The Ivy League

by Debra Carder

The Ivy League has come a long way since 1945:

1945 – The “Ivy Group Agreement” was signed along with the creation of the President’s Policy Committee.  February, 1954 became the official founding date.

  • December, 1969 – Clayton Chapman became the first Executive Secretary of the League.
  • 1971- The Presidents instituted on March 9th that freshmen be qualified on varsity teams with the exception of some sports and on December 15th a motion was agreed: “The Ivy Group rules of eligibility shall not be construed to discriminate on grounds of sex.”
  • 1974 – Prohibitions on some sports were lifted and the first official women’s Ivy championship was won by Radcliffe-Harvard women crew.
  • 1977 -  The Presidents became known as Council of Ivy Group Presidents
  • 1981 – Ivy League members played at a special convention of the NCAA that created the I-AA football division.
  • 1984 – Jeffrey Orleans was named the third Executive Director of the Council of Ivy Group Presidents
  • 1986 – Constance Huston was appointed as the First Assistant Director heading the Group’s compliance and public information duty.
  • 1989 – Having approved by the Council, the position of Assistant Director, the duties of compliance and public information was divided among the Associate Director Constance Huston (now Hurl but) acting on her compliance functions and Charles Yrigoyen, as the Assistant Director to fulfill his responsibilities in the information and championship roles.
  • 1990 – The Council sent 40 Ivy League seniors to play in the newly approved annual all star game to be held in Yokohama, Japan pitting against Japanese college and university students. The last annual game was in 1996 after which the game ceased.
  • 1991 – A 12 session practice for football in spring was approved by the Council instead of just one day of practice. It began in 1994.
  • May, 1998-April, 1999 – To celebrate the 25th year anniversary of the Women’s Championships, the League set a whole year of activities to commemorate the wonderful celebration which included traveling photographic murals that seems like a time travel to the tour of the eight schools and symposiums to 300 invited guests and also included a coffee-table book titled the Golden Moments.