Southern Ivy

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"Southern Ivy" is a colloquialism that has been used in the U.S. to imply that a Southern college or university is comparable to the schools of the Ivy League in some way, usually in academic quality or in social prestige. Whereas the Ivy League is an eight-member athletic conference with a defined membership, the designation of "Southern Ivy" has no official meaning, and which schools make up the list is a matter of opinion. The term is used in casual conversation both among academics [2] and in terms of the sports programs of the various universities [3].

Some Southern schools typically are ranked near the universities in the Ivy League: in the 2007 U.S. News and World Report rankings, Duke University, Rice University, Vanderbilt University, and Emory University rank in the top twenty major national universities, as do all the schools of the "Ancient Eight." U.S. News and World Report ranked Duke at number 8, below four and above four Ivy League universities. Duke is the only Southern school ever to rank ahead of, or tie, one of the Big Three Northeastern universities, tying for third with Yale University [4].

The South includes four universities that Richard Moll listed in his book entitled The Public Ivys: America's Flagship Undergraduate Colleges: The College of William and Mary, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Virginia.

"Harvard of the South" is also a commonly used colloquialism, and one humorous essay [5] asserts that "there are two dozen Harvards of the South distributed among the states that seceded to form the Confederacy. Of those eleven states, only Alabama does not claim to have a single HotS ['Harvard of the South']."

Individual Southern schools have been compared to individual members of the Ivy League as well. Various Southern schools have sometimes been called the "Princeton of the South." (Princeton University was traditionally the preferred choice of the Southern upper class.) [1]This appellation has been applied at some point or another to Sewanee[2], Davidson College, Rice, Duke and UNC. (Some Davidson students also jokingly return the favor and name Princeton "the Davidson of the North.") Robert Franklin Durden (1998) says that in the 1890s, the Biddle Memorial Institute (now Johnson C. Smith University) considered itself to be the "Colored Princeton of the South."[3]

Murray State University's motto is "Kentucky's Public Ivy University," and their logo shows ivy leaves twining among the word Murray.[4]

In 1963, Tulane, frustrated by its inability to compete with Southeastern Conference schools whose academic expectations for football players were lower than Tulane's, considered withdrawing from the SEC to compete with "universities which have similar academic programs and aims." [5] (Tulane's practice of awarding athletic scholarships, however, would have kept it out of the Ivy League had the league considered accepting any new members.)

At Vanderbilt University, then-chancellor Harvie Branscomb attempted to establish a rivalry between Vanderbilt and Ivy League schools to foster relationships and ameliorate the heavy costs of the football program. The school played a game against Yale in October 1948. However, after Vanderbilt shut out the Bulldogs, 35-0, Yale said it no longer wanted to play Vanderbilt. In the late 1950s, Branscomb called a meeting of the presidents of other Southern private universities — SMU, Rice, Duke, and Tulane — where Branscomb suggested they try to establish a new sports conference where small, academically inclined private schools could compete. However, no "Southern Ivy League" ever got off the ground. Duke did not want to give up its rivalry with the University of North Carolina, and SMU and Rice were not willing to give up their share of the Cotton Bowl income. [6]

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Lieber, Francis; E. (Edward) Wigglesworth, T. G. (Thomas Gamaliel) Bradford) (1833). Encyclopædia Americana: A Popular Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature, History, Politics. Carey, Lea and Carey.  p. 247: "The College of New Jersey at Princeton has long and justly maintained a high reputation, and numbers among its alumni many of the most eminent men of the Union, especially in the Southern States." [1]
  2. ^ Beth Rosenberg (2004-09-13). It's All In the Name. NCAA. Retrieved on May 12, 2006.
  3. ^ Durden, Robert Franklin (1998): Lasting Legacy to the Carolinas, Duke University Press, ISBN 0-8223-2151-3, p. 121
  4. ^ Murray State University on the Web. Retrieved on May 12, 2006.: Logo shows ivy leaves and the motto "Kentucky's Public Ivy University."
  5. ^ Mohr, Clarence L.; Joseph E. Gordon (2001). Tulane: The Emergence of a Modern University, 1945-1980. LSU Press. ISBN 0-8071-2553-9.  p. 265-6: 1963 attempt to form a southern Ivy League
  6. ^ Carey, Bill (2003). Chancellors, Commodores, and Coeds: A History of Vanderbilt University. Clearbook Press. ISBN 0-9725680-0-X.  p. 220-223:The Southern Ivy League
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