Southern Ivy

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"Southern Ivy" is a colloquialism that has been used in the U.S. to imply that a Southern university is comparable to the schools of the Ivy League in some way, usually in academic quality or in social prestige. The Southern Ivy League, referred to as the "Magnolia League", was also a failed attempt to construct an athletic conference with schools that had similar "academic missions and philosophies". [1] [2]

According to the controversial 2007 U.S. News and World Report rankings, the highest ranked schools in the South are Duke University, Emory University, College of William & Mary, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, Rice University, University of Florida, Wake Forest University, Vanderbilt University, Davidson College, and Washington & Lee University.

[edit] Efforts to create a southern Ivy League

The effort to create a Southern Ivy League conference originated during the 1950s. [3] Harvie Branscomb, then-chancellor at Vanderbilt University, originally attempted to establish a rivalry between Vanderbilt and traditional Ivy League schools to foster relationships with academically-oriented schools. The school followed through on this effort and played a game against Yale in October 1948. However, after Vanderbilt shut out the Bulldogs, 35-0, Yale said they no longer wanted to play Vanderbilt. This caused Branscomb to call a meeting with the presidents of other Southern private universities in the late 1950s — Southern Methodist University(SMU), Rice, Duke, and Tulane — where Branscomb suggested they try to establish a new sports conference where small, academically inclined private schools could compete. ^[1]

In the early 1960s, the idea for the "Magnolia Conference" gained popularity. In 1963, Tulane, was frustrated by its enabling competition notwithstanding within the Southeastern Conference schools since many of the schools had lower academic expectations for football and they considered withdrawing from the SEC to compete with schools with similar aims.^[2] According to the Rice student newspaper, it called the era a time when "the academic disparity between show-me-the-money schools and the schools less inclined to compromise academics was just beginning to become more evident". [4] The "Magnolia Conference" had the vision to "maintain high-end Division 1 budgets and schedules, while avoiding some of the crasser extremes of the big business of college sports". [5] However, the "Southern Ivy League" never got off the ground. Duke did not want to give up its rivalry with the University of North Carolina, and Southern Methodist University(SMU) and Rice were not willing to give up their share of the Cotton Bowl income. ^[3]

Over the years, many D-1 southern private schools continued to struggle to field competitive football teams. In the early 1990s, the student government associations from Duke, Tulane, and Vanderbilt, among others, pitched a plan for a football-only conference. Though the Universities remain intact.

[6].

[edit] See also

• Hidden Ivies
• Ivy League
• Jesuit Ivy
• Little Ivies
• Public Ivies

[edit] References

• Howard Greene; Mathew W. Greene (2000). Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning: The Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-095362-4. 

1. ^ Carey, Bill (2003). Chancellors, Commodores, and Coeds: A History of Vanderbilt University. Clearbook Press. ISBN 0-9725680-0-X.  p. 220-223:The Southern Ivy League
2. ^ Mohr, Clarence L.; Joseph E. Gordon (2001). Tulane: The Emergence of a Modern University, 1945-1980. LSU Press. ISBN 0-8071-2553-9.  p. 265-6: 1963 attempt to form a southern Ivy League
3. ^ Carey, Bill (2003). Chancellors, Commodores, and Coeds: A History of Vanderbilt University. Clearbook Press. ISBN 0-9725680-0-X.  p. 220-223:The Southern Ivy League