ''[[Yale Daily News]]'' would simultaneously run an editorial entitled "Now Is the Time," encouraging the seven universities to form the league in an effort to preserve the ideals of athletics.<ref>{{cite news | title = Immediate Formation of Ivy League Advocated at Seven Eastern Colleges | publisher = The New York Times | page = 33 | date = 1936-12-3}}</ref>  
 
Before the actual establishment of the Ivy League, an informal agreement on certain matters relating to sports was enjoyed among the schools.<ref>{{cite news | author = The Associated Press | title = Colleges Searching for Check On Trend to Goal Post Riots | publisher = The New York Times | page = 33 | date = 1935-12-6}}</ref> Yet, despite such collaboration, the universities did not seem to consider the formation of the league as imminent. But on December 3, 1936, the idea of "the formation of an Ivy League" gained enough traction among the undergraduate bodies of the universities that the ''[[Columbia Daily Spectator]]'', ''[[The Cornell Daily Sun]]'', ''[[The Dartmouth]]'', ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]'', ''[[The Daily Pennsylvanian]]'', ''[[The Daily Princetonian]]'' and the ''[[Yale Daily News]]'' would simultaneously run an editorial entitled "Now Is the Time," encouraging the seven universities to form the league in an effort to preserve the ideals of athletics.<ref>{{cite news | title = Immediate Formation of Ivy League Advocated at Seven Eastern Colleges | publisher = The New York Times | page = 33 | date = 1936-12-3}}</ref>  
  
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The proposal did not succeed—on January 11, 1937, the athletic authorities at the schools rejected the "possibility of a heptagonal league in football such as these institutions maintain in basketball, baseball and track." However, they noted that the league "has such promising possibilities that it may not be dismissed and must be the subject of further consideration."<ref>{{cite news | title = Plea for an Ivy Football League Rejected by College Authorities | publisher = The New York Times | page = 26 | date = 1937-1-12}}</ref> In 1945 the presidents of the eight schools signed the first '''Ivy Group Agreement''', which set academic, financial, and athletic standards for the [[American football|football]] teams. The principles established reiterated those put forward in the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Presidents' Agreement of 1916. The Ivy Group Agreement established the core tenet that an applicant's ability to play on a team would not influence admissions decisions.<ref>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=128992 The Harvard Crimson ''Ivy League: Formalizing the Fact'' Saturday, October 13, 1956</ref>
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The proposal did not succeed—on January 11, 1937, the athletic authorities at the schools rejected the "possibility of a heptagonal league in football such as these institutions maintain in basketball, baseball and track." However, they noted that the league "has such promising possibilities that it may not be dismissed and must be the subject of further consideration."<ref>{{cite news | title = Plea for an Ivy Football League Rejected by College Authorities | publisher = The New York Times | page = 26 | date = 1937-1-12}}</ref> In 1945 the presidents of the eight schools signed the first '''Ivy Group Agreement''', which set academic, financial, and athletic standards for the [[American football|football]] teams. The principles established reiterated those put forward in the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Presidents' Agreement of 1916. The Ivy Group Agreement established the core tenet that an applicant's ability to play on a team would not influence admissions decisions.<ref>{{cite news | author = BERNARD M. GWERTZMAN | title = Ivy League: Formalizing the Fact | publisher = The Harvard Crimson | date = 1956-13-10}} [http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=128992]</ref>  
  
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In 1954, the date generally accepted as the birth of the Ivy League, the presidents extended the Ivy Group Agreement to all intercollegiate sports. Competition began with the 1956 season.  The [[College of William and Mary]], founded in 1693, and [[Rutgers University]], founded as ''Queen's College'' in 1766, both public universities, are the only institutions among the  nine [[colonial colleges]] not included. [[Cornell University]], founded in 1865, is the only Ivy member that was founded after the [[American Revolutionary War]].
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In 1954, the date generally accepted as the birth of the Ivy League, the presidents extended the Ivy Group Agreement to all intercollegiate sports. Competition began with the 1956 season.  The [[College of William and Mary]], founded in 1693, and [[Rutgers University]], founded as ''Queen's College'' in 1766, both public universities, are the only institutions among the  nine [[colonial colleges]] not included.
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As late as the 1960s many of the Ivy League universities' undergraduate programs remained open only to men, with Cornell the only one to have been coeducational from its founding (1865) and Columbia being the last (1983) to become [[coeducation]]al. Before they became coeducational, many of the Ivy schools maintained extensive social ties with nearby [[Seven Sisters (colleges)|Seven Sisters]] [[women's college]]s, including weekend visits, dances and parties inviting Ivy and Seven Sisters students to mingle. This was the case not only at [[Barnard College]] and [[Radcliffe College]], which are adjacent to Columbia and Harvard, but at more distant institutions as well. The movie ''[[Animal House]]'' includes a satiric version of the formerly common visits by Dartmouth men to Massachusetts to meet [[Smith College|Smith]] and [[Mount Holyoke College|Mount Holyoke]] women, a drive of more than two hours. As noted by Irene Harwarth, Mindi Maline, and Elizabeth DeBra, "the 'Seven Sisters' was the name given to Barnard, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, and Radcliffe, because of their parallel to the Ivy League men’s colleges."<ref>http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/PLLI/webreprt.html</ref>
 
  
 
===Origin of the name===
 
===Origin of the name===
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The Ivy League's name derives from the [[Boston ivy|ivy]] plants, symbolic of their age, that cover many of these institutions' historic buildings.<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'' (Oxford Press, 1971 ISBN 019861117X). </ref> The first usage of "Ivy" in reference to a group of colleges is from  sportswriter Stanley Woodward (1895-1965):"A proportion of our eastern ivy colleges are meeting little fellows another Saturday before plunging into the strife and the turmoil."<ref> Shapiro, Fred R. (Ed).''Yale Book of Quotations'' (Yale University Press 2006) ISBN 0300107986</ref> However, it has been noted that Stanley Woodward actually took the term from fellow ''[[New York Tribune]]'' sportswriter Caswell Adams.<ref> Morris, William. ''Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins '' (Collins 1988) ISBN 006015862X</ref>
  
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"Ivy League" therefore also became, like [[White Anglo-Saxon Protestant|WASP]], a way of referring to this [[elite]], and [[elitist]], [[class]]. This sense<ref>{{cite book | title=Snobbery: The American Version
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The first known instance of the term ''Ivy League'' being used appeared in the ''[[Christian Science Monitor]]'' on February 7, 1935 <ref> Shapiro, Fred R. (Ed).''Yale Book of Quotations'' (Yale University Press 2006) ISBN 0300107986</ref><ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'' (Oxford Press, 1971 ISBN 019861117X)</ref> Several sports-writers and other journalists used the term shortly later to refer to the older colleges, those along the northeastern seaboard of the United States, chiefly the nine institutions with origins dating from the [[Colonial colleges|colonial era]], together with the [[United States Military Academy]] (West Point), the [[United States Naval Academy]], and a few others.  These schools were known for their long-standing traditions in intercollegiate athletics, often being the first schools to participate in such activities.  However, at this time, none of these institutions would make efforts to form an athletic league.  
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| first = Joseph |last = Epstein | year=2003 |publisher = Houghton Mifflin | id = ISBN 0-618-34073-4}} p. 55, "by WASP Baltzell meant something much more specific; he intended to cover a select group of people who passed through a congeries of elite American institutions: certain eastern [[prep schools]], the Ivy League colleges, and the [[Episcopal Church]] among them." and {{cite book | title=The Ideal of the University | first = Robert Paul |last = Wolff | publisher = Transaction Publishers | year=1992 | id = ISBN 1-56000-603-X}} p. viii: "My genial, aristocratic contempt for Clark Kerr's celebration of the University of California was as much an expression of Ivy League snobbery as it was of radical social critique."</ref> dates back to at least 1935.<ref>{{cite news | author=The Associated Press | title=Yale Jinx Overcome, Dartmouth Now Seeks To Break Spell Cast by Princeton Teams | publisher=The New York Times | page=35 | date=1935-10-5}}</ref>  Novels<ref>{{cite book | first = Louis | last = Auchincloss | title = East Side Story | year = 2004 | id = ISBN 0-618-45244-3 | publisher = Houghton Mifflin}} p. 179, "he dreaded the aridity of snobbery which he knew infected the Ivy League colleges"</ref> and memoirs<ref>{{cite book | title = Project Girl | first = Janet |last = McDonald | publisher = University of California Press | year = 2000|id = ISBN 0-520-22345-4}} p. 163 "''Newsweek'' is a morass of incest, nepotism, elitism, racism and utter classic white male patriarchal corruption.... It is completely Ivy League&mdash;a Vassar/Columbia J-School dumping ground... I will always be excluded, regardless of how many Ivy League degrees I acquire, because of the next level of hurdles: family connections and money." </ref> attest this sense, as a social elite; to some degree independent of the actual schools.
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The first usage of "Ivy" in reference to a group of colleges is from  sportswriter Stanley Woodward (1895-1965).{{cquote|A proportion of our eastern ivy colleges are meeting little fellows another Saturday before plunging into the strife and the turmoil.|20px|20px|Stanley Woodward, ''[[New York Tribune]]'', October 14, 1933, describing the football season<ref>"Yale Book of Quotations" (2006) [[Yale University Press]] edited by Fred R. Shapiro </ref>}} 
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[[Image:West College Princeton.jpg|thumb|300px|Ivy covering West College, Princeton University]]
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According to book ''Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins'' (1988), author William Morris writes that Stanley Woodward actually took the term from fellow ''[[New York Tribune]]'' sportswriter Caswell Adams.  Morris writes that during the 1930's, the [[Fordham University]] [[college football|football]] team was running roughshod over all its opponents.  One day in the sports room at the ''Tribune'', the merits of Fordham's football team were being compared to [[Princeton University|Princeton]] and [[Columbia University|Columbia]].  Adams remarked disparagingly of the latter two, saying they were "only ''Ivy League."'' Woodward, the sports editor of the ''Tribune'', picked up the term and printed the next day.
 
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Note though that in the above quote Woodward used the term ''ivy college'', not ''ivy league'' as Adams is said to have used, so there is a discrepancy in this theory, although it seems certain the term ''ivy college'' and shortly later ''Ivy League'' acquired its name from sports world. 
 
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The first known instance of the term ''Ivy League'' being used appeared in the ''[[Christian Science Monitor]]'' on February 7, 1935 <ref>"The Yale Book of Quotations" (2006) [[Yale University]] Press, edited by Fred R. Shapiro </ref><ref>[[OED|Oxford English Dictionary]] entry for "Ivy League"</ref><ref>[http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/WhatIsIvy/history.asp]</ref> Several sports-writers and other journalists used the term shortly later to refer to the older colleges, those along the northeastern seaboard of the United States, chiefly the nine institutions with origins dating from the [[Colonial colleges|colonial era]], together with the [[United States Military Academy]] (West Point), the [[United States Naval Academy]], and a few others.  These schools were known for their long-standing traditions in intercollegiate athletics, often being the first schools to participate in such activities.  However, at this time, none of these institutions would make efforts to form an athletic league.
 
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[[Image:West College Princeton.jpg|thumb|Ivy covering West College, Princeton University]]
 
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The Ivy League's name derives from the [[Boston ivy|ivy]] plants, symbolic of their age, that cover many of these institutions' historic buildings{{Fact|date=August 2007}}.  The Ivy League universities are also called the "Ancient Eight" or simply the '''Ivies.'''
 
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A common [[folk etymology]] attributes the name to the Roman numerals for four (IV), asserting that there was such a sports league originally with four members. The ''Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins'' helped to perpetuate this belief. The supposed "IV League" was formed over a century ago and consisted of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and a 4th school that varies depending on who is telling the story.<ref>The [[Chicago Public Library]] reports the "IV League" explanation,[http://www.chipublib.org/008subject/005genre/faqiv.html] sourced only from the ''Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins''.</ref><ref>Various ''Ask Ezra'' student columns report the "IV League" explanation, apparently relying on the ''Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins'' as the sole source: [http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=895550400#question13] [http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=798955200#question9] [http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=639892800#question5]</ref><ref>http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2002/101702/askbenny.html</ref>
 
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However, representatives from four schools, [[Rutgers University|Rutgers]], [[Princeton University|Princeton]], [[Yale University|Yale]] and [[Columbia University|Columbia]] met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in [[Manhattan]] on 19 October 1873 to establish a set of rules governing their intercollegiate athletic competition, and particularly to codify the new game of college football (which at the time, largely resembled what is currently called [[soccer]]).  Though invited, [[Harvard University|Harvard]] chose not to attend.  While no formal organization or conference was established, the results of this meeting governed athletic events between these schools well into the twentieth century.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/ebi/print?tocId=201027&fullArticle=false Encyclopedia Britannica] accessed 10 September 2006.</ref><ref>[http://www.the-game.org/history-originsto1889.htm A History of American Football until 1889] accessed 10 September 2006.</ref>
 
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==Cohesiveness of the group==
 
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The Ivy League schools are highly selective, with acceptance rates ranging from about nine to 20 percent.<ref>http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20546</ref>
 
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These universities engage in a heated competition to attract students, illustrated by a 2002 incident in which admissions officers at Princeton logged into the Yale admissions website fourteen times to view the admissions status of cross-applicants, using the names, birth dates, and social security numbers indicated on their [[Princeton University|Princeton]] applications; Princeton later asserted that it had been considering a similar system of early Internet notification, and was surprised to find that Yale had used no password besides the Social Security number. Yale's administration notified the FBI about the actions after conducting its own investigation. Princeton moved one admissions official to a different department over the incident and the university's Dean of Admissions retired soon thereafter, though Princeton president [[Shirley Tilghman]] said that the dean's decision to retire was unconnected to the incident.<ref>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2002/05/17/news/5201.shtml</ref>
 
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Collaboration between the member schools is illustrated by the student-led [[Ivy Council]] that meets in the fall and spring of each year, with representatives from every Ivy League school. At these multi-day conferences, student representatives from each school meet to discuss issues facing their respective institutions, with a variety of topics ranging from financial aid to gender-neutral housing.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
 
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===Social elitism===
 
  
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The phrase ''Ivy League'' historically has been perceived as connected, not only with academic excellence, but also with social elitism.  In 1936, sportwriter John Kieran noted that student editors at [[Harvard University|Harvard]], [[Yale University|Yale]], [[Princeton University|Princeton]], [[Cornell University|Cornell]], [[Columbia University|Columbia]], [[Dartmouth College|Dartmouth]], and [[University of Pennsylvania|Penn]] were advocating the formation of an athletic association. In urging them to consider "Army and Navy and Georgetown and Fordham and Syracuse and Brown and Pitt" as candidates for membership, he exhorted:
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"Ivy League" therefore also became, like [[White Anglo-Saxon Protestant|WASP]], a way of referring to this [[elite]], and [[elitist]], [[class]].<ref> Epstein, Joseph. ''Snobbery: The American Version'' (Houghton Mifflin 2003) ISBN 0-618-34073-4</ref> Phrases such as "Ivy League snobbery"<ref>{{cite book | title=The Ideal of the University | first = Robert Paul |last = Wolff | publisher = Transaction Publishers | year=1992 | id = ISBN 1-56000-603-X}} </ref> are ubiquitous in nonfiction and fiction writing of the twentieth century.
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:It would be well for the proponents of the Ivy League to make it clear (to themselves especially) that the proposed group would be inclusive but not "exclusive" as this term is used with a slight up-tilting of the tip of the nose.<ref>Kieran, John (1936), "Sports of the Times," ''The New York Times'', December 4, 1936, p. 36. "There will now be a little test of the "the power of the press" in intercollegiate circles since the student editors at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth and Penn are coming out in a group for the formation of an Ivy League in football. The idea isn't new.... It would be well for the proponents of the Ivy League to make it clear (to themselves especially) that the proposed group would be inclusive but not "exclusive" as this term is used with a slight up-tilting of the tip of the nose." He recommended the consideration of "plenty of institutions covered with home-grown ivy that are not included in the proposed group. [such as ] Army and Navy and Georgetown and Fordham and Syracuse and Brown and Pitt, just to offer a few examples that come to mind" and noted that "Pitt and Georgetown and Brown and Bowdoin and Rutgers were old when Cornell was shining new, and Fordham and Holy Cross had some building draped in ivy before the plaster was dry in the walls that now tower high about Cayuga's waters."</ref>
 
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The Ivy League was specifically associated with the [[White Anglo-Saxon Protestant|WASP]] establishment.<ref>
 
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{{cite book | title=Snobbery: The American Version | first = Joseph |last = Epstein | year=2003 |publisher = Houghton Mifflin | id = ISBN 0-618-34073-4}} p. 55, "by WASP Baltzell meant something much more specific; he intended to cover a select group of people who passed through a congeries of elite American institutions: certain eastern prep schools, the Ivy League colleges, and the Episcopal Church among them."</ref> Phrases such as "Ivy League snobbery"<ref>{{cite book | title=The Ideal of the University | first = Robert Paul |last = Wolff | publisher = Transaction Publishers | year=1992 | id = ISBN 1-56000-603-X}} p. viii: "My genial, aristocratic contempt for Clark Kerr's celebration of the University of California was as much an expression of Ivy League snobbery as it was of radical social critique."</ref> are ubiquitous in nonfiction and fiction writing of the twentieth century. A [[Louis Auchincloss]] character dreads "the aridity of snobbery which he knew infected the Ivy League colleges".<ref>{{cite book | first = Louis | last = Auchincloss | title = East Side Story | year = 2004 | id = ISBN 0-618-45244-3 | publisher = Houghton Mifflin}} p. 179, "he dreaded the aridity of snobbery which he knew infected the Ivy League colleges"</ref> A business writer, warning in 2001 against discriminatory hiring, presented a cautionary example of an attitude to avoid (the bracketed phrase is his):
 
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:"We Ivy Leaguers [read: mostly white and Anglo]<!--This bracketed phrase is part of the quotation and is in the original, not an editorial interpolation.---> know that an Ivy League degree is a mark of the kind of person who is likely to succeed in this organization."<ref>{{cite book|title=The 10 Lenses: your guide to living and working in a multicultural world|first=Mark|last=Williams|year=2001|publisher=Capital Books|id=ISBN The 10 Lenses: your guide to living and working in a multicultural world}}, [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN1892123592&id=bkiuOG-k2vUC&pg=RA1-PA85&lpg=RA1-PA85&sig=_uGkwxQd3tP0Zxf65xZ96ls3HSw#PRA1-PA85,M1 p. 85]</ref>
 
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Aspects of Ivy stereotyping were illustrated during the 1988 presidential election, when [[George H. W. Bush]] (Yale '48) derided [[Michael Dukakis]] (graduate of Harvard Law School) for having "foreign-policy views born in Harvard Yard's boutique."<ref>
 
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{{cite web|url=http://www.tarpley.net/bush22.htm|title=George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography:  Chapter XXII Bush Takes The Presidency|author=Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin|publisher=Webster G. Tarpley|accessdate=2006-12-17}} <!--obviously a poor source but it has the exact phrase the New York Times columnists are referring to, which I couldn't find in the NYT articles themselves—>
 
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</ref> ''New York Times'' columnist [[Maureen Dowd]] asked "Wasn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle elite?" Bush explained however that, unlike Harvard, Yale's reputation was "so diffuse, there isn't a symbol, I don't think, in the Yale situation, any symbolism in it.... Harvard boutique to me has the connotation of liberalism and elitism" and said Harvard in his remark was intended to represent "a philosophical enclave" and not a statement about class.<ref>
 
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Dowd, Maureen (1998), "Bush Traces How Yale Differs From Harvard." ''The New York Times,'' June 11, 1998, p. 10
 
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</ref>. Columnist [[Russell Baker]] opined that "Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is that both are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets."<ref>
 
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Baker, Russell (1998), "The Ivy Hayseed." ''The New York Times,'' June 15, 1988, p. A31
 
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</ref>
 
  
 
==Cooperation==
 
==Cooperation==
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The governing body of the Ivy League is the [[Council of Ivy Group Presidents]]. During their meetings, the presidents often discuss common procedures and initiatives.
 
The governing body of the Ivy League is the [[Council of Ivy Group Presidents]]. During their meetings, the presidents often discuss common procedures and initiatives.
 +
 +
Collaboration between the member schools is illustrated by the student-led [[Ivy Council]] that meets in the fall and spring of each year, with representatives from every Ivy League school. At these multi-day conferences, student representatives from each school meet to discuss issues facing their respective institutions, with a variety of topics ranging from financial aid to gender-neutral housing.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
  
 
==Competition and athletics==
 
==Competition and athletics==
Line 395: Line 360:
  
 
==References==
 
==References==
 +
 +
*Barreca, Gina. ''Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Co-Education in the Ivy League'' (UPNE 2005) ISBN 1584652993
 +
*Bernstein, Mark F.  ''Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession'' (U Penn Press 2001) ISBN 0812236270
 +
*Goldstein, Richard.  ''Ivy League Autumns: An Illustrated History of College Football's Grand Old Rivalries '' (St. Martin's Press 1996) ISBN 0312146299
 +
*Rudolph, Frederick.  ''American College and University: A History''  (University of Georgia Press 1990) ISBN 0820312843
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==

Revision as of 19:52, 12 November 2007


Ivy League
Data
Classification NCAA Division I-AA
Established 1954
Members 8
Sports fielded 33
Region Northeast
States 7 - Connecticut, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New York, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island
Headquarters Princeton, New Jersey
Other names Ancient Eight, Ivies
Executive
Director		 Jeffrey H. Orleans


The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education located in the Northeastern United States. The term became ubiquitous, especially in sports terminology, after the formation of the NCAA Division I athletic conference founded in 1954, when much of the nation polarized around favorite college teams. Ivy League is now most commonly used to refer to those eight schools considered as a group.[1] The term has connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and a reputation for social elitism. All of the Ivy institutions place near the top in the U.S. News & World Report college and university rankings and rank within the top one percent of the world's academic institutions in terms of financial endowment.


Locations of Ivy League schools

Members

Institution Location Athletic Nickname Full-time enrollment Motto
Brown University Providence, Rhode Island Bears 7,769[2] In deo speramus
("In God we hope")
Columbia University New York, New York Lions 19,694[3] In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen
("In Thy light shall we see the light")
Cornell University Ithaca, New York Big Red 20,400[4] "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study"
Dartmouth College Hanover, New Hampshire Big Green 5,753[5] Vox clamantis in deserto
("A voice crying in the wilderness")
Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts Crimson 20,042[6] Veritas
("Truth")
Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey Tigers 6,677[7] Dei sub numine viget
("Under God's power she flourishes")
University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Quakers 19,771[8] Leges sine moribus vanae
("Laws without morals are useless")
Yale University New Haven, Connecticut Bulldogs 11,483[9] אורים ותומים
Lux et veritas
("Light and truth")

History

Founding of the institutions

Institution Founded Founding religious affiliation
Harvard University 1636, named Harvard College in 1638 Congregationalist; sided with the Unitarians in their 1825 split from Congregationalists
Yale University 1701 as Collegiate School Congregationalist
University of Pennsylvania 1740 Nonsectarian
Princeton University 1746 as College of New Jersey Nonsectarian, but founded by Presbyterians[10]
Columbia University 1754 as King's College Church of England
Brown University 1764 as College of Rhode Island Baptist[11]
Dartmouth College 1769 Congregationalist
Cornell University 1865 Nonsectarian
Note Founding dates and religious affiliations are those stated by the institution itself. Many of them had complex histories in their early years and the stories of their origins are subject to interpretation. "Religious affiliation" refers to financial sponsorship, formal association with, and promotion by, a religious denomination. All of the schools in the Ivy League are private and not currently associated with any religion.


Seven of the Ivy League schools are older than the American Revolution; Cornell was founded just after the American Civil War. These seven provided the overwhelming majority of the higher education in the Northern and Middle Colonies; their early faculties and founding boards were largely, therefore, drawn from other Ivy League institutions; there were also some British graduates - more from the University of Cambridge than Oxford, but also from the University of Edinburgh and elsewhere. The founders of Rutgers, in 1766, were largely Ivy; and so for many of the colleges formed after the Revolution. Cornell provided Stanford University with its first president and most of Stanford's initial faculty members were Cornell professors. The founders of UC Berkeley came from Yale.[12]

Most of these seven schools were more or less Congregationalist or Presbyterian in religious denomination; Church of England King's College broke up in the Revolution, and was reformed as public non-sectarian Columbia College. In the early nineteenth century, the specific purpose of training Calvinist ministers was handed off to theological seminaries; but a denominational tone, and such relics as compulsory chapel, often lasted well into the twentieth century.

After the Second World War, the present Ivy League institutions slowly widened their selection of students. They had always had distinguished faculties; some of the first Americans with doctorates had taught for them; but they now decided that they could not both be world-class research institutions and be competitive in the highest ranks of American college sport; in addition, the schools experienced the scandals of any other big-time football programs, although more quietly.[13]

History of the athletic league

The Ivies have been competing in sports as long as intercollegiate sports have existed in the United States. Boat clubs from Harvard and Yale met in the first sporting event held between students of two U.S. colleges on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, in 1852. As an informal football league, the Ivy League dates from 1900 when Yale took the conference championship with a 5-0 record. For many years Army (the United States Military Academy) and Navy (the United States Naval Academy) were considered members, but dropped out shortly before formal organization.

Before the actual establishment of the Ivy League, an informal agreement on certain matters relating to sports was enjoyed among the schools.[14] Yet, despite such collaboration, the universities did not seem to consider the formation of the league as imminent. But on December 3, 1936, the idea of "the formation of an Ivy League" gained enough traction among the undergraduate bodies of the universities that the Columbia Daily Spectator, The Cornell Daily Sun, The Dartmouth, The Harvard Crimson, The Daily Pennsylvanian, The Daily Princetonian and the Yale Daily News would simultaneously run an editorial entitled "Now Is the Time," encouraging the seven universities to form the league in an effort to preserve the ideals of athletics.[15]

The proposal did not succeed—on January 11, 1937, the athletic authorities at the schools rejected the "possibility of a heptagonal league in football such as these institutions maintain in basketball, baseball and track." However, they noted that the league "has such promising possibilities that it may not be dismissed and must be the subject of further consideration."[16] In 1945 the presidents of the eight schools signed the first Ivy Group Agreement, which set academic, financial, and athletic standards for the football teams. The principles established reiterated those put forward in the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Presidents' Agreement of 1916. The Ivy Group Agreement established the core tenet that an applicant's ability to play on a team would not influence admissions decisions.[17]

In 1954, the date generally accepted as the birth of the Ivy League, the presidents extended the Ivy Group Agreement to all intercollegiate sports. Competition began with the 1956 season. The College of William and Mary, founded in 1693, and Rutgers University, founded as Queen's College in 1766, both public universities, are the only institutions among the nine colonial colleges not included.

Origin of the name

The Ivy League's name derives from the ivy plants, symbolic of their age, that cover many of these institutions' historic buildings.[18] The first usage of "Ivy" in reference to a group of colleges is from sportswriter Stanley Woodward (1895-1965):"A proportion of our eastern ivy colleges are meeting little fellows another Saturday before plunging into the strife and the turmoil."[19] However, it has been noted that Stanley Woodward actually took the term from fellow New York Tribune sportswriter Caswell Adams.[20]

The first known instance of the term Ivy League being used appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on February 7, 1935 [21][22] Several sports-writers and other journalists used the term shortly later to refer to the older colleges, those along the northeastern seaboard of the United States, chiefly the nine institutions with origins dating from the colonial era, together with the United States Military Academy (West Point), the United States Naval Academy, and a few others. These schools were known for their long-standing traditions in intercollegiate athletics, often being the first schools to participate in such activities. However, at this time, none of these institutions would make efforts to form an athletic league.

Ivy covering West College, Princeton University

"Ivy League" therefore also became, like WASP, a way of referring to this elite, and elitist, class.[23] Phrases such as "Ivy League snobbery"[24] are ubiquitous in nonfiction and fiction writing of the twentieth century.

Cooperation

Seven of the eight schools (Harvard excluded) participate in the Borrow Direct interlibrary loan program, making a total of 88 million items available to participants with a waiting period of four working days.[25] This ILL program is not affiliated with the formal Ivy arrangement.

The governing body of the Ivy League is the Council of Ivy Group Presidents. During their meetings, the presidents often discuss common procedures and initiatives.

Collaboration between the member schools is illustrated by the student-led Ivy Council that meets in the fall and spring of each year, with representatives from every Ivy League school. At these multi-day conferences, student representatives from each school meet to discuss issues facing their respective institutions, with a variety of topics ranging from financial aid to gender-neutral housing.[citation needed]

Competition and athletics

Ivy champions are recognized in 33 men's and women's sports. In some sports, Ivy teams actually compete as members of another league, the Ivy championship being decided by isolating the members' records in play against each other. (For example, the six league members who participate in ice hockey do so as members of ECAC Hockey; but an Ivy champion is extrapolated each year.) Unlike all other Division I basketball conferences, the Ivy League has no tournament for the league title; the school with the best conference record represents the conference in the Division I NCAA Basketball Tournament (with a playoff in the case of a tie).

On average, each Ivy school has more than 35 varsity teams. All eight are in the top 20 for number of sports offered for both men and women among Division I schools.

Harvard and Yale are celebrated football and crew rivals.

Princeton and Penn are longstanding men's basketball rivals[26] and "Puck Fenn" and "Puck Frinceton" t-shirts are worn at games.[27] In only six instances in the last 51 years (from the 1955-56 season through the 2006-07 season) has neither Penn nor Princeton won at least a share of the Ivy League title in basketball,[28] with each champion or co-champion 25 times. Penn has won 21 outright, Princeton 18 outright. Princeton has been a co-champion 7 times, sharing 4 of those titles with Penn (these 4 seasons represent the only times Penn has been co-champion).

Rivalries exist between other Ivy league teams in other sports, including Cornell and Harvard in hockey (either team has won or shared the men's title each of the last five years[29]), and Harvard and Penn in football (Penn and Harvard have each had two unbeaten seasons since 2001.[30]).

In addition, no team other than Harvard or Princeton has won the men's swimming conference title since 1972, with Harvard winning the 34 year series 19-15 as of 2006.

Unlike most Division I athletic conferences, the Ivy League prohibits the granting of athletic scholarships; all scholarships awarded are need-based (financial aid).[31] Ivy League teams out of league games are usually against the members of the Patriot League which have similar academic standards and athletic scholarship policies. Its members include American, Army, Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham, Holy Cross, Lafayette College, Lehigh University and Navy.

In the time before recruiting for college sports became dominated by those offering athletic scholarships and lowered academic standards for athletes, the Ivy League was successful in many sports relative to other universities in the country. In particular, Princeton won 24 recognized national championships in college football (Last Div I-A championship in 1911), and Yale won 19 (Last Div I-A championship in 1927). Both of these totals are considerably higher than those of other historically strong programs such as Notre Dame, which has won 12, and USC, which has won 11. Yale, whose coach Walter Camp was the "Father of American Football," held on to its place as the all-time wins leader in college football throughout the entire 20th century, but was finally passed by Michigan on November 10, 2001. Currently Dartmouth holds the record for most Ivy League football titles, with 17.

Although no longer as successful nationally as they once were in many of the more popular college sports, the Ivy League is still competitive in others. One such example is rowing. All of the Ivies have historically been among the top crews in the nation, and most continue to be so today. (Other historical top crews include Cal, Washington, Wisconsin and Navy). Most recently, on the men's side, Harvard won the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships in 2003, 2004, 2005, and on the women's side, Harvard and Brown won the 2003 and 2004 NCAA Rowing Championships, respectively. The Ivy League schools are also very competitive in both men's and women's hockey.

The Ivy League is home to some of the oldest college rugby teams. These teams meet annually to compete in a tourney. The 2006 Ivy League Tournament was hosted by Yale, and the 2005 tournament was hosted by the University of Pennsylvania.


Conference facilities

School[32] Football stadium Basketball arena Ice hockey rink Soccer stadium
Name Capacity Name Capacity Name Capacity Name Capacity
Brown Brown Stadium 20,000 Pizzitola Sports Center 2,800 Meehan Auditorium 3,100 Stevenson Field 3,500
Columbia Wien Stadium 17,000 Levien Gymnasium 3,408 N/A Columbia Soccer Stadium 3,500
Cornell Schoellkopf Field 25,597 Newman Arena 4,473 Lynah Rink 3,836 Charles F. Berman Field 1,000
Dartmouth Memorial Field 13,000 Leede Arena 2,100 Thompson Arena 5,000 Burnham Soccer Facility 1,600
Harvard Harvard Stadium 30,898 Lavietes Pavilion 2,195 Bright Hockey Center 2,850 Ohiri Field 1,500
Penn Franklin Field 52,593 The Palestra 8,722 The Class of 1923 Arena 2,900 Rhodes Field ~700
Princeton Princeton Stadium 27,800 Jadwin Gymnasium 6,854 Hobey Baker Memorial Rink 2,094 Lourie-Love Field 2,000
Yale Yale Bowl 64,269 Payne Whitney Gym 3,100 Ingalls Rink 3,486 Reese Stadium 3,000

Dartmouth also owns and operates the Dartmouth Skiway, the home racing grounds for the 2007 NCAA skiing champions.

Other "Ivies"

Marketing groups, journalists, and some educators sometimes promote other colleges as "Ivies," as in Little Ivies; Public Ivies; Southern Ivies and Canadian Ivies. These uses of "ivy" are intended to promote the other schools by comparing them to the Ivy League, but unlike the "Ivy League" label, they have no canonical definition. For example, in the 2007 edition of Newsweek's How to Get Into College Now, the editors designated twenty-five schools as "New Ivies," some of which share no characteristics with the Ivy League colleges except a good reputation.[33]

Championships

Football

  • 1956 Yale
  • 1957 Princeton
  • 1958 Dartmouth
  • 1959 Pennsylvania
  • 1960 Yale
  • 1961 Columbia and Harvard
  • 1962 Dartmouth
  • 1963 Dartmouth and Princeton
  • 1964 Princeton
  • 1965 Dartmouth
  • 1966 Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton
  • 1967 Yale
  • 1968 Harvard and Yale
  • 1969 Dartmouth, Princeton and Yale
  • 1970 Dartmouth
  • 1971 Cornell and Dartmouth
  • 1972 Dartmouth
  • 1973 Dartmouth
  • 1974 Harvard and Yale
  • 1975 Harvard
  • 1976 Brown and Yale
  • 1977 Yale
  • 1978 Dartmouth
  • 1979 Yale
  • 1980 Yale
  • 1981 Dartmouth and Yale
  • 1982 Dartmouth, Harvard and Pennsylvania
  • 1983 Harvard and Pennsylvania
  • 1984 Pennsylvania
  • 1985 Pennsylvania
  • 1986 Pennsylvania
  • 1987 Harvard
  • 1988 Cornell and Pennsylvania
  • 1989 Princeton and Yale
  • 1990 Cornell and Dartmouth
  • 1991 Dartmouth
  • 1992 Dartmouth and Princeton
  • 1993 Pennsylvania
  • 1994 Pennsylvania
  • 1995 Princeton
  • 1996 Dartmouth
  • 1997 Harvard
  • 1998 Pennsylvania
  • 1999 Brown and Yale
  • 2000 Pennsylvania
  • 2001 Harvard
  • 2002 Pennsylvania
  • 2003 Pennsylvania
  • 2004 Harvard
  • 2005 Brown
  • 2006 Princeton and Yale


Notes

  1. ↑ Leitch, Alexander A Princeton Companion (Princeton University Press 1978) ISBN 0691046549
  2. ↑ (2007) Brown University ["About Brown University: Enrollment"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  3. ↑ (2006) Columbia University ["Columbia University Statistical Abstract"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  4. ↑ (2007) Cornell University ["Facts About Cornell"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  5. ↑ (2006) Dartmouth College ["Dartmouth College Fact Book: Enrollment"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  6. ↑ (2007) President and Fellows of Harvard College ["Harvard at a Glance"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  7. ↑ (2005) Princeton University ["Princeton University: Introduction"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  8. ↑ (2007) University of Pennsylvania ["Facts and Figures"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  9. ↑ (2007) Yale University ["Facts Sheet"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  10. ↑ (2007) Orange Key Virtual Tourof Princeton University ["University Chapel"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  11. ↑ (2007) Net Industries ["Providence"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  12. ↑ (2007) Office Of Student Development, University of Califorinia Berkley ["Student History"] Retrieved November 13, 2007
  13. ↑ Axtell, James The Making of Princeton University (Princeton University Press 2006) ISBN 0691126860
  14. ↑ The Associated Press. "Colleges Searching for Check On Trend to Goal Post Riots", The New York Times, 1935-12-6, p. 33.
  15. ↑ "Immediate Formation of Ivy League Advocated at Seven Eastern Colleges", The New York Times, 1936-12-3, p. 33.
  16. ↑ "Plea for an Ivy Football League Rejected by College Authorities", The New York Times, 1937-1-12, p. 26.
  17. ↑ BERNARD M. GWERTZMAN. "Ivy League: Formalizing the Fact", The Harvard Crimson, 1956-13-10. [1]
  18. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford Press, 1971 ISBN 019861117X).
  19. ↑ Shapiro, Fred R. (Ed).Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press 2006) ISBN 0300107986
  20. ↑ Morris, William. Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (Collins 1988) ISBN 006015862X
  21. ↑ Shapiro, Fred R. (Ed).Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press 2006) ISBN 0300107986
  22. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford Press, 1971 ISBN 019861117X)
  23. ↑ Epstein, Joseph. Snobbery: The American Version (Houghton Mifflin 2003) ISBN 0-618-34073-4
  24. ↑ Wolff, Robert Paul (1992). The Ideal of the University. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1-56000-603-X. 
  25. ↑ Columbia's Borrow Direct website
  26. ↑ http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2002/02/12/sports/4317.shtml
  27. ↑ http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2002/02/12/sports/4318.shtml
  28. ↑ http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/sports/ivy-champs.asp?intSID=6
  29. ↑ http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/sports/ivy-champs.asp?intSID=8
  30. ↑ http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/sports/ivy-champs.asp?intSID=3
  31. ↑ http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/whatisivy/index.asp
  32. ↑ Ivy Facilities. Retrieved 2006-06-10.
  33. ↑ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14325172/site/newsweek/

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Barreca, Gina. Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Co-Education in the Ivy League (UPNE 2005) ISBN 1584652993
  • Bernstein, Mark F. Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession (U Penn Press 2001) ISBN 0812236270
  • Goldstein, Richard. Ivy League Autumns: An Illustrated History of College Football's Grand Old Rivalries (St. Martin's Press 1996) ISBN 0312146299
  • Rudolph, Frederick. American College and University: A History (University of Georgia Press 1990) ISBN 0820312843

External links

Conference

Members


The Ivy League
Brown (Bears) • Columbia (Lions) • Cornell (Big Red) • Dartmouth (Big Green) • Harvard (Crimson) • Penn (Quakers) • Princeton (Tigers) • Yale (Bulldogs)


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