To many, the term "Ivy League" means a collection of New England schools with distinguished professors, famous alumni and not-so-great athletic teams.
But, despite what prospective applicants might think, the eight Ivy League schools do not constitute a unified group of allied institutions that act as one.
In fact, as evidenced by the recent difficulties by various campus organizations to bring together different Ivy League students, the eight schools of the Ivy League do not have much of a connection at all.
Efforts to unite students from the eight Ivy League schools -- Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Yale University -- have a history of organizational and communicative difficulties.
A recent example of this is the Upper Valley blood drive, which began yesterday and ends today.
The College's Student Assembly had tried to organize an inter-Ivy League competition, to see which school could raise the most blood.
But collaboration between the eight schools failed, and the blood drive competition is now between the four classes at the College.
Kristin Veley '00, a member of the Assembly community service committee, said a late start on the organization of the blood drive and unenthusiastic responses from the other Ivies precluded the possibility of an inter-Ivy blood scenario.
Of all the schools contacted, Veley said only Harvard replied.
"The other Ivies are being really lame about it," Assembly President Jon Heavey '97 said.
Veley said the Assembly is still interested in establishing a precedent for inter-Ivy events, "hopefully next year."
Steven Wolkoff '97, vice president of Hillel, the College's organization for Jewish students, said he has found Ivy League students unwilling to work with each other.
Wolkoff said he has been communicating with leaders from other Ivy League Hillel organizations since last term to plan the celebration of an inter-Ivy Jewish Sabbath.
Earlier this term, Dartmouth Hillel invited Jewish students from schools throughout the Ivy League up to New Hampshire to "hang out and go skiing," he said.
After initial enthusiasm, the event "kind of didn't happen" because it became too hard to organize, he said.
"Timing hurt us," he said. "Leaders weren't ready ... some didn't feel like doing it."
Wolkoff said one school declined to participate because the event was scheduled for this weekend -- the same weekend the re-released movie "Stars Wars" opens in theatres.
Another major problem was the staggered length of academic terms within the Ivy League -- when students returned to Hanover in the first week in January, students at the other Ivies were still on break.
Wolkoff said the preparation for an event of this scale entailed a year of planning and coordination.
"We set our goals too high ... maybe next year," he said.
But inter-Ivy League differences do not necessarily ensure the failure of cooperative endeavors.
In the fall of 1995, female students from nearly every Ivy school succeeded in printing a one-issue magazine titled Women of the Ivy League.
Sara Johnston '97, the central Dartmouth staff figure for the magazine, said the magazine was a response to the "Women of the Ivy League" pictorial in the October, 1995 issue of Playboy.
Johnston said emotional momentum stemming from Playboy's visit to the Ivy campuses was a driving force in the publication of an inter-Ivy magazine.
The majority of the staff and contributors had been involved in the large-scale campus events that preceded Playboy's campus visits, she said.
Despite a low budget, the staff and contributors printed an issue with a circulation of 300.
Another example of successful collaboration among the eight schools is the Ivy Council, a student government for the Ivy League -- and the Council's inter-Ivy forum for the discussion of issues affecting all the Ivy campuses.
Meredith Epstein '97, former president of the Ivy Council, said the group seeks "common ground" despite widely differing academic and social systems.
Cooperation cannot be gained without persistence, she said, whether it is "snail mail, BlitzMail and phone calls."
"You have to hope people on the other end are as interested as you are," she said.
