Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Public Ivy League

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Public Ivy League was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was delete

Public Ivy League[edit]

Reason I recommended this article for VfD: This article is utter nonsense. There is no Public Ivy League, unofficially or officially, and as such was not created in response to the Ivy League (an intercollegiate athletic conference established in the 1950s). The nickname of a "public ivy" started to add a certain sense of prestige to old schools that ended up under state control, but there are too many schools today that could adequately consider themselves "public ivies" even though the term has never really gotten legs of its own outside of an institution's marketing goals.

4.239.225.211 has placed this nonsense on the College of William and Mary, and Rutgers University articles and trying to presumptiously add these two institution's seals to the Ivy League page, despite neither of them being a member. However, the seed of this problem started with 4.239.225.211's redundant edit on the Colonial Colleges page, the user's first edit. These disruptive edits have been reverted by myself and others, over the last few days.

This article is vain misinformation with no potential to become a fruitful encyclopedic article. Furthermore, the material is covered several times on other pages (including the abovementioned) in a more appropriate and less vain manner. If at best, it could only be a dictionary definition. However, improvement upon this article will continue misrepresentation that such an entity exists beyond its reality as a nickname used every once in a while for marketing purposes. —ExplorerCDT 16:13, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Votes to Delete:

  • Delete, for reasons stated above. —ExplorerCDT 16:13, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • What?! Delete it a lot. Look, the (dumb) term "public ivy league" has been used informally (informally) by a lot of people, and it sure as h*ll isn't a term that originated with Rutgers and, of all places (!) William and Mary (which is private, not public). It's usually used to refer to the state universities that rival the Ivy (football) League in academic quality, and it therefore has schools like Wisconsin-Madison, UVA, UNC-Chapel Hill, UT-Austin, and, of course, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, and CalTech. Blug. The article misinforms and is preposterous. Geogre 18:10, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Comment: to Geogre—William and Mary became a public institution in the 1920s, Virginia took it under its wing when the College almost went broke. Thanks for your vote. —ExplorerCDT 22:24, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • It did? Wow. I had no idea it had gone public. Still charges those private school tuitions, though. Geogre 22:51, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Inaccurate. The term Public Ivies is real, if loosely defined. (2580 Google hits on exact phrase). (Geogre, how could you omit the University of Colorado? Go Buffs!) It's just a complimentary term for the best of the public state universities in the U. S. There is no "Public Ivy League." That phrase is sometimes used, much less frequently (Google says 102 hits, or 4% as often), to mean the same thing as "Public Ivies." It actually does appear that Rutgers is trying to define "Public Ivy" to refer specifically to two schools (Rutgers and the College of William and Mary). To do this, they apparently define "ivy" to mean "one of the nine colonial colleges" rather than "member of the Ivy League," which is incredibly stupid and annoying.. But you'll notice that they do not use the term Public Ivy League. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:38, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Comment: But if you notice, dpbsmith, the use of the term "Public Ivy" is only on the Rutgers marketing...um...admissions page. It's the "New and Improved" tag for certain colleges. Thanks for your vote. —ExplorerCDT 22:24, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, codswallop Wyss 23:15, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. "Ivy" is not "Ivy League". The Smith, Wellesley, Holyoke and the Little Three are generally considered "Ivy", as Bowdoin, but that doesn't make them "Ivy League", either. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:14, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)
    • Rutgers wants to do this? Now I have a reason to dislike Rutgers. (Colonial, huh? Hmm. That would make for some very strange company in their league.) Geogre 22:51, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Votes to Keep:


Abstain:

Comments:

For what it's worth, the phrase "public Ivy" probably originated in, (or at least became widely known from) a 1985 book by Richard Moll entitled "The Public Ivys [sic]: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities." ISBN 0670582050. I Googled some stuff about UVM in which folks view with alarm its supposed decline from "public Ivy" status and referencing that book, as well as many other references to it. Unfortunately, or fortunately?, Moll has apparently never produced an updated edition. Once an Ivy, always an Ivy? Presumably his book, and the universities described there in, is the definitive authority on what constitutes a "public Ivy."
Wait, there's more. http://www.fsu.edu/~future/allen.html references the book and says that Moll identified eight "public Ivys" and nine "Up and coming." According to her, the eight actual public Ivys are:
University of California System, featuring UC Berkeley
Miami University of Ohio
University of Michigan
UNC
University of Texas
University of Vermont
University of Virginia
College of William and Mary
So, guess what: apparently, Rutgers is not a "public Ivy". [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:24, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Where'd the "Nyaahh, nyaahh! Pflbflbflbflbpftttt!" go? I actually liked that touch. BTW-FYI, in looking through the archives of at the Alexander Library in New Brunswick, I found that Rutgers started using the phrase "public ivy" back in the early 1960s, shortly after it officially became the state university of New Jersey in 1956. However, several references in the 19th Century, including Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee... referred to the "over-ivy'd schools" (in reference to Yale and Harvard) and in others as "the Ivies" and "Ivy Schools." I am still seeing how early the phrase "Public Ivy" came into being, but I would assume it would be after the Ivy League athletic conference started materializing in the late 40s, early 50s. —ExplorerCDT 05:05, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would just like to second Dpbsmith's comment, that Public Ivy League is an officially used term by several of the colleges below, I don't know much about what every college does, but I did visit Miami of Ohio when I was looking at colleges and can confirm that their representatives do call themselves a "Public Ivy" during recruitment and such, and list themselves along with the other involved universities, the term does have merit, but the article as written is completely wrong.Lyuokdea 05:16, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Actually, in theory someone with time on their hands could construct an NPOV list of "colleges self-described (by their admissions departments or other official spokesmen) as 'public Ivies.'" [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 13:52, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Don't give them any ideas...remember what happened when someone said a certain page on VfD would be like having a list of movies with characters named Bob...and then it magically appeared (and was subsequently VfDed). —ExplorerCDT 16:51, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

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