Greek life at the Southern Ivies

[nancyagd86]

Those of us who grew up among these schools often lovingly--and I do mean lovingly--refer to such group of schools as the Kudzu League. I don't know of a finer education offered than at some of these schools,especially since two close family members went to Vandy and various other friends and family went to other Kudzu schools, but the "Ivy League" was already defined before most of these gained prominence. And with the proliferation of Kudzu in the South...it's just a vine thing!

[AOEforme]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

I thought bubbler was more of a Wisconsin thing though?

I did, too! I didn't know it was a Northeastern thing, too.

[ree-Xi]

My original statement was not intended to sound arrogant. As someone who, for more than 3 decades, associated "Ivy League" with a specific small group of Universities in the north east, it made me "giggle", because to me, it would be the equivalent of saying the Big East (basketball, not football) is "The Northern SEC". There is only one SEC, as there is only one Ivy League.

No pretentions, no arrangonce intended.

PS Tonic water = club soda.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

And yet it's a concept that has been around for at least 50 years or so. In the late 50s/early 60s, Vanderbilt invited four other Southern private schools -- Southern Methodist, Rice, Duke, and Tulane -- to form a new athletic conference: a "Southern Ivy League" (also called the "Magnolia League"). While there was some interest for a while, it never came to pass. SMU and Rice didn't want to lose their share of Cotton Bowl income, and Duke was not willing to forgo its traditional rivalry with the University of North Carolina. Since that time, the term "Southern Ivies" has been used widely in the South, though without an established definition or list of schools, to refer to schools that can be seen as Southern counterparts to the (northern) Ivy League. Sometimes it is used to to refer only to private schools, sometimes public schools like UVa or UNC (both included in Richard Moll's original 1985 list of "public ivies").

Too bad that your lifelong confinement to the northeast has led to ignorance and giggles.

This would have made so much sense to me. I didn't know it had been tried.