Ivy League

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. 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	In deo speramus ("In God we hope")
Columbia University	New York, New York	Lions	19,694	In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen ("In Thy light shall we see the light")
Cornell University	Ithaca, New York	Big Red	20,400	"I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study"
Dartmouth College	Hanover, New Hampshire	Big Green	5,753	Vox clamantis in deserto ("A voice crying in the wilderness")
Harvard University	Cambridge, Massachusetts	Crimson	20,042	Veritas ("Truth")
Princeton University	Princeton, New Jersey	Tigers	6,677	Dei sub numine viget ("Under God's power she flourishes")
University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	Quakers	19,771	Leges sine moribus vanae ("Laws without morals are useless")
Yale University	New Haven, Connecticut	Bulldogs	11,483	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
Columbia University	1754 as King's College	Church of England
Brown University	1764 as College of Rhode Island	Baptist
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.

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.

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. 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.

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." 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.

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. 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." However, it has been noted that Stanley Woodward actually took the term from fellow New York Tribune sportswriter Caswell Adams.

The first known instance of the term Ivy League being used appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on February 7, 1935 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. Phrases such as "Ivy League snobbery" are ubiquitous in nonfiction and fiction writing of the twentieth century.

Cooperation

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. Beyond the historic athletic conference, there are several cooperation programs among the schools. 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. This ILL program is not affiliated with the formal Ivy arrangement. There is also 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.

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 and "Puck Fenn" and "Puck Frinceton" t-shirts are worn at games. 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 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), and Harvard and Penn in football (Penn and Harvard have each had two unbeaten seasons since 2001.).

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. 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.

Conference facilities

School	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.

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

Gallery

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  Brown University

• UMass Dartmouth campus.JPG

  Dartmouth University

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  Harvard University

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  Yale University

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  University of Pennsylvania

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  Cornell University

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  Columbia University

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  Princeton University

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

• IvyLeagueSports.com: Official Home of the Ivy League
  • Ivy League American Football venues
  • Ivy League Basketball venues
  • Ivy League Ice Hockey venues
  • Ivy League Soccer venues
• National Collegiate Athletics Association

Members

• Brown University
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• Dartmouth College
• Harvard University
• Princeton University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Yale University

Credits

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