美國常春藤聯盟學校

今年5月， 美國常春藤聯盟學校應中國全國學生聯合會的邀請，首次組織在校大學學生會主席和主要學生領袖訪問中國。訪華團成員一共22名，全部來自哈佛大學、耶魯大學、普林斯頓大學、康乃爾大學、哥倫比亞大學、賓西法尼亞大學、布朗大學和達特茅斯學院等知名美國常春藤大學。在華8天時間里，代表團訪問了北京、武漢、上海三地。

Have you ever heard about “The Ivy League”? If yes， how much do you know about it? If no， it is extremely worth your attention. The following will give you a whole view and a deeply understanding.

The Origin of “The Ivy League”

The Ivy League was formed in the 1940s by the presidents of the eight schools to foster intercollegiate football competition.“ In such a way as to maintain the values of the game， while keeping it in fitting proportion to the main purposes of academic life.” It is a specific association of eight private universities and colleges in the northeast United States，comprising Brown， Columbia， Cornell， Dartmouth， Harvard， Princeton， the University of Pennsylvania， and Yale.

The “Ivy” part of Ivy League is a reference to the plants that climb all over many of the old campus buildings at each school. The term was inspired by a sarcastic comment from a sports writer assigned to cover a Columbia-Pennsylvania football game. When he received his assignment， he grumbled about “watching the ivy grow.” Another reporter overheard the comment and dubbed the prestigious group of schools “The Ivy League.”

The development of “The Ivy League”

At first， each school’s football team was supposed to play every other school’s team at least once every five years. In the 1950s， this arrangement was replaced by a yearly round-robin schedule， and expanded to include other sports. The term became official， especially in sports terminology， after the formation of the NCAA Division I athletic conference in 1954， when much of the nation polarized around favorite college teams. The use of the phrase is no longer limited to athletics， and now represents an educational philosophy inherent to the nation’s oldest schools.

Today， the Ivy League is part of the NCAA（NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION）， competing nationwide in football， baseball， basketball， and other athletics. Meanwhile， nowadays “The Ivy League“ is not just most commonly used to refer to those eight schools considered as a group， but also has connotations of academic excellence， selectivity in admissions and a reputation for social elitism.

The overview of the universities

Every student all over the world takes pride in being a student of The Ivy League. All of the Ivy League’s institutions place near the top in the U.S. News World Report college and university rankings and rank within the top one percent of the world’s academic institutions in terms of financial endowment. Seven of the eight schools were founded during Colonial Period; the exception is Cornell， which was founded in 1865. The Ivy League institutions， therefore， account for seven of the nine Colonial Colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although many of them receive funding from the federal or state governments to pursue research， only Cornell has state-supported academic units， termed “statutory” or “contract” colleges， that are a part of the institution.

What’s more， undergraduate enrollments among the Ivy League schools range from about 4，000 to 14，000， making them larger than those of a typical private liberal arts college and smaller than a typical public state university. Ivy League university financial endowments range from Brown’s $2.8 billion to Harvard’s $19.3 billion， the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world.

你聽說過 美國“常春藤盟校”嗎？如果聽說過，你對它了解多少？如果沒有，它絕對值得你去關注。那下面這篇文章將讓你對它有一個全面深刻的認識。

“常春藤盟校”的起源

常春藤盟校，是在20世紀40年代由八所學校的校長為促進校際間橄欖球比賽而成立的。他們希望“通過這樣一種方式，使學生們不僅在體育上相互競爭，更主要在學術上你追我趕”。常春藤盟校由美國東北部的八所學校組合而成：布朗大學、哥倫比亞大學、康乃爾大學、達特茅斯學院、哈佛大學、賓夕法尼亞大學、普林斯頓大學、及耶魯大學。

“常春藤”原本是指長在每所學校的許多舊校舍墻上的植物。這個詞最早是來自一位報道哥倫比亞大學和賓夕法尼亞大學橄欖球比賽的體育記者的諷刺性評論。當他接到采訪任務時，他抱怨那比賽就像是“看常春藤緩慢的生長”。另一位記者聽到了他的評論，就把這些久負盛名的學校稱為 “常春藤盟校”。

“常春藤盟校”的發展

起初，每所學校的橄欖球隊本該每五年至少交手一次。在20世紀50年代，這一安排改為每年舉行一次比賽，并且擴展到其他所有運動。隨著1954年美國大學聯盟第一區聯盟的成立，全國許多地方所喜歡的大學球隊都各不相同。在這之后，這個詞也變得十分正式，尤其在體育術語里。后來，“常春藤盟校”不再僅限于體育，而是現在代表著全美歷史最悠久的學校，這已是一個固有教育理念。

今天，常春藤盟校是美國大學聯盟中的一部分，參加全國范圍橄欖球、棒球、籃球及其他項目的比賽。與此同時，當今的常春藤盟校不僅僅是指我們常說的那八所學校，而且有學術優秀，入學選拔嚴格，因培養社會精英而聲譽卓著的含義。

大學概況

世界各地的學生都以作為常春藤的學生為豪。所有的常春藤盟校都在《美國新聞與世界報道》雜志的高校排名中名列前茅。同時，常春藤盟校也是全世界接受捐款最多的大學。除了成立于1865年的康乃爾大學，這八所學校中的七所都是在英國殖民時期建立的。因此，在殖民時期建立的九所高校，常春藤盟校就占了七所。雖然它們大多也接受聯邦政府或州政府資助以鼓勵學術研究，但只有康乃爾大學中的“法定學院”和“合同學院”是完全由政府支持的。

另外，常春藤盟校的本科階段招生人數從4000增加到14000，介于一所私人文理學院和一所公共州立大學的人數之間。常春藤盟校接受的捐款也從布朗大學的28億美元到哈佛大學的193億美元不等，哈佛大學也成為了全球接受捐款最多的大學。