"Southern Ivy" is an informal term, and not an official body, that has been used in the U.S. to compare Southern universities to the schools of the Ivy League in some way, usually in academic quality or in social prestige. The "Southern Ivy League," referred to as the "Magnolia League", was also a failed attempt to construct an athletic conference with schools that had similar "academic missions and philosophies". Given that the term is colloquial, there is no comprehensive, objective or definitive list of schools that are considered "Southern Ivies".
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The effort to create a Southern athletic conference originated during the 1950s. Harvie Branscomb, then-chancellor at Vanderbilt University, originally attempted to establish a rivalry between Vanderbilt and traditional Ivy League schools to foster relationships with academically-oriented schools. The school followed through on this effort and played a game against Yale in October 1948. However, after Vanderbilt shut out the Bulldogs, 35-0, Yale said they no longer wanted to play Vanderbilt. This caused Branscomb to call a meeting with the presidents of other Southern private universities in the late 1950s — Southern Methodist University (SMU), Rice University, Duke University, and Tulane University — where Branscomb suggested they try to establish a new sports conference where small, academically inclined private schools could compete.[1]
In the early 1960s, the idea for the "Magnolia Conference" gained popularity. In 1963, Tulane was frustrated by its enabling competition notwithstanding within the Southeastern Conference schools since many of the schools had lower academic expectations for football and they considered withdrawing from the SEC to compete with schools with similar aims.[2] According to the Rice Thresher, the era was a time when "the academic disparity between show-me-the-money schools and the schools less inclined to compromise academics was just beginning to become more evident." The "Magnolia Conference" had the vision to "maintain high-end Division I budgets and schedules, while avoiding some of the crasser extremes of the big business of college sports". However, the "Southern Ivy League" never 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 Classic income.[1]
Those private universities within the geographical area referred to as the "Southern" or "South-Eastern" United States having historically achieved a high level of academic success are sometimes grouped together by media outlets or the public at-large. This unofficial grouping is often referred to as the "Magnolia League" or "Southern Ivy". Schools most commonly cited as being part of the unofficial grouping referred to as the "Magnolia League" include: Duke University, Tulane University, Rice University, Emory University, Vanderbilt University, Wake Forest University, and Southern Methodist University (SMU). In an effort to mirror the number of institutions present within the Ivy League, one of a number of comparable universities in the region are sometimes added to the grouping, such as Georgetown University, George Washington University, or University of Miami.[1]