New England out of eight Ivy League schools, New England contains the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tufts University, four of the original Seven Sisters, the bulk of educational institutions that are identified as the "Little Ivies", one of the eight original Public Ivies, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium in central Massachusetts, and the Five Colleges consortium in western Massachusetts. The University of Maine, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Vermont are the flagship state universities in the region. At the pre-college level, New
Rhode Island Towers now serve as an event venue and host the local Chamber of Commerce, which operates a tourist information center. The Newport Tower has been hypothesized to be of Viking origin, although most experts believe that it was a Colonial-era windmill. Rhode Island Rhode Island (), officially the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest state in area, the seventh least populous, and the second most densely populated. It has the longest official name of any state. Rhode Island is bordered by Connecticut to