Talk:Ivy League/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Table of Various Rankings

I am trying to compile various Ivy League rankings into a concise table. I have it written in HTML here. Could someone help me convert it over to WIKI? (I am not sure how to write tables in WIKI). I would, of course, add the citations and appropriate WIKI links.--Xtreambar 20:40, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think such rankings are useful for an encyclopedia article. It's enough to say that they exist and that the Ivies are consistently close to the top. Beyond that, however, they clearly aren't scientific, and I can't imagine why they would be a benefit to the article.--AaronS 22:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

They are useful for showing general trends for how the various Ivys are percieved as ranking in comparison to each other. Also, all of the different articles for each of the schools notes where they rank on these listings. Therefore, it would be useful to consolidate this information into one place. The article already includes the current USWR rankings. Why not include all rankings? --Xtreambar 22:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Ideally, the separate articles would not include such rankings. Why not include all rankings? Because that would be impossible whilst retaining a NPOV. Personally, I don't think that the USNWR rankings should be included, despite the fact that they're "kind" to all of the Ivies. Different methods of ranking produce different results; bias is introduced immediately once we include one set of rankings while excluding another -- and it would be impossible to include them all. We would need an entire article to explain how the rankings are produced and how different methods produce different rankings.--AaronS 22:47, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Why not allow people to see all rankings that people contribute to the article? Addionally, most of the rankings already have their own pages explaining how they work. If you feel so strongly that the rankings do not allow for a NPOV, I encourage you to remove references to them in all articles, especially this one. However, if we include just the USNWR rankings, why not include "all" rankings? --Xtreambar 22:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Clearly, we cannot include all rankings that are contributed. While no rankings are scientific, some are more scientific than others. USNWR obviously has more standing than eOpinions.com, for instance.

Personally, I don't think that the specific rankings should be included in any of the articles. It might be worth mentioning that they exist and that the Ivies do well in them, but no more. At the same time, there is no doubt that the USNWR is where most average people get their college rankings. That is why it might be useful for these rankings to be listed on individual pages; they are relevant to a certain extent.

USNWR is not NPOV, however; it disproportionately favors Ivy League schools. Other rankings focus more on the university aspect, as opposed to the college aspect, of the schools (research, Nobel laureates, etc.).

As I said, ideally, they would all be removed. Until a decision is reached in that regard, I severely doubt that it is a good idea to go to the other extreme and include as many rankings as possible.--AaronS 23:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

What is wrong with focusing on the university aspect? At last I checked, all of the Ivies are universities with graduate students and research, though some place greater emphasis on this than others. --Xtreambar 23:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

All of the Ivies are universities, but, as you say, some (e.g., Brown and Dartmouth) are much more focused on their undergraduate schools. Dartmouth even goes so far as to refuse to officially call itself a university. Any ranking method that does not emphasize undergraduate education (or make a distinction between undergraduate colleges and graduate schools within single universities) is not accurate and is biased.--AaronS 01:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

What a school calls itself has little to do with whether it is actually a college or a university. Take Rockefeller University as an example. It has no undergraduates and no professional schools. It has Ph.D. programs, but only in the life sciences (though it used to offer physics and philosophy, too). Its student body totals only a few hundred. Its name and considerable prestige notwithstanding, Rockefeller doesn't really qualify as a university.

Dartmouth's unwillingness to call itself a university stem's from New Hampshire's efforts in the 19th century to seize the school, make it public, and impose the name "Dartmouth University" against the college's wishes. It is not because Dartmouth emphasizes undergrads - though it surely does. Dartmouth has schools of business, engineering and medicine as well as Ph.D. programs in the arts & sciences, so it meets any reasonable definition of "university" regardless of the name it goes by.

Boston College is also a university (it has schools of business, law, education, social work and nursing, along with arts & sciences Ph.D. programs) but the name "Boston University" is already taken, so it has kept the now-outdated name.

And other schools place a great weight on their graduate programs like Harvard where almost two-thirds of their student population consists of graduate students. Thus the article should include rankings that place more weight on graduate programs. A faliure to do so be biased against those schools. --Xtreambar 03:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

You've just highlighted the extact reason why there should be no rankings listed. Do you see what I'm getting at, now? There's no way of treating the schools fairly. --AaronS 05:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Xtreambar. It looks good.--AaronS 18:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Land ownership

Is this total land ownership, or simply the campus size? Because, the figures seem to be wrong either way.--AaronS 00:27, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The comment that Columbia owns 36 acres is misleading. The university's main campus is about 36 acres, but its medical center and its sports complex each cover about 22 - 24 acres, for a total of about 80 acres. Columbia also owns well over 150 buildings (mainly residential) which are not technically "on campus" but which are within a few blocks; the land under these buildings adds up to about 20 additional acres. The university is also in the early stages of building an 18-acre extension of the main campus, although several blocks will separate the two parcels. These figures do not include the facilities of Barnard or Teachers College, each of which has a small campus near Columbia's main location and several residential buildings nearby. Columbia owns many other properties in NYC but I have not mentioned them because they are held as investments. 16:09, 19 September 2005 4.231.171.241

Columbia is generally known to hold the most land in the city next to the catholic church. The fact that numbers cannot be found online to prove this does not make it less so. To go on to say that Fordham owns more land, thus introducing false information, without corroborating this information as fact is irresponsible. HOWEVER, since the burden of proof is on Columbia - here is some evidence. As the above paragraph mentions, Columbia owns a large number of buildings in the surrounding area, beyond the 36 acre main campus, as well as the medical center and sports complex. It has already been shown that the medical center, main campus, and athletic campus total 82 Acres. Here is a map of land owned by columbia in the morningside area http://neighbors.columbia.edu/pdf-files/MorningSideMap.pdf here also is a map of land owned in manhattanville http://neighbors.columbia.edu/pdf-files/CUOwnership.pdf One city block in the Morningside Heights area comprises between 3 and 4 acres, depending on whether the block is located adjacent to one of the parks or not. (If you question this simply measure the footage, 230 feet north south, and between 530 and 800 feet east west. Those between broadway and amsterdam are actually 4.2 acres). According to this map, that would total at the minimum, if one were to take each block to be only 3 acres, over 20 acres of land in addition to the main campus (which is the area between 114 and 120th and amsterdam and broadway ,as well as the Law/SIPA campus between 116 and 117 east of amsterdam). Add to this the land currently owned in Manhattanville (http://neighbors.columbia.edu/pdf-files/CUOwnership.pdf), (which will eventually total 18 acres), you clearly have over 100 acres of land. I utilized my GPS in order to measure distance along 6 different blocks around the columbia campus. I'm sure you could use a mapping program to do the same. The 114th St South West block (on which I live) The 114th South Center block just below the main campus, the 118th St block above SIPA/Law school, the vertical block along claremont, the 116th St block below the Law School, and the block above 121 street. IvyLeagueGrunt 00:59, 15 October 2005 (UTC) Footage (FT) 114(1) 228x597 114(2) 230x813 Claremont 550x231(this I measured just the columbia owned buildings, so leaving the end buildings out) 118 240x530 116 230x528 121 231x820 IvyLeagueGrunt 00:59, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Though I am not including this in my calculations, I should add that Columbia owns a large chunk of poperty along 57th Street, and still owns some property around rockefeller center (while Columbia used to own Rockefeller Center itself, it was sold to the mitsubishi corporation in 1989). I cannot find any references or evidence to this ONLINE, but you will find a multitude of information on this if you contact the Columbia Archives in Low Library. Other properties that Columbia owns throughout NYC (of which there are many) are not included because, as mentioned above, they are largely investments. IvyLeagueGrunt 01:10, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Barnard College and Teachers College, Columbia University are both affiliated with Columbia, and including their land ownership would increase the land holdings of Columbia University if one considers them as part of Columbia University (Columbia University is the institution which actually grants the degrees for both Barnard College and Teachers College, Columbia University).

Ivy League comparison with Oxbridge in UK

152.163.100.195's edit--that "an alumnus of an ivy league school is called an ivy league graduate or an ivy leaguer"--is too obvious to merit mention, let alone inclusion in the article's lead paragraph. His discussion of "oxbridge" is not relevant and is sufficiently covered by the "see also" link. The edit could arguably be added to the section on "terminology."

I agree that the following passage should not be in the lead (and agree that it could be rewritten to appear later in terminology. Oxford/Cambridge are interesting because they are collections of colleges, not homogeneous like most individual colleges in the Ivy League. Some Oxford colleges really do not compare well to Cornell and the university itself is demonstrably too diverse and complicated to be compared to Harvard (undergraduate) (but Oxbridge and Ivy League have a similar cachet to each nation, esp. since UK has five times smaller population, the comparison roughly fits in percentage terms, too). Deleted passage as follows:

"A student or alumnus of an Ivy League member college is an Ivy Leaguer or an Ivy League graduate, terms often used to describe someone of a certain American background, education or intelligence much like the term Oxbridge is used to describe students at the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in the UK."

"Midwestern Ivy League" ?

Contributors to this page may be interested in this article, which has been proposed for deletion:

Midwestern Ivy League

Please review the article and provide your input on that article's Votes for Deletion page. - 18.95.1.22 03:47, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I assume this article was deleted since the link no longer exists. I have heard Northwestern University and the University of Chicago called "Midwest Ivies," but not so formally as this. In any case, it's a totally subjective term and was rightly deleted. 129.105.35.219 20:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

"Southern Ivy League" ?

Looks like another fake Ivy League ... I started a deletion page: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Southern Ivy League 129.105.35.219 20:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

This article has resurfaces as "Southern Ivies" and is being considered for deletion at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Southern Ivies 129.105.35.130 17:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

3D Map

Anyone else notice that University of Pennsylvania is mistaken as University of Philadelphia in the 3D image? --Liface 05:17, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

In addition to its obvious errors, the "map" does not conform to traditional cartographic conventions and therefore presents a confusing and distorted perspective. 129.105.35.130 17:14, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

"Reputation"

"In January of 2005, StudentsReview ranked the Ivy League schools independently of reputation (The Top Ivy), and found that students rated Harvard University's educational quality the most poorly of all Ivy League schools, including several similarly reputed schools such as NYU and Stanford."

clearly grammar of someone who did not attend an ivy. especially someone who finds NYU to be "similarly reputed" as harvard

moreover,

"Ironically, in student sponsored reviews which evaluate the education quality across all national schools, Ivy League schools perform more poorly than many state and local schools (Best All Around Education)."

Dartmouth is #1 and Brown is #4

there should be a more unbiased (read: non-ivy hater) person writing this section with accurate information and grammar. could perhaps find a better source than studentsreview.com

I really don't see how this could be accurate. The students at a state school probably never experienced an Ivy, so how could they judge? 72.68.167.49 02:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)KwazyUtopia19

Redundancy

In the second paragraph, it is pointed out that the ivy schools are 7 of the 9 colonial colleges, and then at the bottom of the same paragraph it is pointed out that they are some of the oldest college in the country, and all but Cornell were founded in the colonial era. I might be crazy, but this seems redundant. Cornellrockey 16:30, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, you should change it

Cash per undergraduate

Cash per undergraduate should be listed, since many schools usually focus one way or the other.--AaronS 05:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I presume you mean endowment per undergraduate, but this figure would be almost meaningless. The Ivies' endowments serve both the grad students and the undergrads, so leaving grad students out of the equation would distort reality.

Also, much of each school's endowment is restricted to specific purposes that don't directly help undergrads; if a law school has $100 million worth of endowed professorships that money will do little to improve the undergrad experience. And it often isn't possible to tell whether a given part of an endowment is for undergrads or grad students; what do you do with a history department with 20 chaired professors who teach at both levels?

Some of the endowment will likewise be set aside for undergrads, but the amount of money per student will vary widely from one division to the next. Treating them as if they were all equally wealthy would make the calculation easy but would make the result useless.

Even a figure which includes both undergrads and grad students would tell us little. A (very) hypothetical example will show why. Columbia's endowment is about $5.2 billion and it has about 21,000 students, so one could say it has roughly $250,000 per student. But about $1.2 billion of the endowment belongs to the medical school, which has roughly 1,000 students (including a few non-M.D. programs). Suppose that the medical school becomes a separate entity tomorrow. Columbia will then have a $4 billion endowment and 20,000 students -- $200,000 per student. This is a 20% drop but the medical school's separation would not have a major impact on the undergraduate college. Such distortions are inevitable in this type of analysis.

Ivy League vs. Oxbridge: Job prospects better for Oxbridge students?

As a North American, I always find it rather ironic that while Harvard, Yale, & Co. are so highly regarded through the world, they don't really make for such great job prospects as one might expect from those institutions. This is due to my first-hand knowledge of North American culture, aka "We don't care about no Ivy League diplomas, ya dig down and work your rear end off, or ya get fired, ya hear me!" culture. Whereas in other places (and no, i was NOT born in North American, rather i was what one would call a second generation immigrant, the children of immigrants), no matter your social or familial background, Oxbridge or Sorbonne or Stuttgart or whatever opens most of the doors you would want to have opened, the lack of privilege attached to a Ivy League diploma has resulted in the unintended and ironic consequence of the arrestation of education as social levellers, such as it was that the original cause which prompted this treatment of Ivy degrees was in fact an egalitarian impulse. Sure, if you want to work for Deloitte & Touche, Goldman Sachs, Koehlburg Kravis Roberts & Co., Lazard Freres & Co., or Wall Street law firms, Ivy degrees make for exclusive entrance tickets, but when one goes into the broader society, one would find Harvard degrees almost useless in elevating oneself above a generic degree. (University of Iowa anyone?). Examples? Gov't hiring, non-financial non-consulting non-law non-medicine lines of business like cement, glass, construction, WAL-MART, etc. Thus I find it sad that nowadays, the premier universities of North America no longer DELIVER for their students, as opposed to Oxbridge, Sorbonne, Stuttgart, and the like, which still deliver concrete results and career prospects.

Where did you get the idea that the main purpose of Academia is job placement? I though it was education and preparation for post-graduate study and research.--Hq3473 19:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

No, I am not, NOT implying the supremacy of job placement in terms of post-secondary choice. However, it must be said that quite a lot of Ivy League and Oxbridge students found those very job placement prospects extremely influential in their decisions of universities.

That is one. However, the most notable aspect of this, say, phenomenon, is the fact that Ivy League, especially Big Three diplomas are received in manners that are extremely divergent, between North America and the ROW (Rest Of the World). In fact, it could be safely argued that a person with NO experience but a harvard diploma, applying for the postition of store manager of an Asda (Wal-Mart subsidiary in UK)will have a much higher possibility than if he had applied for the same position at an American Wal-Mart. This strikes as being rather curious, and malignantly incongruent.

Hq3473, considering that generally one would have to dish out something in the range of $150k min (tuition + materials + living costs) for a Harvard education, would YOU not take into consideration job prospects, as most people don't have that sort of money bouncing around on impulse.

I in fact would argue that for most people, Harvard or yale or Princeton or whatever, while providing one with what would probably be four of the most enjoyable years in life, is still mainly a huge investment in their futures. Would it not be damaging to find out that after spending so much time, energy, and the hitting punch here, MONEY, which, unlike the previous two, is limited by constraint, on such an investment, that in fact it carries pathetic returns?

I understand that education is not simply about money. In fact, it should NOT be about money. But reality dictates otherwise. I would find it strange if an middle-class American family mortgaged their home just for the kid to be in Harvard for four years. For them, i suspect there is the factor of future, of upward mobility, of accomplishment, as it is, and has been, for most post-WWII Harvard students and their families.

It is easy to grandstand and say money and job placement taint elite education. But yet, whenever i see someone mortgage his or her home just to get the kids through Harvard or Yale or whatever, I would feel a deep rage toward those sour grapes, and worse, ingnorants, who would treat that labour in vanity, and with carelessness.

This is what prompted to write this comment, in celebration of, and respect to, those parents who sacrificed greatly for the futures of their kids, and my deep contempt who the Wal-Mart personnel manager who in an ugly and obscene imitation of Sam Walton, says "we don't ca' 'bout no Harvard graduates," for after all, one might wonder, is that would parents are picturing in their minds when they put their lifelong investment, their homes, to the loan sharks, in order to support and elevate the future aspirations of their descendants?

I hope this would provoke you to think again about Ivy League or Oxbridge, maybe, in a slightly different light. Regards, Steve, in Vancouver

It seems to me that if anyone hires someone for a management position based solely on a diploma and without any management experience, he or she is a fool. Going to a good university does not prepare you to be a manager. It prepares you to be able to learn to be a good manager, with experience. Nohat 19:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

You say that Ivy League students might be disappointed by their job placements after they graduate, unless they want to work for "Deloitte and Touche, Goldman Sachs", et al. However, this is exactly the sort of job placement most Ivy Leaguers are looking for. This may sound elitist, but you don't get an Ivy League degree to work at Walmart. I go to an Ivy and some of my friends go into visual arts or environmental science, knowing they won't make large amounts of money; but that's their conscious choice. The econ majors benefit from the massive corporate recruiting that firms like, yes, Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan, etc, conduct on campus. And guess what? A large percentage of them get these kinds of jobs. Pre-law and pre-med students also do extremely well when applying to law schools and med schools comparing to the national average. Ivy League schools are not exclusive in this respect, and there are dozens of other fine schools in the country that can boast the same. These schools all share one thing in common though: students tend not to go to them hoping to go into construction, or to work at Walmart. This is not because no smart people want to go into construction or retail, but simply because the Ivy League, and other top schools, have carved out a niche for themselves as places for ambitious young people aspiring to go into upper management, medicine, law, politics, and other leadership positions.

I cannot even begin to make sense of this argument! First, let me point out that Ivy League students do very well in their careers. If you compare the job placement of Harvard/Yale students vs other American universities they will be well at the top of the pack. There's simply no debating that point! The writer wants to look only at "non-financial non-consulting non-law non-medicine lines of business like cement, glass, construction, WAL-MART" which is really begging the question. I do not imagine many people from Oxbridge look to go into construction, or Wal-Mart either. The reason the Ivy League is not utterly separate from other US universities is that there are so many strong universities in the US. This global top 100 list (http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm) has a huge # of American state schools. In Europe it is widely acknowledged, at least in the sciences, that the universities are not doing well. I worked in France, where you pretty much have to have a degree from one of the Grandes Ecoles (ENA-politics, ENS- sciences, etc) to get a prestiguos position in any field. It's not that these schools prepare students better, it's just that the society is structured such that there only a few acceptable names to have on your degree. The US system is more balanced, with the Ivies generally at the top. It is not the Ivy League's fault that it faces stiff competition from Berkeley, Michigan, Texas, etc. Kurtosis 00:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd ask the participants in this discussion to remember that Talk pages are for discussion directly related to improving the article, not general discussion of the article's topic. There are many other good Web forums for those who wish to discuss the relative merits of various countries' educational institutions. This is not such a forum. -- Rbellin|Talk 01:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

athletic dept. logos

UPenn's athletic logo appears to be crimson and purple on my monitor, whereas viewing their official athletic site shows it to be a navy blue and crimson. Anyone else noticing this? Cornell Rockey 18:39, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. -Masonpatriot

Seriously, looks purple on my monitor and several of my friend's. It should be just a little lighter then the blue in the Yale blue. Cornell Rockey 04:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Members table

School type/religious affiliation

The religious affiliation or designation as "non-sectarian" is not so clear cut. For example, Duke University describes its ties with Methodism as "formal, on-going, and symbolic" [1] while Wake Forest University maintains "a dedication to the values rooted in its Baptist heritage" [2]. Both schools can be considered "non-sectarian" in that they are no longer under the direct auspices of their founding religious organizations. Likewise, Boston College maintains its Jesuit identity in spite of the fact that it severed its formal ties with the Jesuit Order (and thereby the Catholic Church) in the 1960s when it was independently incorporated under a lay board of trustees. Unlike the Catholic University of America, which is under the direct auspices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or the University of Notre Dame, which is governed by "fellows" who must be priests of the Congregation of Holy Cross, The Trustees of Boston College (BC's governing body) operate independent of any religious jurisdiction. This arrangement is probably similar to that at Duke or Wake Forest, except that the BC trustees have voluntarily chosen to elect members of the founding religious organization to the presidency (though they are not required to do so). In fact, similar arrangements exist at other Jesuit colleges and universities, where both women and non-clerics have been elected to presidency (most recently at Georgetown University). All of this is to say that I think the nature of a school's religious affiliation is beyond the scope of this article, and that "public" or "private" suffice in the context of the members table. --24.63.125.78 10:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

• • The University of Notre Dame is governed by a Board of Fellow, 12 in number, but only 6 of whom are priests of the Congregation of Holy. It is a matter of joint governance, which is an important distinction. Vaquero100 00:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I do not see the relevance of this category at all if the schools are listed as "Private/Non-sectarian." Why not rename it "Founding affiliation" and list the original religious groups involved the schools' founding (formal or otherwise), or lack thereof. 24.63.125.223 17:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

24.63.125.78 has coppied and pasted this on almost every college conference discussion board. Please refer to Talk:Atlantic Coast Conference so we can keep all the discussion in one place. Thanks. -- Masonpatriot

Added comments relevant here over on Talk:Atlantic Coast Conference. btm 23:21, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

However, in this article, the column should be removed; both as repetitious and as incomplete. Columbia and Princeton are private, but they weren't always. Septentrionalis 23:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the comments of 24.63.125.223 and have been looking into the founding affiliations of these universities. Given that seven of the universities are colonial colleges and this is an important part of their history and even early U.S. history, it's of particular relevance to the Ivy League page (but generally irrelevant to other athletic conferences). I have found both American Higher Education: A History by Christopher J Lucas and American College and University: A History by Frederick Rudolph to be particularly useful. Brown also has a relevant page: [3].

In order of founding year, I believe these founding religious affiliations are correct (Dartmouth and Penn are least clear):

• Harvard - Congregational
• Yale - Congregational
• Princeton - Presbyterian
• Penn - Episcopal
• Columbia - Episcopal
• Brown - Baptist
• Dartmouth - Congregational
• Cornell - Nonsectarian

It would also be interesting to capture the transition away from an official religious affiliation, but specific years will probably be very hard to find (and some of the schools may not even have a specific year, as they slowly moved in this direction). There was an old discussion about this at Talk:Dartmouth College#Religious affiliation

With respect to the private control of the universities, Rudolph discusses this briefly on p. 36. He says Dartmouth, Penn and King's (Columbia) were briefly taken over by state governments. IMHO, not worth mentioning on the Ivy League page. btm 00:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Need to be careful with the names of the denominations. The Episcopal Church, for example, dates only to 1784, well after Penn and Columbia were established. "Anglican" or "Church of England" is probably more accurate. Any idea where Penn got its nickname "Quakers"? 24.63.125.223 20:32, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "Episcopal" versus "Anglican", this reference [4] indicates that the word "Episcopal" was in use well before 1784, as the members of the Trinity Church of New York City wanted to establish an "Episcopal College". Remember, these were colonists, so the establishment of ECUSA would only make sense after the American Revolutionary War, when the colonists had gained their independence from the mother country of England. 4.228.213.232 14:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I took a class at Barnard on the Social History of Columbia University (don't laugh) the professor referred to it as Church of England & Anglican. I don't remember anything about Episcopal. Valley2city 06:15, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

As a student at Penn, I can say with definite certainty that Penn was founded as a nonsectarian school with strong Quaker influences. Ben Franklin, Penn's founder, was a deist and specifically organized Penn around a secular idea of a liberal arts education rather than as a training ground for future ministers--as its Colonial counterparts like Harvard and Yale. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.123.147.35 (talk • contribs) .

By the way, I re-added in the original religious affiliation information (provided by User: btm ? or the poster before him?) into the members table. Why? Because before the Ivy League existed for athletic competitions, there was another kind of "competition" that was based on religion, as can be seen by [5], when the establishment of the Presbyterian's Princeton compelled the building of the Episcopalian Columbia University . Increase Mather and Cotton Mather had an on-going feud with their alma mater, partly because they felt Harvard was becoming too liberal regarding religion [6], so they championed Yale with enthusiam. One can guess that the alumni in those days had a strong ideological (if not theological) identification with their alma maters and a sense of rivalry with the other institutions, passed on from the founders. But given the common shared heritage of the founders, the rivalries would be mutually respectful, friendly, and tolerant, never becoming mean spirited or intolerant to the point of destruction. The introduction of intercollegiate sports in the 19th century (if not earlier) created a new non-religious way to channel that sense of rivalry and competition among the institutions. Thus, the competitive spirit among the members of the "Ivy" has deep historical roots, in the soil of religion (Ye reap what ye sow). 4.228.213.232 14:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

PS. I am not so sure about the religious affiliation of Penn, as the previous poster indicated that Franklin was non-sectarian and wanted his institution to be non-affiliated. But the page provided by another previous poster seems to indicate otherwise [7]. Perhaps Franklin had to compromise with a church in order to get the funding or buildings he needed? As we know later in his life, Franklin was a wizard of diplomacy, deal-making, and compromise.

4.228.213.232 14:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I can say that with certainty. All freshmen at Penn were required to read Franklin's autobiography this year, and we know more about him then we ever wanted to! The school used a building provided by a Protestant, non-Anglican church that was just starting up at the time. In fact, there's a prominant statue of this man less than 100 feet from where I live. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.123.147.35 (talk • contribs) .

The Catholic University of America is NOT under the direct auspices of the Catholic Bishops. It has a Board of Trustees composed of laity of both genders, priests and bishops.

Penn's Founding

I think we need to use the official founding dates. Penn's is 1740. However, it was not the Academy and College of Philadelphia in 1740, so you can't say, "1740 as Academy and College of Philadelphia".

Early Ivy History

I've been looking into the early usage of the term "the Ivy League" and found a lot interesting things that were missing from this article by searching old New York Times articles using ProQuest. Brown is conspicuously absent from the Ivy League as originally proposed. The Times notes this (see Sports of the Times, Dec 4, 1936, p 36.):

Inclusive but Not Exclusive

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 nose.

There are plenty of institutions covered with home-grown ivy that are not included in the proposed group. There are enough to form several groups of their own, if they wished, and it wouldn't be a bad idea, either. There are Army and Navy and Georgetown and Fordham and Syracuse and Brown and Pitt, just to offer a few that come to mind.

Nor can it be that antiquity is the final test for entrance to the Ivy League because 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 above Cayuga's waters.

The piece also notes:

As this observer understands it, the proposed league would simply be an enlargement of the old Big Three idea on a formal plan.

Another important thing to note is that the history given at [8] is directly contradicted by what is published in The New York Times from 1935-1936.

The designation Ivy League [is credited to] Caswell Adams of the New York Tribune in 1937. The tag, premature of any formal agreement, was immediately adopted by the press as a foreshadowing of an eastern football league which, at the time, was big news to everyone except the athletic directors involved.

Perhaps the story is true, but the year is simply wrong. btm _talk 09:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• The 1937 date appears to be wrong, but it's everywhere.

In February 1935, Associated Press sports editor Alan Gould wrote, “The so-called ‘Ivy League’ which is in the process of formation among a group of the older Eastern universities now seems to have welcomed Brown into the fold and automatically assumed the proportions of a Big Eight’”. [9]

The OED has this from 1933:

[1933 S. WOODWARD in N.Y. Herald Tribune 16 Oct. 18/1 The fates which govern [football] play among the ivy colleges and academic boiler-factories alike seem to be going around the circuit.]

but it refers to "ivy colleges", not "ivy league" So does anyone know why Adams is given credit in 1937?? -Bindingtheory 15:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Brown's story appears to be true; it was accepted into the fold of the informal "Ivy League" very quickly. Although it was not initially part of the December 1936 student-driven proposal to form the Ivy League among the seven universities, The New York Times's sports pages published results in December 1938 that basically treats the Ivy League as a formal football conference (of eight schools). First there is "Cornell, Villanova, Brown, Southern California Are Gridiron Choices Today" (Nov 24, 1938; p. 39) whose lead paragraph is:

Cornell and Pennsylvania for the Ivy League championship and Southern California against U.C.L.A. for a share in the Pacific Coast title and possibly the Rose Bowl nomination.

And later that year, in "Cornell Wins Ivy League Trophy in a Poll of Sports Editors on College Newspapers" (note Brown's inclusion):

The Ivy League Sports Editors' Trophy, the first of a series of annual presentations to the champion of the mytical "Ivy League," was awarded to Cornell yesterday following a vote of sports editors of the "Ivy" college newspapers.

[...]

The records of the teams against one another follow:

W-L-T
Cornell 3-0-1
Dartmouth 4-1-0
Pennsylvania 2-1-1
Brown 2-2-0
Princeton 2-2-0
Harvard 2-3-0
Columbia 1-3-0
Yale 1-5-0

And in a letter to the New York Times sports page (Letters to the Sports Editor, Nov 25, 1939, p. 16), Reid Jorgensen (Harvard '35) urges the eight schools to formally form a football league. He bemoaned the fact that schools like Ohio State had football teams comprised of players brought there just to play football.

These schools adhere essentially to the same principles of education and require their athletes to do more than answer "I don't know" to receive credit for a correct response in an examination.

The OED quote is also interesting. It supports one part of the ivysport.com history: that the first reference was in the New York Herald Tribune. I'd say that the OED has some authority when it comes to giving the first known usage on an English language term ;). btm _talk 05:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice to see some more detail about the origin of the word "ivy". At Cornell I heard both versions of "ivy" is the "ivy on the walls" and "the fourth sports league (IV)", with the fourth being considered a lesser division. I also seem to remember in one of the dining halls some plaques with all the ivy schools and the "IV" ensignia, so I considered the "ivy" means "IV" version to be more accurate. Jeffhoy 23:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Athletic Competition

As an alumnus of both an Ivy League school and a Pac-10 school, along with being a life-long rower, I couldn't stand the statement that Cal and UW have only recently become crew powers. Since the 1920s would be more correct!!! Count the Olympic medals won 3 by Cal, 3 by UW, 2 by Navy, 2 by Yale, 0 by everyone else . It also completely ignored women's rowing where, over the past 20 years, Washington has been as dominant, or more dominant then Harvard has been on the Men's side. So I toned down the inference of Ivy League superiority in rowing

IV vs. Ivy

I took classes at Harvard in the late 70s and at that time the accepted history was in reference to the Roman Numeral IV, as at the time the schools started playing sports with each other, they weren't the old ivy covered buildings, but new structures. The term IV, 4 schools, was around in sports history well before Harvard grew any vines. I would like to see more on the history of the Roman numeral version of the name.

--- The Roman numeral story seems to be a back-formation: people called the league "ivy," which sounds like "IV," and so they thought it must refer to four of something. The buildings were ivy-covered very long before the league was formed.

--Skog 10:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The story is apocryphal. Three of the schools are always Harvard, Yale and Princeton, but the fourth varies according to whichever school is telling the story. See Talk:University of Pennsylvania (where we were looking into this because of an insistent editor who kept saying Penn was part of "the Big Four.") Nobody's been ever to find any reliable source for such a thing. If you can cite a source for this "accepted history," of course, I'll eat crow. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

A common heritage

165.123.139.14 has thrice broken the continuity of the first paragraph of the "History" section by moving the information about the founding of Penn to right after Yale, on the following dates:

• 2:43, 30 January 2006
• 18:40, 30 January 2006
• 21:51, 28 April 2006

The paragraph is not a chronological ordering, because we already know the founding dates from the Members Table. The whole point of the paragraph is to describe the family tree of the universities starting with Oxford University, and to show how each begat its progeny:

• Oxford

• • Cambridge (child of Oxford)

• • • Harvard (1636, child of Cambridge)

• • • • Yale (1701, child of Harvard)

• • • • • Princeton (1749, child of Yale)

• • • • • • Brown (1764, child of Princeton)

• • • • • Dartmouth (1769, child of Yale)

• • • • • Cornell (1865, child of Yale)

• • • • • Columbia (1754, "step-child" of Yale)

• • • • University of Pennsylvania (1740/1749, through Dr. Franklin, a "child" of Harvard and Oxford)

Adding the University of Pennsylvania last completes the circle by mentioning Oxford once again. The paragraph begins with Oxford; it ends with Oxford. Therefore, the Ivy's are part of the same family tree and "share a common heritage", which is the assertion of the first sentence.

4.228.213.16 09:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

It was established with the core principle of admission strictly based on academic merit.

Most of the assertions in the first few paragraphs are unsourced. This one in particular is not only unsourced, I maintain it is patently false.

I'm tempted to say, "It's a joke, right?"

In 1935, Harvard, Yale and Princeton all had Jewish quotas in place. In the 1950s when the Ivy League was officially formed, and I believe to this day, they all give strong preference to "legacy" admissions, i.e. based on having a parent who attended regardless of academic merit.

That admissions were never strictly based on academic merit would be agreed to both by those who object to and those who approve of these schools' historic admissions policies. Factoring in "character," well-roundedness, "manliness," athleticism, geographic diversity (preferring applicants from outside the New England area) was always acknowedged, even proudly acknowledged. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Just for posterity's sake: that sentence was introduced by an anonymous user in this edit and originally relied on a citation which patently failed to support the claim (the citation said only that athletes would be treated no differently from other students in admissions). Since it's completely unsupported by any source (or by the facts, including those you cite), I'm deleting it. -- Rbellin|Talk 18:26, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, well, that's a horse of another color. Sorry. I see the same material is in the History section, where it's germane and interesting, but does need a citation... and IMHO the lead-in sentence needs to be wordsmithed, which I will now go do. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood the original statement. It didn't say that academic merit was the founding principle of the *schools* but rather that of the *league*. The league was formally established in 1954, so arguments based upon how admissions worked in the 1930s are irrelevant. Even if the term "ivy league" was in use earlier, only the date when the league officially came into existence can be considered its founding date. Besides, only real acts can be based upon any kind of principles; informal use of the term in the 1930s says nothing about the princicples of the schools themselves -- even in the 1930s, much less in 1954.

"Relatively small?" Relative to what?

Because the language is so vague as to be vacuously true, and because the numbers that allow the reader to judge for themselves are there, I can't call the following statement "untrue." But it's about as untrue as a statement can be while still being true.

they have relatively small undergraduate populations, ranging between 4,078 for Dartmouth College and 13,700 for Cornell University and modestly sized graduate student populations, ranging between 1,666 for Dartmouth and 14,692 for Columbia.

How in the world can 13,700 undergraduates at Cornell University be called "relatively small" and 14,692 graduate students atf Columbia be called "modestly sized?"

Each of those numbers is larger than total enrollment at MIT. Cornell is quite comparable in size to the University of Mississippi which has something like 14,500 undergrads and 2000 grads [10].

I say this sentence is nonsense. I get the impresssion that someone made a generalization about Ivy League colleges being "small," then found out it didn't hold up, but left it in anyway. My best effort to say something concise but accurate is:

Their undergraduate colleges vary considerably in size, with undergraduate enrollment ranging from 4,078 for Dartmouth College to 13,700 for Cornell University, but are generally larger than the traditional "liberal arts college" (e.g. the "Little Ivies") while smaller than a typical public state university.

Dpbsmith (talk) 19:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality issues

This article currently suffers from a number of problems. It makes broad generalizations about the Ivy League which, in my opinion, are reasonably valid generalizations for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton—the schools that come first to most persons' mind—but don't apply very well to the others.

The biggest problem is the assumption that premeates much of the article that the Ivies are a group primarily characterized by their academic excellence. The big issue being tap-danced around here is that, depending how you look at it, assuming you are not talking about the athletic conference, the Ivies are either a) a group of schools that are both academically excellent and socially elite (which IMHO is a legitimate third-millennium view), or b) a socially elite group of schools that is also academically excellent (which IMHO is the way they were regarded half a century ago).

That the Ivies are socially elite is as close to an objective truth as anything outside physics can be, and would be agreed to both by those who disapprove of elitism and those who approve of it.

Some of the Ivies do not have the same kind of ne plus ultra superlative academic excellence as the others. The Ivies are all academically excellent, and above excellent, but if you were going to try to find a cluster of schools that stand out from the rest based on academic excellence, you wouldn't end up with the Ivies. You'd have some Ivies in the list, but you'd almost certainly throw in some Johns Hopkinses and some Washington Universities and maybe a Duke or two.

The implications that the Ivies have a common heritage doesn't seem right, either. Historically, some were at religious odds with each other, some were more or less nonsectarian (Brown, Penn). Some of the ones founded before the Civil War had a very Oxford-Cambridge-classical-Latin-Greek type educational philosophy (Yale report of 1828), while Cornell (an outlier in many ways) was a most-Morrill-Act university in the "American University" mould.

I take it very badly that someone has seen fit to copy a number of items from the table in Colonial Colleges without also copying the references and footnotes that explain some of the more controversial dates and designations. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:09, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

• Since writing this, I've made changes which are intended to remedy the problems. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:44, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Charter dates

I don't think it's important to include the date of chartering, but I do disagree with the edit comment made by someone who removed the charter dates, to the effect that "There was no government in place before 1776 to charter each istitution so one must use its founding date." Of course there was a government in place, it just wasn't the United States government. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:56, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Reminds me of the old puzzle about the child born in Boston, Massachusetts to parents who were both born in Boston, Massachusetts yet who is not a citizen of the United States. Anville 10:39, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Nice! What famous prerevolutionary name is the canonical answer? Dpbsmith (talk) 12:38, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Citation for "common heritage" concept?

The "family tree" shown above appears to be the underpinning for the paragraph in the article beginning "The Ivies and their founders share a common heritage...."

Some of the individual facts in that paragraph are supported by source citations (e.g. the first president of King's College, Samuel Johnson, having attended Yale).

What has not been cited is a source for the concept of the Ivy League as a coherent assembly that is tied together by a common heritage, represented by the above "family tree."

Has this been published anywhere, and, if so, what is the source? We need an assurance that this is not original research by 4.228.213.16 (and thus subject to Wikipedia's "no original research" policy).

I personally am skeptical. By this sort of reasoning, Rutgers University is a child of Princeton because Henry Rutgers (Oct. 7, 1745 - Feb. 17, 1830) was a trustee of Princeton University from 1804 to 1817, Amherst College is a child of Yale because Noah Webster, who was influential in its founding, graduated from Yale, etc. etc. Are Cornell and Columbia really any closer to the core of this "heritage" than Rutgers and Amherst?

Despite my skepticism, as long as this "common heritage" concept can be shown to have been published in a reliable source (indicating it has widespread acceptance), it's acceptable content for Wikipedia. If it has not been published elsewhere, then even if it is a valid concept, it cannot be included in a Wikipedia article. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

P. S.

• Google Web search on "Common heritage of the Ivy League" no hits
• Google Web search on "ivy league" "share a common heritage" -wikipedia 22 hits, but the only relevant ones are to people quoting this Wikipedia article in support of their own views.
• Google Web search on "Ivy League family tree" 2 hits to people talking about their own family tree having Ivy League graduates in it
• Google Web search on "Family tree of the Ivy League" No hits
• Google Web search on "child of yale" "child of harvard" "child of oxford" No hits

Similar searches in Google Books are even less rewarding. In other words, doing some very quick checks, I was not able to find a source immediately for the "common heritage of the Ivy League" concept.

The fact that this Wikipedia article is already being cited here as an authority for the concept raises a certain amount of concern and suggests that if this cannot be shown to meet the verifiability policy and the citation and reliable sources guidelines it should be removed from the article fairly soon. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm moving the text here for now, as the concept has the telltale signs (mentioned above) of original research, and seems to imply, too, that only Ivy-League schools were founded by graduates of the Ivy League, as User:Dpbsmith pointed out with his example of Rutgers above.

The paragraph in question:

The Ivies and their founders share a common heritage. In England, dissident scholars from the University of Oxford founded the University of Cambridge. A University of Cambridge alumnus, John Harvard, bequeathed in his will a large donation to New College, which became Harvard University. Ten alumni of Harvard founded Yale, and other Harvard alumni, such as minister Increase Mather and his son Cotton Mather, nurtured its development. After the University of Pennsylvania opened, its founder Benjamin Franklin received honorary degrees from Harvard and Yale in 1753 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1762 [11].Alumni of Yale founded (or co-founded) other future Ivy League institutions: Princeton University by Jonathan Dickinson, Dartmouth College by Eleazar Wheelock, and Cornell University by Andrew Dickson White. James Manning, an alumnus of Princeton, co-founded Brown University. Clergymen of an Episcopalian church in New York City became alarmed by the Presbyterian founding of Princeton University (then known as the College of New Jersey) [12]. They established their own "rival" institution, King's College (Columbia University), and elected as its first president a Yale alumnus named Samuel Johnson, who also served as the sole faculty member in the college's early days. When King's College was renamed to Columbia College in 1784, Johnson's son William Samuel Johnson, also a Yale alumnus, became its president. After the University of Pennsylvania opened, its founder Benjamin Franklin received honorary degrees from Harvard and Yale in 1753 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1762 [13].

JDoorjam Talk 18:15, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

If you will notice, JDoorjam, I had [14] reinserted a modified version of the paragraph, by omitting the first sentence (which merely stated the obvious). A Google search on "Three Stooges 'comedic ensemble of thespians'" comes up with zero hits, but that does not mean that such a phrase cannot be written within an introductory sentence. It is not "original research" to describe the Three Stooges with that phrase. Likewise, I see nothing contentious, POV, revolutionary, or outrageous about the statement that the Ivy League institutions "share a common heritage", which was merely a summary statement to the sentences that follow. However, in the spirit of compromise, I removed it [15]. Penn is mentioned last as Dr. Franklin was not an alumnus of those institutions in the "strict" sense of the word. If you introduce him earlier into the paragraph, then it becomes confusing to the reader as to whether the alumni thereafter mentioned were "alumni-in-the-strict-sense-of-the-word", and thus destroys the continuity and flow of the paragraph.

4.228.213.202 19:52, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

What this section endeavors to state is not unique to the Ivy League. This boils down to the idea that academics from notable institutions go on to found other institutions. Examples have already been provided of other schools affiliated with Ivy-League graduates, though the more general idea that Ivy-Leaguers are more prone to found colleges and universities is also uncited (and, well, unstated). That academics from some very old schools helped found some other very old schools just doesn't seem that noteworthy to me, and is hard to state without either falsely implying that only the Ivies can trace their roots to alumni who in turn trace theirs back to other Ivies (or Oxford), or getting caught in a sort of meandering paragraph that then turns and talks about other schools which were founded by Ivy-Leaguers, and then schools that weren't, and then Ivy League schools that had notable non-Ivy founders.... It seems like a mess, especially when they full implications of the paragraph are simply that (1) the Ivies are old and thus there was a smaller pool of schools from which founding academics could themselves hail, and (2) apparently the Ancient Eight were elitist even in their founding. JDoorjam Talk 20:31, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

"That academics from some very old schools helped found some other very old schools just doesn't seem that noteworthy to me." I personally find it noteworthy. You can definitely say that these institutions had more than a passing familiarity with each other before the formation of the league. People unfamiliar with the history might assume otherwise and believe that they were set up in the complete isolation from one another, as could very well have happened with the different religious sects competing for congregations in the early days of primitive transportation. Why did these congregations think that setting up a college or university was the answer to their needs? Which of the Ivy League members was founded, or co-founded, by alumni of the University of Edinburgh, or the University of St. Andrews?

" hard to state without either falsely implying that only the Ivies can trace their roots to alumni" That is an astonishing conclusion. Nothing in the paragraph leads to that conclusion. If I stated in an article about the Three Stooges that "The Three Stooges were a successful comedic ensemble of thespians who migrated from vaudeville to the movies, and in real life Moe Howard was the brother of the stooges Curly and Shemp", I would not be implying that the Three Stooges were the only successful vaudville-to-movies comedy team consisting of brothers; who would conclude that I was excluding the Marx Brothers for some nefarious purposes? As this is an article about the Ivy League, it seems reasonable to exclude mentioning Amherst and Rutgers in that context (for surely edit wars would be waged to remove them).

Another reason why this information should appear in the article is because people may have gotten their facts mixed up. Through casual conversations, they may know vaguely of the history, but think that alumni of Brown founded Princeton, and those of Yale founded Harvard. Why not provide the correct information in a place where people can find it?

4.228.213.204 23:33, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Offhand, I would have thought that information about the founding of Princeton should go in Princeton University#History of the University, information about the founding of Brown belongs in Brown University#The founding of Brown, information about the founding of Yale fits nicely into Yale University#History, and that readers seeking information about the founding of Harvard would expect it to be located at Harvard University#History.

I'm not convinced about people getting "facts mixed up." Some people may think that Brown's buildings are made of brown bricks, that the doors at Yale are all secured with Yale locks, or that Harvard is located in Harvard, Massachusetts, but these are not common misconceptions, and I don't believe "alumni of Brown founded Princeton" is, either.

And it's not at all clear to me what "In England, dissident scholars from the University of Oxford founded the University of Cambridge" has to do with the Ivy League. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:06, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Offhand, I would have thought that information about the founding of Princeton should go in Princeton University#History of the University, information about the founding of Brown belongs in Brown University#The founding of Brown, ... So by the same reasoning, you think that the information about the founding dates of the insitutions, their enrollment figures, and their founding religious affiliation should also be restricted to their respective pages? You then want to delete the table of the schools' mascots/shields? This article is about the Ivy League and the interrelationships of the institutions. It is useful to have all the related information in one place, rather than just scattered about. Certainly one area of the interrelationship is the founding of some institutions by alumni of the others. Likewise, there are articles on the periodic table and the solar system, and the members of those collections have their own detailed articles, with some overlap of information to facillitate comparisons.

I'm not convinced about people getting "facts mixed up." Well why put anything in the Wikipedia to begin with? Not everybody remembers the sequence. Certainly this interrelationship information is noteworthy. If you were to also add that "Harvard mandated that all its doors use Yale locks", and "Yale mandated that all of its recreational rooms use Harvard Arcade billiard tables [16]", that would be an interesting interrelationship to include in the Ivy League article.

And it's not at all clear to me what "In England, dissident scholars from the University of Oxford founded the University of Cambridge" has to do with the Ivy League. See Oxbridge rivalry, from which others may wish to draw parallels with Cotton Mather and Increase Mather and their feud with Harvard, leading up to the modern day Harvard-Yale "rivalry"; also see Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

4.228.216.49 01:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Why Penn's founding date needs a footnote

165.123.139.14 changed the listing for Penn's date of founding from "1740, named the 'Academy of Philadelphia' in 1749," with a long explanatory footnote, to "1740", with no footnote.

The edit comment is "only 1740 is listed in Pennsylvania State records located in Harrisburg."

I seriously question the edit comment and would like to see a source for this assertion. State records would, presumably, list the date of chartering," 1755 in Penn's case. I don't have time to track this down but I would be dumbfounded if Pennsylvania's seat of government in the 1700s was Harrisburg. And any state records would refer to Whitefield's planned-but-never-built charity school. But in any case, I don't see how state records could settle the matter, because the question is not "when did Philadelphia begin building a church for George Whitefield?" The answer to that question is 1740, and isn't disputed. The disputed question is "Is George Whitefield's church, with its planned charity school which was never built and never operated, the origin of the University of Pennsylvania?"

I support listing only the year 1740, but I think it is absolutely essential to add some kind of explanatory note.

To recap the story for those who haven't followed this issue at University of Pennsylvania and Colonial Colleges, there is a longstanding dispute between Penn and Princeton boosters as to which is older. Princeton claims a founding date of 1746. Penn once claimed 1749, but since 1895 has claimed 1740. Founding date is an important point of institutional pride, among other things because it governs the order of march in academic processions.

Neutral statements would be:

• "Since 1895, Penn has stated 1740 as its year of founding," or
• "Penn claims 1740 as its year of founding."

To simply report that Penn was founded in 1740 is not neutral.

(I'd add personally that while I think a case can be made for either 1740 or 1749, there is something a little dishonest about the way Penn presents things. Either it was founded in 1740 by George Whitefield as an Episcopalian institution, or it was founded in 1749 by Benjamin Franklin as a nonsectarian institution. Penn's campus sports statues of both gentlemen. But the thing is, when recounting its educational heritage, Penn prefers the Franklin/nonsectarian narrative, but when asserting seniority relative to Princeton it prefers the Whitefield's-school narrative).

Anyway, I think 1740-with-a-footnote is the best way to handle this. 1740 with no qualification or explanation won't do. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:34, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Penn's religious affiliations

I think the most neutral way to present this is to present Penn's self-stated "nonsectarian" heritage in the table... with the footnote explaining the issue. It's true that Brown University calls Penn's origin "Episcopalian," but I don't think it's neutral to use Brown's characterization as the table entry. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:34, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

To 68.80.254.34, who keeps changing Penn's origin to "Episcopalian and Quaker": Please discuss here. Please do not remove references that fail to support your own point of view. I've added yours re the charity school, and confess that I missed the point that the charity school did operate—but only starting in 1751.

But, even if we say that the charity school had some kind of institutional continuity with the Academy of Philadelphia... the description of the curriculum--"The curriculum for these boys focused on reading, writing and arithmetic, augmented by lessons on the general principles of Christianity. The students, ranging in age from eight to eighteen years, were to be prepared for employment in business and the 'mechanical arts.'"--does not sound to me like it merits the characterization "Episcopalian." In fact, as far as it goes, it sounds as if it precisely meets the description "nonsectarian," which does not mean "secular" or "atheist." And is utterly different from the origins of schools such as Harvard, which were specifically intended to train young men for the clergy.

When I think of an "Episcopalian" university, I think of something like The College of William and Mary, which required professors to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles as a condition of employment.

As for Quaker, I haven't found any evidence of any kind of formal Quaker affiliation at all (unlike Haverford or Swarthmore). If someone has some, I'd like to see it presented. Haverford, founded 1833, claims to be the oldest institution of higher learning with Quaker roots in North America which seems to me a clear statement that Haverford at least does not consider Penn to be Quaker.

WIth regard to the edit comment that Penn was founded by Quakers and Episcopalians, Benjamin Franklin is the only individual Penn mentions by name in their capsule account of Penn's heritage, and was neither an Episcopalian nor a Quaker. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The anonymous user who keeps reverting the description "nonsectarian" has, in my opinion, reached the level of persistence and refusal to discuss the change characteristic of a vandal, not a good-faith editor. The last revert referred to a 1895 Harper's Monthly article [17] on Penn's web site as a citation, but the article does not appear to support any description of Penn's founding as specifically Episcopalian or Quaker -- in fact, it appears to support the "nonsectarian" description, making reference on p. 287 to the multiple faiths represented among the trustees: "the senior minister of the Episcopal, of the Presbyterian, of the Baptist, of the Lutheran, of the German Calvinist, of the Roman churches, and thirteen other trustees." -- Rbellin|Talk 18:30, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The edit comment "19:18, 12 May 2006 68.80.254.34 (Incorrect fact was replaced with correct fact; jew conspiracy to make a Christian university nonsectarian)" makes it clear that a point of view is being pushed. The edit comment "According to John R. Reipe, Chair of Trustees" without giving any reference, seems misleading; even moreso is the Harper's reference which says the exact opposite, rather than supporting, the statement it is referencing.

The next time 68.80.254.34 makes an edit that makes the same assertion without providing a source, or that provides a misleading source, I will ask an admiin to block him. I don't think I should do it myself due to my involvement in editing the article. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

P. S. that Harpers article says on p. 288 (page 6 of 21 in the Web display) "From the circumstances of its origin it is non-sectarian: the first American university founded without administrative relations with any religious sect.... It has never had a chair or faculty of theology.... Had Franklin been an active churchman, had Pennsylvania been identified a hundred years ago with a powerful ecclesiastical polity, without doubt the influence of the University would have been as great in the West as that of Harvard or Yale. At last the academic world has caught up with Franklin's ideas. Harvard and Yale have long been non-sectarian. Ecclesiasticism, sectarianism are vanishing from American university life." In other words, this article makes a very strong statement of Penn's origins as being non-sectarian and associated with Franklin, who is said not to have been an "active churchman." Dpbsmith (talk) 20:36, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Franklin's honorary degrees

Benjamin Franklin's formal school was over by age ten. He attended Boston Latin as a grammar school student. He had no high school education, certainly not a university education of any kind.

Franklin's honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, and Oxford, granted after he founded Penn, are about as relevant to Franklin's educational philosophy as Frank Sinatra's honorary Ph. D. from Stevens Institute of Technology is to Sinatra's vocal technique. Sinatra was not an engineer, and Franklin was not himself a product of the Ivy League (or the schools with were to form the Ivy League), nor was he a product of Oxbridge. I don't see any rationale for mentioning Franklin's honorary degrees in this article. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Ivy League as group of schools vs. as athletic conference

An anon has implicitly raised the question of whether the phrase "Ivy League"

1) Properly applies only to the athletic conference

2) Properly applies both to the athletic conference and to the group of eight universities that participate in the conference.

I think I've nailed #2 with a reference to the Princeton website, which says "the phrase is no longer limited to athletics, and now represents an educational philosophy inherent to[sic] the nation's oldest schools." "What is the origin of the term, Ivy League?". Retrieved 2006-05-17.

In addition, the American Heritage Dictionary defines "Ivy league" as NOUN: An association of eight universities and colleges in the northeast United States, comprising Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale. ADJECTIVE: Of or resembling the traditions of the Ivy League. ETYMOLOGY: So called because of the ivy-covered older college buildings."

That's not perfectly clear, but if they meant to restrict it to the athletic conference I think they would have said so.

Merriam-Webster Online says: "One entry found for Ivy League. Ivy League Function: adjective 1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of a group of long-established eastern U.S. colleges widely regarded as high in scholastic and social prestige 2 : of, relating to, or characteristic of the students of Ivy League colleges."

This confirms the interpretation as "group of schools" (and, incidentally, confirms social prestige as a characteristic, if that were ever in doubt).

This immediately suggests another questions: does Ivy League refer primarily to the athletic league or primarily to the group of schools? I don't know whether that can be answered without original research... but, as a reality check, I am about to look up the twenty most recent references to "Ivy League" in the Boston Globe and see how they pan out... the Boston Globe being a) a source to which I have access, and b) one that is close enough to Harvard that it is at least likely not to underweight the athletic association.

Here we go. I'm prefixing each of them with my judgement, "ATH" for "athletic association," "ACAD" for "group of eight schools considered as universities, not as athletic participants," and "CULT" for non-academic, non-athletic characteristics associated with those schools.

1. ACAD,CULT "Recently, one Opus Dei citadel in Manhattan embraced the media in an effort to counteract the problematic image. New York magazine ran an item a few weeks ago with photos of three handsome, well-scrubbed guys in their 20s and 30s. One works at an architecture firm, another is a grad student. They all look like Ivy League-educated bankers."

2. ATH: "Outfielder Steve Daniels was named co-Ivy League Rookie of the Year. Second baseman Bryan Tews (.390) earned the league's batting crown."

3. ACAD: "Students who attend public schools also worry that their high school education ill-prepared them for the rigors of the Ivy League. 'I was so used to being perfect, not only in my own eyes, but in every one else's," said Bryce Caswell, 21, a pre-med junior at Harvard from Portola, Calif.'"

4. ACAD: "Speidel noted that area students who cannot afford an Ivy League education might be able to meet the relatively low tuition rates $3,000 to $4,000 a year he expects would be charged by the Polish university...."

5. ACAD,CULT: "Dartmouth, the last college in the Ivy League to admit women and the home of the right-leaning Dartmouth Review, dealt quietly with sexual orientation for years."

6. ATH: "She has served the past four seasons as first assistant and recruiting coordinator at Princeton, which was 21-7 overall and 12-2 in the Ivy League last season. Both records were the best in school history."

7. ACAD,CULT: "In some cases, cheating may be an effort to get a decent night's sleep, not a means to gain admittance to an Ivy League college."

8. ACAD: "I see students accepted at Ivy League schools and other distinguished universities."

9. ATH: "Nathan Moffie, a three-time All-Ivy League outfielder who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania last year..."

10. ACAD: "Herman W. Daley, a Boston native who went to the Ivy League and then returned as a neighborhood activist, died Thursday when he fell from the roof deck of his South End brownstone." (He was a Penn graduate).

11. ACAD,CULT: "Ladies, Caveh Zahedi has a confession that doubles neatly as the title of his quasi-docu-comedy. 'I am,' he says, 'a sex addict.' Before that, he was merely a horndog, but one of Ivy League stock and high philosophical principle." (Maybe ONLY "cult" here; the article doesn't indicate what school he want to or what they mean by "Ivy League stock.") (Our article on Caveh Zahedi says he is a Yale graduate so ACAD applies. His parents are not exactly Boston Brahmins so I'm not still not sure what "Ivy League stock" is supposed to mean...)

12. ACAD,CULT: "While I graduated from Amherst College in 1999 and possess the equivalent of Nick's Ivy League education, I am more like Gatsby in his constant outsider status; however, unlike Gatsby, I enjoy being the outsider."

13. ATH,ACAD: "She'll head to college looking to balance the rigors of academics and athletics at an Ivy League school. She's hoping there's enough time to see a concert or two." (Article is about a star high-school tennis player.)

14. ATH,CULT: "Squash? Isn't that the oddball British game that Bill Weld used to play, the fey older brother of racquetball that The New York Times called 'Wall Street's favorite sport' and no one else's? The sport so exclusive to the Ivy League and so exhausting that it was once described as 'a herd-thinning device for Alpha-WASP males'?"

15. ATH: "Chris Mackey drove in five runs as Harvard beat host Dartmouth, 23-9, in the second game of a doubleheader to win the Ivy League Red Rolfe Division."

16. ACAD,CULT: "As one girl, a college senior, told me: 'You hook up with someone. Then, if you like each other the next day, in the sunlight, you might go out.' Seems to me that they've got things backward at her Ivy League college. There's the grim reality that once clothed and sober, they may find they have absolutely nothing to say to each other."

17. ACAD: "Meanwhile, Dartmouth, uniquely among Ivy League schools, requires undergraduates to take a mathematics course."

18. ACAD: "At an elite school where teenagers juggle honors courses and compete among some of the city's most advanced students, some said they feel pressure to get perfect grades and participate in extracurricular activities, which they deem necessary for admission to Ivy League universities."

19: ATH: "Emily Balmert, a freshman from El Cajon, Calif., became the first Harvard woman to win the Ivy League championship during the rain-shortened tournament in McAfee, N.J." (Reference is to a golf tournament)

20. ATH: "Glen Miller left one Ivy League job for another, splitting for Penn after seven seasons at Brown" (Glen Miller being a coach)

As I say, the compilation and classification of these quotations is original research... but it does confirm at least to my own satisfaction that the use of the term for the athletic association proper; for the group of eight universities, considered as universities, that belong to the association; and for cultural overtones of social prestige and elitism... are all completely legitimate, and that the article is reasonably in balance in that regard. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I hope typing this up here does not violate Fair Use criteria.

Ivy League A confederacy of eight elite private universities that agree to play one another in football each year so that at least a few of them might emerge with winning teams. Notable for conferring lifelong prestige on their alumni and lifelong complexes on thousands of respectable students who never made it past the dean of admissions.

—Rick Bayan, The Cynic's Dictionary (1994, ISBN 0-688-12922-6)

Cordially, Anville 21:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Unexplained redirect from "Ivy Plus"?

Oddly, Ivy Plus redirects to this page, but is not referenced in it. It appears that "Ivy Plus" is used differently in a number of different contexts to include the 8 Ivy schools plus some number of additional institutions (MIT, Stanford, etc.,). --Sommerfeld 01:43, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

At some point in the past this article included a reference to the term Ivy Plus, including a list of schools that are generally included. However, at least of few of the editors felt that the term didn't belong in this article (or perhaps they were frustrated by the ever-changing list of schools that were included in Wikipedia's list) and removed the information. At first I thought I had found a semi-definitive list of universities belonging to the "Ivy Plus Group" [18]. However, on closer inspection however this seems to be a local organization in Minnesota, so it's unclear to me whether there is any formal agreement between these universities. One solution for the redirect would be to start a separate article for the term; it's clear that this term is in fairly common usage, but its definition is nebulous. Still, there are a bunch of resources from the Ivies (+) that use the term, [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30]; but, again, the schools included change from once source to another.

Actually, from the way it's being used in some places, the term Ivy Plus seems to be an acknowledgement from the author that while the Ivy League has only eight members, using Ivy effectively gets across a message about academic and social prestige. In other words, Ivy Plus sometimes seems to mean the eight Ivies and their peer universities... just you (either you, the reader, or you, the author) pick and choose who those peers are. In other places it indicates a more formal coalition between universities in some specific domain, but not something that is consistent across domains. btm _talk 05:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the examples... I'm trying to figure out whether there's any way to word a succinct definition. Extracting such a definition from the examples would, of course, be original research, but it's still useful to do. I certainly don't think "Ivy Plus" means any particular group of universities. It appears as if whenever an organization, representing major universities, is formed for some specific common purpose, and the group turns out to be mostly Ivy League members and a few others, "Ivy Plus" is often chosen as a handy name for the group. Since the group wouldn't have formed unless the universities had a common need... the group members are by definition approximately peers in whatever-it-is-they-were-formed for.

It is clearly not correct to say anything like "MIT is an Ivy Plus university" or anything like that.

I think the only way to put this in the article neutrally, if we want to do it, is to observe that "the name Ivy Plus has been used for a variety of different ad hoc organizations that happen to include the Ivy League schools and a few others," and then give examples and references.

Cornell being a bit of an outlier among the Ivies, I wonder whether there has ever been any reference to "Ivy Minus" (for the other seven schools). No, not serious, just making trouble...

P. S. If we decide to say something about Ivy Plus, let's work out exactly what gets said here before putting anything into the article, or we'll have another uncontrollable situation in which people wander in dubbing any school they like as an Ivy Plus willy-nilly. Excuse the sour tone, but an anon is currently exhibiting pitbull determination to designate Vassar as one of the Little Ivies. By the way: does anyone know exactly how long it takes to grow ivy on a wall? Are ivy-covered walls always the result of deliberate planting? Some of the MIT dorms have ivy on them, and they're presumably less than a century old.... Dpbsmith (talk) 15:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

It takes fully 94 years for ivy to grow along a college building... ivy is a particularly finicky plant when it comes to finding the right type of brick or stone to grow on. No, not serious, just making trouble... ;) btm _talk 20:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Hah. Not even close. The Harvard alums who used to live next to my parents planted ivy as ground cover, and they kept it pruned back. They moved away maybe 10+ years ago, and the ivy is now taking over, climbing/covering every tree in the vicinity..--Sommerfeld 21:35, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the right answer then is to break the redirect and set up a disambiguation-like page which lists a number of groups which use "Ivy Plus" and similar names, starting with the list identified by btm. For what its worth, at least one of them (perhaps describable as a cartel...) coordinates undergraduate admissions policies and timing.--Sommerfeld 16:15, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

That was the Iby league itself + MIT; and it ran into an anti-trust suit some time ago. Septentrionalis 20:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Violent crime and suicide at Ivy League universities

User:Mercuryboard suggests that Violent crime and suicide at Ivy League universities should be merged here.

I don't think this is a good idea, because the length of that article would overwhelm the existing content.Articles on universities should not restrict themselves to happy-talk admissions-department content. However, violent crime and suicide are generally perceived to be negative, and I think some would perceive its inclusion to constitute a criticism of Ivy League universities, and that perceived problems with neutrality in the article would lead to instability in the article content. That's just my $0.02. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The article tries to describe violent crime and suicide at 8 universities that happen to be in the Ivy League. Are the ivies notoriously dangerous? Is this list all-inclusive? If this information is even encyclopedia-worthy, it should be either expanded into an article about crime and suicide at all universities, or merged into Ivy League as a criticism of the Ivy League (if that's supposedly a common criticism). I considered nominating this article for deletion per WP:NOR. -mercuryboard^talk ♠ 16:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it should be merged. In addition to Dpbsmith's rationale above, the crime/suicide article is not about the league itself, but rather about events that happen at the individual schools.

I don't think the Ivies are notoriously dangerous, although some (like Penn and Yale) have certainly had that reputation in the past.

I disagree that the article should be expanded to include all universities, any more than the List of people who died in the bathroom should be expanded to include all people who died everywhere, because it makes bathrooms look dangerous. Crime at a college or university is both notable and relevant--ask the parent of any college student. I think don't think nominating the article for deletion is justified in this case.

A problem that most university articles in Wikipedia have (ask anyone who edits them regularly) is that they are largely written by students, employees, and alums, who obviously love their alma mater, and who write only positive facts, sometimes slipping into pure fluff and boosterism. The Ivies are certainly no exception. Few of them mention anything negative whatsoever (Penn and Yale are the only 2 I can think of), and anything perceived as critical is often removed as "not relevant". It is in fact these main university articles which are generally biased, to the point that they sometimes look like puff pieces written by the admissions department for the school in question. Trust me, I know: it's difficult not to get emotionally involved in an article about your own school, but the goal is to have fair and balanced (in the true sense, not the FOX news sense) articles. A link to another article that mentions some unpleasant truths is not an unreasonable addition to any article. -Bindingtheory 17:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the merge is a good idea, but that's primarily because in my opinion Violent crime and suicide at Ivy League universities is currently original research in the sense prohibited by Wikipedia's policy. Its facts are correct, at least those of them that I know, but original synthesis of existing facts is still original. Unless the ideas of "Ivy League suicide" or "Ivy League violent crime" (note that no argument or source connnects these two, a marker of the article's current idiosyncracy) can be documented (the way sources were found that at least minimally substantiated the "HYP" idea), the article doesn't belong on Wikipedia at all. If it were established as a widely held idea worthy of encyclopedia attention, which seems possible to me, then a short summary with a link to a more detailed article would belong here. -- Rbellin|Talk 17:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Please continue this discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Violent crime and suicide at Ivy League universities -mercuryboard^talk ♠ 17:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

IvySport.com

Please check out the page [31] in the Ivysport website. Their description of the Ivy League seems to be completely lifted from this page, including logos and whatnot. I'm not sure if this is something that Wikipedia looks at or is concerned about, but I thought I'd just bring it to the attention of other editors. Masonpatriot 20:27, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Remove "Social Elitism"

The citations that relate to this are works of FICTION! Duh! See it here:

1. ^ Auchincloss, Louis (2004). East Side Story. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0618452443. p. 179, "he dreaded the aridity of snobbery which he knew infected the Ivy League colleges"
2. ^ McDonald, Janet (2000). Project Girl. University of California Press. ISBN 0520223454. p. 163 "Newsweek is a morass of incest, nepotism, elitism, racism and utter classic white male patriarchal corruption.... It is completely Ivy League—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."

If my request for removal of this POV, biased observation is not accepted, then I request that in the Wikipedia article of Newsweek the following be added:

"Newsweek is a morass of incest, nepotism, elitism, racism and utter classic white male patriarchal corruption" (McDonald, Janet (2000). Project Girl. University of California Press. ISBN 0520223454. p. 163)

Isn't that a great quotation? You'll have to shop it around at Talk:Newsweek to get it into that article, though. JDoorjam Talk 18:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Janet McDonald book is not fiction.

But, in any case, work of fiction are often good illustrations of the social milieu and attitudes of the time. As always, Wikipedia allows facts about opinions. In this case, the fact is that these works of fiction contain the cited passages... which in turn, are, I would insist, accurate reflections of widely held perceptions of Ivy League.

Whether or not these perceptions are true is another matter, of course. But the standard is verifiability, not truth. The perceptions exist.

If you believe these opinions are not representative of popular perception of the Ivy League, they can and should be balanced by good, verifiable source citations in which people say that the Ivy League is meritocratic, not infected by snobbery, etc. Since it is almost unchallengable that the Ivy League was elitist in the past, these would probably take the form of source citations in which characters say this is no longer true. And perhaps it is not. But if Porcellian has ceased to exist, the news has not yet reached these parts.

I've tinkered the text to make it clear that these illustrations are from a novel and a memoir (not sociology treatises). Dpbsmith (talk) 20:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Also:

"Imagine a guy like me from Texas associating with an Ivy League elitist like Governor Roemer of Louisiana." — George H. W. Bush; Bush, George (1993). George Bush: 1989. U. S. Government Printing Office. p. 1134 Dpbsmith (talk) 20:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

A less jocular version of essentially the same remark: "Mr. [George H. W.] Bush said recently he is mistakenly being viewed as a "kind of Ivy League elitist." Oreskes, Michael (1988) "Poll Reveals Gains by Democrats Among Vital Middle-Class Voters," The New York Times, August 7, 1988, p. 1 Dpbsmith (talk) 20:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

"To get into Ivy, the oldest, most expensive and most patrician eating club at Princeton University, candidates must sit for 10 one-on-one interviews with members, whose attempts to plumb their souls touch on what their parents do, where they spend summers and who their friends are. Then the entire century-old club votes on prospects in all-night sessions. Like an English men's club, there is a blackball rule: if one of 130 members vetoes a candidate, he or she is rejected—'hosed' in the tart campus vernacular. Lately, more and more students are being hosed who don't fit Ivy's image as a haven for Eastern establishment, Social Register types, what one former member called 'a club full of sons and daughters of C.E.O.'s.'" "..."A few years ago, Ivy became more democratic and socially open.... But now the pendulum is swinging back..." Yazigi, Monique (1999), "At Ivy Club, A Trip Back to Elitism" The New York Times, May 16, 1999, p. ST1. Partially online at [32] Dpbsmith (talk) 21:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Ivy Club is a few dozen upperclassmen out of some 4000 undergraduates; soon to be more. Septentrionalis 00:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

However, Ivy Club is one out of many eating clubs, at which, the article on Eating clubs tells us, "nearly three-quarters of upperclassmen) at Princeton take their meals." And half of those clubs are "selective." What, exactly, are they selecting for?

Remember, what's under discussion is whether it's neutral and objective to say that the Ivy League is perceived as being socially elite. Well, nothing like the eating clubs exists at Average State U., where three-quarters of upperclassmen take their meals at one of the University Dining Halls, and a "bicker" is a petty squabble with the cashier, and nobody even knows what a Social Register is (let alone a Dilatory Domicile). I don't think it's a stretch to say institutions like the eating clubs create at least a perception of social elitism. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

What are they selecting for? Various things; in the case of Tiger Innat least one eating club, athleticism and the ability to drink large quantities of beer.

Average State University will have its social life controlled (rather more extensively) by fraternities and sororities, which are usually selective. Septentrionalis 19:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, just to be clear: which are you challenging:

• the statement that the schools of the Ivy League "are perceived as socially elite?"

Or merely

• my mention of the above article about Ivy Club as support for the existence of that perception?

(Your point about fraternities at Average State U is a good one...)

Dpbsmith (talk) 19:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

(revert left and make subhead); Primarily to the example. However, looking at the article, I find the claim of reputation somewhat iffy.

• There is, or was, a class, ethnicity, or style (upper-class WASP) which is sometimes called Ivy League.
• Auchincloss is writing about a character born 1918 (see p. 169). He is therefore, as usual, writing about his own youth, before the Second World War; when the Ivy League schools were smaller, and much more homogeneous, than they now are.
• What McDonald actually says is that this class is independent of the eight schools mentioned in the article; Ivy League degrees won't get her into it.

I would take the whole thing out of the intro and make a separate paragraph out of it, as a separate meaning of the term. Septentrionalis 20:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Ivy Leage and the Presidency

Ah. This deserves being quoted at length: Lehigh, Scot (2000): "An (Ivy) League of Their Own: Never Before have Yale and Harvard So Clearly Dominated a Presidential Campaign." The Boston Globe, August 13, 2000, p. F1.

It's ability, not pedigree, that matters. Or so we're told. Believe that? Consider this.

Come fall of 2001, when "The Game" - the yearly gridiron clash between Harvard and Yale - rolls around, both the Democratic and Republican tickets could be there in the stands.

Of the four candidates, three are Yalies, one a Harvard man. Joseph Lieberman, Al Gore's running mate, has two degrees from Yale; George W., one from each school. Dick Cheney, Bush's second, did two years, on and off, at Yale before finishing at the University of Wyoming. Gore went to Harvard.

"The two major parties are competing to see who can pay greater homage to American diversity, and their own version of diversity is three guys from Yale and a guy from Harvard," jokes Ralph Whitehead, professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Indeed, so exclusive is this particular election that even the third-party candidates have Ivy League diplomas. Green Party champion Ralph Nader got his undergraduate degree at Princeton before earning a law degree at Harvard. Pat Buchanan, who passes as the scrappy mutt in an Ivy League litter, went to Georgetown undergrad, before getting a master's at Columbia.

What makes the Ivy League's lock on the 2000 presidential campaign even more remarkable is that it comes when the elite schools are supposedly less revered in everyday American life.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Really, the title says all. Jabobs, Sally (1993) "Wanted: Smart Sperm Firm Welcomes Ivy League Donors." September 12, 1993; Metro section, page 1. "None [of Cryobank's activities] have generated as much discussion as the laboratory's active recruitment of Ivy League students. Some object to Cryobank's advertising the campuses where it does recruiting to the doctors who actually buy the sperm, arguing that it hints strongly of genetic selection. Just how consumers will respond to Ivy League sperm—which costs the same $135 to $165 per vial as the state college variety—if they know they have a chance of getting it from a Cryobank donor, remains to be seen.... 'I've had couples say, "I don't want Harvard sperm, I don't want some snobby donor," ' said Carol Frost Vercollone, an infertility counselor in Stoneham. 'What they say about MIT, I shouldn't even repeat it.'"

A perception of Ivy League social elitism, even in recent years? I think so. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Logos

There is a discussion to clarify our policy/guideline on the use of sports team logos. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Logos#Clarification_on_use_of_sports_team_logos if you wish to participate in the discussion. Johntex\^talk 16:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

enrollments, endowments, endowment per student

The student enrollments now reflect the numbers from the school sites.

The endowments reflect the last endowment numbers from the business officers themselves, and released at the same time. So a reader gets numbers that he/she can really compare (which is why we put them together in a list.)

The endowment/student reflect the first number divided by the second, which is objective.

Lists of endowments, enrollments, etc. are there for objective comparison by the reader. Let's present the numbers that way.

Athletics

Should there be separate pages for the Ivy League, as in the athletic conference, and the Ivy League, as in the academic association? --Cliedl 22:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

• It is just an athletic conference. The academic "association" assumed stems from their collective ages (see Colonial colleges) and their mutual association in the athletic conference. All the associations or distinctions you may wish to offer extend from those two factors...their exclusivity is a result of their age, because age builds prestige and prestige builds the prerogative to be exclusive. It's only logical that these schools would create the Ivy League in the 1950s, for their intercollegiate activities to preserve that exclusivity (College of William and Mary and Rutgers University, the two other colonial colleges were invited to join, but declined). If one of those new, less distinguished schools, like Slippery Rock University were as old, they'd be just as comparative in academic distinction and exclusivity. But everyone knows, the Ivy League isn't what it used to be, and for the price, the people who really know something will tell you that you can get a better education at Bowdoin, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore...even Reed...etc. So much for any academic association. Separate pages are not necessary, since the associations are mutual, and the discussion about their antiquity is pretty much discussed here adequately, and supplemented by the historical information at Colonial colleges. —ExplorerCDT 23:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a myth that Rutgers and William & Mary were invited to join the Ivy League but declined. The presence of Cornell in the league indicates that the league is made of schools that regularly played each other, not Colonial colleges per se. W&M, at least, was not playing the Ivies during much of the 1880s (when many sports were becoming popular) because it was not in operation. Neither Rutgers nor W&M could join the league today because both still give scholarships to some of their players. Explorer, do you have any evidence that the Ivy League even asked W&M or Rutgers if it wanted to join? —Editing 15:38, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Penn's motto

"Laws without morals are useless" is the translation specified in Penn's web style guide and the one used in Penn's article. The context would seem to be exactly the situation where the Penn web style guide would apply. Is there a compelling reason for us to present the motto in a different way than the way Penn wants it presented? Dpbsmith (talk) 13:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Especially since "in vain" should be futiles; vanae is properly "empty", to which "useless" is more or less equivalent. Septentrionalis 14:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak directly to that. All I know is what I read on the Penn website. IMHO if Penn wanted it to be translated "You see more legs in a bus than a van," that's what we should use. I did actually take three years in Latin in high school, but absolutely all I remember from it is that utor, fruor, fungor, potior, and vescor take the ablative. Mind you, I don't know what the ablative is and I don't know what any of those words mean... but by golly they sure do take the ablative. (I have this vision of prepositions shooting through the atmosphere at supersonic speed with great burning fireballs streaming off them).

Personally, I like the translation "loose women without morals."

I do sometimes say "O tempora, O Moses," but when I say that I'm quoting Edgar Allen Poe, not Cicero. Of course it doesn't matter because nobody gets either reference. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

P. S. If I'm wrong about utor, fruor, etc. please don't tell me... it would break my heart. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

That would be uncivil :-). (If Penn wanted "You see more legs in a bus than a van" I would add a footnote, citing the oddity; but since Penn's translation is sound, I think there is no discussion here.) Septentrionalis 16:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

It's way too bad that whoever is in charge of Penn's PR is not merely ignorant of Latin but ignorant of the force of the school motto. Mores are not morals (at all) but "(established) customs, use, manners" etc. I would take the "locus classicus" too be Caesar's remark (in the Gallic Wars) that among the Germani good customs (mores) achieve a better society than good laws can (scil. among the Romans). I suppose if one wanted to be very fancy-ass, vanae could be rendered "jejune" or "nugatory". "Useless" is not quite the right sense; "pointless" comes closer to it. (The real sense of the phrase, if not exactly a translation, is "good customs work better than good laws").

And as for the whole idea of an "official translation", it's hard to see that "officialness" can trump the fact that the plain sense of the Latin is otherwise. A bit Humpty-Dumptyish.

--And yes, those are the verbs whose direct objects are in the ablative case.

Further on mottos, that of Dartmouth is a biblical quotation (Isaiah 40:3); clamantis is the genitive of a nominalized participle "of a person calling out". ("Voice crying in the wilderness" would be vox clamans etc. --The phrase is a bit misleading out of context, which continues: "...prepare the way of Yahweh, make straight in the desert a highway for our God". (I believe that this is regarded now as a mistranslation of the Hebrew; more correctly, "A voice cries out: prepare the way of Yahweh in the desert", etc., etc.) Alsihler 21:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

If you can find a citable source that comments on how Penn's motto should be translated, it would make a worthwhile footnote, here and on Penn's page. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Endowment per student

I think this is original research and should be removed. If standard sources do not compute and present endowment per student, I don't think we should be computing them ourselves. Furthermore, I think it's a form of academic boosterism, specifically the kind that consists of a form of "selective citing:" compiling and/or citing oddly chosen or strangely restricted rankings in which the favored school does well... e.g. "MIT ranks #1 in library size among schools that have the word 'technology' or 'polytechnic' in their names." Dpbsmith (talk) 12:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok. You convinced me. I vote for deleting. Anybody else? Anybody else disagree?

Strongly Disagree - Dividing two non-originally-researched figures to make a new number should not qualify as ‘original research’, especially given that ‘endowment per student’ is a widely cited and talked-about figure (Google search: 14,700 results). For charities, citing absolute endowment is obviously much more sensible, as it is a measure of the capacity of that charity to do good. For universities, the primary role of the endowment is to improve facilities and subsidize the education of individual students. The former role suggests adjusting for size of university because the usefulness of additional resources is proportional to the number of people making use of those resources, and the latter role directly suggests adjusting for student size. I am also not sure which ‘standard source’ does not compute endowment per student, per your rationale. A per-student measure (in that case, ‘educational expenditure per student’) is used by US News in its rankings, whereas endowment or absolute expenditure is not factored into that ranking at all. Finally, your example of a totally-convoluted measure (which has, presumably, never been cited) bears no resemblance to the simple per-capita measure being used here (which is widely cited, as noted above). Thus, I cannot see any remaining rationale for removing the per-student figures, and I am replacing them ASAP. If you disagree, please revert and continue the discussion here. Mgcsinc 13:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• I've now updated the endowment figures to reflect those from the 2005 NAUCBO study (only Harvard's figure strayed from those values). It is preferable to have figures here that were all computed at the same time, and not to dynamically update, as this makes comparison difficult. Dynamic updating can still take place in the entries for the individual schools, as that does not invite comparison like this list does. I then computed endowment per student figures using the enrollment and endowment figures on this page. Please feel free to make (AND DOCUMENT HERE) small changes if I've done something incorrectly, but join the discussion here if you have larger changes to make, and lets come to a real agreement. Thanks! Mgcsinc 13:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

• • I think the problem is that endowment numbers are misleading, and endowment per student is a a further derivative on an already misleading number. For example, consider the us news 2007 student indebtedness values below.

• • • Cornell 23450
    • Penn 21133
    • Dartmouth 19305
    • Columbia 16541
    • Brown 15940
    • Yale 14166
    • Harvard 8769
    • Princeton 4370

• • That Princeton is most generous is expected in light of endowment per student, as is the low ranking of Cornell and Penn. But why are Yale and Dartmouth so cheap compared to far poorer Brown and Columbia? While we could explain based on restricted/unrestricted endowment use, etc., my thought is that the reader could draw faulty conclusions if he assumes wealth as implied from the manufactured endowment-per-student value translates into better financial aid or even better faculty (whatever that means, and however measured). Let me know what you think.

Ivy League business schools is up for deletion

Here. Please offer your thoughts and ideas. --AaronS 17:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Cornell University endowment

I wish to inform you that in keeping up with the currency of information served through wikipedia.org it is impreative that accurate data is reported at all times. Cornell's endowment has swollen to a whopping $5 billion. This should be updated to accurately reflect this noble institution's financial standing. Any changes to this should be verfied before being implemented. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwadade (talk • contribs)

There's been a slow revert war going on about the endowment numbers for a while now, and it should be settled somehow. I'd first like to ask editors to recall Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism and remember that the "nobility" of no institution is in doubt here, nor is it a competitive matter to be settled by the size of their checkbooks. Second, though I'm unaware of the specifics here, it seems to me that piecemeal revisions of these numbers ought to be avoided, and a single neutral source should be used for all of them if possible rather than relying on press releases from each. If using slightly older numbers is the only price we pay for a uniform and reliable source for endowments, then I'm all for it. This is an encyclopedia, not a breaking-news site. -- Rbellin|Talk 19:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with RBellin. I would add, too, that when endowments are presented in a list it's implied that they are to be compared by the reader. The problem with breaking news updates is that some values are more recently updated than others, and therefore at least some cannot be compared. I am ok with new breaking numbers on the school's own page, as the number is not really for comparison.

Also, different sources show different numbers. This Cornell help wanted ad shows 4.4B in long term investments (which more or less means the endowment, but is usually slightly more.) Please see https://www.insidehighered.com/employment/dashboard/?event=ViewJobDetails&job_posting_id=8337. This said, let's use 6/2005 numbers (the latest official and all at the same time). In 1/2007 when NACUBO releases the 6/2006 set, Cornell can presumably enjoy boasting its endowment gain. I'm going to change the number back now, with the understanding that we're keeping the NACUBO so that readers can compare "apples to apples". I'm fine with you doing whatever you want on the Cornell site.