Ivy League knew infected the Ivy League colleges". A business writer, warning in 2001 against discriminatory hiring, presented a cautionary example of an attitude to avoid (the bracketed phrase is his): The phrase "Ivy League" historically has been perceived as connected not only with academic excellence, but also with social elitism. In 1936, sportswriter John Kieran noted that student editors at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Penn were advocating the formation of an athletic association. In urging them to consider "Army and Navy and Georgetown and Fordham and Syracuse and Brown and Pitt" as candidates for membership, he exhorted: Aspects
Ivy League was formally designated as "Ivy Day" in 1874. Ivy planting ceremonies are reported for Yale, Simmons, Bryn Mawr and many others. Princeton's "Ivy Club" was founded in 1879. The first usage of "Ivy" in reference to a group of colleges is from sportswriter Stanley Woodward (1895–1965). The first known instance of the term "Ivy League" being used appeared in "The Christian Science Monitor" on February 7, 1935. Several sportswriters and other journalists used the term shortly later to refer to the older colleges, those along the northeastern seaboard of the United States, chiefly the nine institutions with origins dating from