Public Ivy

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"Public Ivy" is an American term for state-funded institutions of higher learning with excellent academics. Author Richard Moll defined the term to mean a public institution that "provide[s] an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education characterized them as "successfully competing with the Ivy League schools in academic rigor... attracting superstar faculty and in competing for the best and brightest students of all races."[1]

Contents

[edit] Origins of the term

The term "Public Ivy" was coined by Richard Moll in his book Public Ivys: a guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities (1985). Public Ivies are public institutions that "provide an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price." Moll was the director of admissions at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and traveled the nation examining higher education and in particular, identified eight public institutions (same as the number of Ivy League members) that he thought had the look and feel of an Ivy League university.

The term "Public Ivy" is a direct play on the term "Ivy League" which was established as an athletic conference by eight schools (Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, and Cornell University). Seven of these schools were included in the nine colonial colleges: institutions of higher learning established in the American colonies before the Declaration of Independence was published in 1776. In the 1930s, New York newspaper editors raised a discussion about these older American colleges—whom they referred to as "Ivies" or "Ivy colleges" and in 1933 with the phrase "Ivy League"—creating a formal league, or conference, to organize their competition in intercollegiate athletics. These schools, aside from their historical origins, were amongst the first to participate in athletic events against each other, starting in the mid-ninteenth century. The term "Ivy League" has evolved from the name of the athletic conference organized in 1954 to connote the cultural, societal, and institutional atmosphere that surrounds these institutions. It was a continuation of this connotation of "Ivy" that Richard Moll sought to use to apply to an collection of public colleges and universities that met the same level of academic rigor combined with this social and cultural atmosphere.

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The College of William and Mary, founded in 1693, and Rutgers University, founded as Queen's College in 1766, are the only institutions among the nine colonial colleges that are currently public. Both, along with the United States Military Academy and the United States Naval Academy, were considered by early sports-writers and popular culture to be included in references to the "ivy colleges"[2] because of their age, but declined invitations to join the Ivy League athletic conference at its formation in 1954.[3] William and Mary had closed in 1882 due to lack of funds and re-opened as a public university in 1888. Rutgers University remained continuously open. However, it was not included on the original Moll list as a "Public Ivy".

Many of the public ivies, such as the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus, the University of Texas at Austin, or the University of Virginia are the flagship campuses of their respective state university systems. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, established in 1789, is the oldest school that was initially organized as a public institution.[4]

[edit] The Public Ivies

The original public ivies from Moll's Public Ivys: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities published in 1985 (school and year founded):


A later book titled The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (2001) by Howard and Matthew Greene of Greene's Guides expanded upon the list in the first book.

From Greene's Guides published in 2001, additional schools:


Howard Greene and Matthew Greene present a slight variant of their own list in an appendix to an earlier volume Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence, (2000),

Other schools are sometimes referred to as Public Ivies as well, partly as a result of the acceptance of the term into popular culture and in other cases as a result of marketing efforts by the colleges and universities themselves.

For example, based on U. S. News and World Report rankings, the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education opines that, in addition to the above, Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) could also be considered a "Public Ivy".[6]

Though not included on the above lists, Murray State University includes the phrase "Kentucky's Public Ivy University" on its official logo and the State University of New York at Geneseo, part of the State University of New York system, describes itself as a "Public Ivy." [7] [8]

[edit] Institutional comparisons

[edit] Academic comparisons and rankings

Moll and the Greenes did not address the issue of prestige associated with the various schools reviewed. No direct comparison was made between a Public Ivy and any other school.

Many of the institutions categorized as "Public Ivies" have a large number of faculty, or alumni, who have been awarded prizes for their achievements in their respective field including the Nobel Prize (See Nobel Prize laureates by university affiliation), Fields Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Several schools considered by Richard Moll as well as Howard and Matthew Greene as "Public Ivies" are consistently ranked among the top schools in the multitude of surveys on American colleges and universities undertaken by U.S. News & World Report. For instance, U.S. News and World Report ranks the mechanical engineering program at University of California-Berkeley in the top three, and the top three pharmacy programs (University of California-San Francisco, University of Texas at Austin, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).[9][10] Also, the University of Washington's medical and nursing schools ranked first among all national universities.[11] However, in general rankings, U.S. News and World Report consistenly ranks Ivy League institutions at the top of its lists. For example, the highest ranked Public Ivy, the University of California at Berkeley ranked 20th in the United States, while the lowest ranked Ivy League institution, Brown University, ranked 15th.[12] Nevertheless, the refusal of both Ivy League institutions, and the Public Ivies to publish standardized test results for graduate program admissions (such as LSAT, MCAT, GMAT and GRE scores) taken by their students makes objective academic comparisons difficult.[13]

[edit] Athletic comparisons

One sharp distinction between the Ivy League and most "Public Ivies" is their participation in intercollegiate athletics. One of the Ivy League's distinguishing characteristics is its prohibition on the awarding of athletic scholarships; (athletes may only receive the same need-based financial aid to which they would be entitled even if they did not play a sport). In contrast, many of the "Public Ivies" engage in widely popular, quasi-commercial athletics that, in a few cases, make significant contributions to the university's revenue. Most participate in major athletic conferences such as the Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC, or Pac-10; award athletic scholarships; and rely on profits, if any, from large-scale football and men's basketball programs to support the athletic department as a whole (College of William and Mary, Miami University and University of Vermont are exceptions, as their athletic programs remain quite modest but award scholarships nonetheless).

[edit] See also

[edit] References and other resources

[edit] Citations

  1. ^ "Comparing Black Enrollments at the Public Ivies" from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (Autumn 2005) accessed on 3 September 2006.
  2. ^ "Ivy League" according to the Oxford English Dictionary dates the term "ivy colleges" to the 1930s, writers for the New York Sun, New York Herald and several other New York City-area newspapers reference the Ivy League schools, USMA, USNA, Rutgers and William & Mary—and a few scant references to other schools—within this loosely defined category of "Ivy Colleges" on innumerable occassions from the 1930s to the 1950s
  3. ^ Several articles 1948-1956 in the The Daily Targum (Rutgers University's campus newspaper), located in The Targum, The Rutgers Targum and The Daily Targum Microfilm records v.13-v.86:no.9 OCT 5,1892-FEB 16,1944; v.87-v.94:no.35 OCT 17,1945-APR 10,1953, and v.94:no.36-v.104:no.58 APR 17,1953-DEC 5,1972 and Walton R. Johnson Papers (1949-2001), Special Collections and University Archives, Archibald S. Alexander Library, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
  4. ^ The University of North Carolina was the first organized explicitly as a public, state-funded institution, in 1789. While the College of William and Mary (1693) and Rutgers University (1766) are older, they were private institutions until the twentieth century. William and Mary became a public institution in 1925, and Rutgers University became the state university of New Jersey in 1945 (finalized in 1956).
  5. ^ Moll's book considered the entire University of California system as one institution.
  6. ^ "Comparing Black Enrollments at the Public Ivies" from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (Autumn 2005) accessed on 3 September 2006.
  7. ^ SUNY Geneseo statement using "Public Ivy" to describe itself. accessed 22 October 2006.
  8. ^ Logo Guidelines at Murray State University accessed 5 September 2006, stating: "Effective immediately, the following new 'Kentucky's Public Ivy University' logos replace the 'Excellence begins here' logo."
  9. ^ U.S. News and World Report (2006 Engineering program rankings) accessed 21 October 2006.
  10. ^ U.S. News and World Report (2006 Pharmacy program rankings), accessed 21 October 2006.
  11. ^ U.S. News and World Report (2006 medical rankings), accessed 22 October 2006.
  12. ^ U.S. News and World Report (2006 general rankings), accessed 21 October 2006.
  13. ^ Martens, J. “For the Ease of Masters” in Barron's 26 August 2002

[edit] Books

  • Greene, Howard and Greene, Matthew. The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). ISBN 0-06-093459-X
  • Greene, Howard and Greene, Matthew. Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence (New York: HarperCollins, 2000). ISBN 0-06-095362-4
  • Moll, Richard. The Public Ivies: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities (New York: Penguin (Viking), 1985). ISBN 0-14-009384-2 or ISBN 0-670-58205-0
  • Princeton Review. The Best 361 Colleges, 2007 Edition (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Review, 2006). ISBN 0-375-76558-1
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