The people have spoken! It’s been roughly 24 hours after we posted our lovely little poll asking what the worst motto in the Ivy League was and the results are in: Cornell’s English-language douchebaggery is vindicated, topping the rest by a landslide with 113 votes (or 31.9 percent) indicating that an Ivy motto without Latin is like a Leaguer without a trust fund.

Coming in behind Cornell (yuk, yuk) is Dartmouth’s emo-teardrop motto, with 24.3 percent of the voteage. Just makes you ask, “if a Keggy cries in the forest and no one hears it, does it still make a sound?”, doesn’t it? Additionally and apparently, mottos without references to “God” or “Truth” just can’t hack it in the intense bloodsport competition of our poll. Take that as you will.

Conversely, then, it can be inferred that our incredible sample size of 354 (of roughly 3,000 total visits) has also decided that Yale’s motto is the actual best, with Penn at a close second. Which means that we’ve either a lot of readers in New Haven or Newell’s fan club is hating all over this blog, as he requested in our very first post. Thanks for playing, kiddies. – ANDREW NUSCA

A good motto is like a one-night stand. Immediate, satisfying, and best explained in the least amount of words possible (“Yeah?” “Yeah.”). We here at IvyGate love ‘em, as indicated by our own sitting on top of this page. But it’s hard to match up to Motto Magazine (“Purpose, passion and profit,” in case you’re wondering), which is an entire glossy dedicated to the craft that was originally started by two Wall Street Journal alums.

Just yesterday, this incredibly niche magazine released its first annual Top 10 Motto List, and higher education was the target. The best? Our good friends in Ithaca, of course, with the sage, hallucinatory words of “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” Apparently, no points for brevity (or sobriety) were given. Not to be forgotten, rounding out the Top Ten were Brown (No. 2), Penn (No. 5) and Dartmouth (No. 7), with Harvard and Yale receiving Honorable Mentions for probably the first time in their little academic careers.

The top editors of Motto Mag are Northwestern and Vandy alums, so no apparent swing there, but no word on the rest of the staff and how that may have influenced the final list (clearly, some vendettas against Columbia and Princeton, the only two of the Ancient Eight to leave without recognition). But we here at IvyGate feel the list is suspect, since no explanation behind the choices is given.

But wait! The neutral Ithaca Journal’s got an answer:

The beauty of Cornell’s motto is that it captures an aspiration that transcends the generations, and every Cornelian believes they have experienced it,” said Tommy Bruce, vice president of communications for Cornell.

Uh, OK. So we at IvyGate are taking matters into our own hands in protest of this bizarre list and polling the people, not the editors: What’s the worst motto in the League?

Read the rest of this entry »

They say 80 percent of success is just showing up, but in the age of the hacker, it might be closer to 100. According to Yale officials in the Yale Daily News, the social security numbers for more than 10,000 current and former students, faculty and staff were compromised last month following the theft of two university computers.

In case you were wondering, the computers were stolen from the Yale College Dean’s Office — hey, did someone forget to lock the door? — on July 17. Apparently the ‘puters were password-protected, but we’re hedging our bets that the password is “h@rv@rd$uck$01” or something. Yale says the computers were probably stolen to be sold, as if the computers in university administrative offices are worth far more than the MacBook Pros and the Dell XPS laptops that students regularly leave lying around campus.

Um, yeah. Oh, and the kicker?

“The lost files had not been maintained for any purpose,” Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said in the Yale Daily News, “but were overlooked in the University’s efforts at reducing the amount of personal information it holds.”

Um, nice work, guys. Spring cleaning ended months ago. Of course, Yale sent out letters warning individuals to check bank and credit reports, but chances are whoever made off with the numbers — which probably includes Aleksey Vayner’s and suddenly justifies the theft — is already high-tailin’ it for the border…or Cambridge. (Or Princeton?) – ANDREW NUSCA

Rumors on the interwebs, and by that we mean an anonymous tipster, says that the Yale Chapter of Beta Theta Pi was disbanded by the fraternity at last week’s “General Fraternity” meeting.

Why? Besides the typical run of “keg violations,” “massive debt” and other problems, it seems “recent events” might have provoked action.

What recent events, you say? I don’t know — might want to ask the New Haven chapter of the NRA.

According to our tipster, the frat adjourned just days ago. IvyGate is looking for more information, dear readers. Anonymity guaranteed. Send the goods to ivygate.guest@gmail.com. – ANDREW NUSCA

Lucy Morrow Caldwell.

Just yesterday, this name elicited a firestorm across teh_interwebs when Slate ran a “report” showing that Rudy Giuliani’s 17-year-old daughter Caroline, Harvard ‘11, was a de facto member of the “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)” Facebook group.

Links were exchanged, hatred spewed forth like only the ‘Net can provide and backlash — yes, backlash — ensued, offering up the idea that Ms. Caldwell turned a blind eye to news integrity and unleashed this bit of “breaking news” on the world.

Did Lucy Morrow Caldwell invent breaking news for her own benefit?

According to multiple sources, she just may have. Why? Let us ask you this: Is the joining of a Facebook group by a minor who is not eligible to vote truly a reason to get CNN’s news ticker all ticked-off?

For the record, we at IvyGate think Caldwell’s motives are suspect. After all, how long was Giuliani a part of that group? Was it breaking just because someone who is not one of her friends on Facebook noticed? Remember — the noose-tightening line in Caldwell’s piece is that she removed herself from the group at an otherwise-uncollegiate-for-the-summer 6:01 a.m. But where was the news when she originally had joined it?

We’re actually on the side of Insider Chatter on this one:

If Slate’s Lucy Morrow Caldwell is aware of corporate owner WP’s Pentagon Papers and Watergate investigative heritage, it is NOT evident in her “undercover” Facebook reporting. Howard Kurtz is billed as the Washington Post media critic, but he is content to regurgitate a college intern’s inept public posting of a fellow Facebooker’s profile.”

Ouch, and that’s coming from an editor who’s actually been billed as “Howard Kurtz, Jr.”

Do we really care about Caroline Giuliani’s political views? Here’s a little justification to how little this matters for her, thanks to a blistering New York profile of Caroline’s stepmother Judith:

When I ran into Rudy at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner in late April, he told me Judith skipped the event because “she’s up taking care of our daughter [Whitney] at Skidmore.” The locution “our daughter” was hardly calculated to repair his frayed relations with the biological children he shares with [Donna] Hanover, especially 17-year-old Trinity-prep-school senior Caroline, who uses Donna’s surname and reportedly didn’t bother telling him when she was accepted recently by Harvard. (“In the next few months, Rudy really has to repair his relationships with Andrew and Caroline,” says a Republican strategist. “He can’t be the Republican nominee and have his kids estranged from him. That ain’t gonna cut it.”)”

So when the scrutiny comes down on the younger, collegiate Giuliani’s profile, which reveals a “liberal” slant — the most popular of political views on Harvard profiles, and for that matter, Facebook in general — IvyGate smells some agenda-setting.

Allow us to take a look at the even-handed journalistic history of one Ms. Lucy Morrow (that’s with an “o”, not a “u”, as in Edward R.) Caldwell:

Read the rest of this entry »

In a previous post, we told you that a well-known group of, uh, “religious” people came all the way from Topeka, Kansas to stir the ‘ol pot o’ hatred in front of — but not actually within — Cornell. Well the good old reporters at The Ithaca Journal have come through again with the first posted pictures of the congregation in action in Ho Plaza yesterday, so I felt I should pass it along to all you concerned folks on the ‘Gate.

(no, I’m not going to venture into a “Ho” pun.)

Hot, steamy pictures of homo-haters after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

I swear, I was in complete agreement with Newell about no more nerd postings…but I didn’t want to send you off to a weekend in the heat unfulfilled.

According to a recent article in The Ithaca Journal, STARFLEET, a non-profit “Star Trek” fan association, has announced that it will hold its annual conference in the land of the gorges in 2008.

OMG LYKE BEAM ME UPP, BITCHEZZZ!!!1! TREKKIES UNITE!!1

Apparently, the organization has 200 chapters and 3,800 members worldwide — with about 200 expected to attend the Ithaca event. Best of all, the chairman for the 2008 International Conference is none other than an IT security engineer at Cornell:

We’re hoping to get a lot of people from out of town to come and check out the Ithaca area and sharing the joy that is ‘Star Trek’ geekiness,” said Daniel Adinolfi in the article.

Apparently he’s not the only Cornellian in on the act, as Rick Kline, data manager for Cornell’s Spacecraft Planetary Imaging Facility and self-professed Trekkie, will be giving a tour of the solar system.

(As you can see, this is exactly the place where one might apply the aformentioned virginity figures in the Ivies.)

According to the conference’s website, the theme of the conference is “Back to School” and the chapter will “be taking full advantage of Cornell University.”

Umm…I’ll leave that for you to decide what that means. 

If you’re in town and want to attend, the conference is June 27-29 at the Ithaca Airport Ramada Inn. Just don’t forget that Ithaca’s bragging rights include beating out Greensboro, N.C. and Oklahoma City, Okla. to host the conference. What now!?!

I CAN HAS TREKKIEZ! – ANDREW NUSCA

Sex in the champagne room? Not for elite college students, according to a recent study. Apparently, libido’s a lot lower in the upper ranks. Intelligence and sexual drive just simply don’t mix.

Yeah, yeah, knew that, thanks IvyGate. But what if I told you that…

ZERO percent of Wellesley Studio Art majors are virgins?

That’s right. Not. A. Single. One. That’s, like, a whole 20 percent from the next closest major, those randy-ass kids in the Anthropology department. You paying attention, Crimson?

Wait, no you’re not, ’cause 59 percent of you are virgins. And neither are Princeton kids, for that matter — you’re at 56 percent.

Apparently there are a whole lot of people too busy watching Sex and the City and Entourage episodes to, you know, um, actually get down to it. But fear not! Those liberal arts kids are turning the tables, and the sexin’ is happening somewhere in isolation in Tiny Collegetown, USA. The contrasting Wellesley by-major breakdown below:

As someone in the IvyGate office mentioned, “Studio art girls PUT. OUT.”

Not only does this confirm every stereotype in existence about art-school girlfriends — um, and liberal arts colleges (which includes you, Brown), and undeclared majors, and students in the hard sciences (yes, I said hard, get your mind out of the gutter for Christ’s sake) — but that lends so much more insight into Newell’s previous post about a certain presidential hopeful.

Ugh. What was Hillary’s major again? Political science? Nevermind, that explains everything.

Nevertheless, there are all sorts of shockers in this data treasure trove: Neuroscience comes in third? Philosophy is only middling? Computer science comes in fifth, at 40 percent virgins?

Jesus lord. On that note, what the hell’s going on over at MIT? (Actually, nothing — according to the full study, only 65 percent of MIT GRADUATE students have had sex. Oy.)

Maybe some explanation, courtesy of a University of Texas study:

Another idea, consistent with popular media portrayals of geeks and nerds (males at least), is that intelligent people actually want to have sex, but are simply less likely or unable to obtain willing partners because they are disproportionately viewed as unattractive or undesirable as partners.

To bring it full-circle, classic insight from the Harvard Independent into the evolutionary psychology of Harvard dating:

Let’s take the typical Harvard girl and give her the same complementary attributes, and what you have is the ubiquitous problem of the “H-Bomb.” Whether you realized this or not, your acceptance into Harvard eliminated 99.99% of the world’s male population from being your potential love interest. Societal “standards” have deemed that you should date an Ivy-leaguer. And yes, I realize that it’s like some sick, twisted perpetuation of social Darwinism. There are slim pickings, dears, when you look at your pool of candidates. On top of the fact that you have been sucked into the cult of Ivy-cest, the “lower” Ivy males are scared of you like none other. You attend the school they were rejected from.

So what does this all mean? I don’t know, I majored in journalism and I haven’t had my coffee yet. But I swear, they must be putting something in the water up there.

So Ivy women, speak up! Surprised? E-mail ivygate.guest@gmail.com with your stories and we might compile them into one big anonymous list of sexual anecdotes proving or disproving our little theory. It’ll be like a digital Tom Wolfe novel, all on your RSS feed.

Oh, and by the way? Extrapolated, it also means there’s are 50-50 even odds on Diane Sawyer’s status while she was there as an English major.

Yeah. Exactly. – ANDREW NUSCA

While Rupert Murdoch’s fugly mug steals the front page of every major newspaper this morning, it’s Harvard’s endowment that’s featured front-and-center in today’s Money & Investing section of the Wall Street Journal — and according to the paper, the endowment fund graduates as many sought-after money managers as the university graduates future journalists.

But all isn’t good in Crimson Country this morning, as the Journal reports that the university lost $350 million last month through an investment in a hedge-fund firm founded by former Harvard foreign-stock holdings manager Jeffrey Larson.

Seems that Harvard education — in this case, experience — isn’t quite paying off. How’s that old saying go? You shouldn’t shit where you sleep?

Though $350 million is a “relatively small hit” for the nation-leading $29 billion Harvard endowment, the Journal says it’s a good case of maybe-not-quite-what-to-do for the rest of academe: “It highlights the risks as colleges nationwide embrace nontraditional investments such as hedge funds and private equity.”

As it turns out, Larson isn’t the only high-profile former Harvard-endowment manager with a mixed record since departing from Cambridge, leading the Journal to conclude that Harvard might be paying its managers a bit too much — in the millions, more than Nobel Laureates and deans — to manage Harvard’s big baby.

Now this kind of news ain’t exactly kegstands and Sharpie-shaming, but it means a lot more for the continued existence of the fabled Ivy heirarchy Newell mentioned in his last post. After all, when it comes to a pissing match, it’s all about distance — and there’s no ignoring the New York Times’ golden profile of Yale’s money man earlier this year.

Ball’s in your court, Elis. – ANDREW NUSCA

From the elevation-challenged lands of Topeka, Kansas comes this morning’s jolt of intolerance, thanks to the Westboro Baptist Church (homepage: godhatesfags.com). Seems the anti-everything bretheren are up in arms over the “perverts,” “fags” and “dykes” emerging from far-flung Cornell, and they’ve decided to head toward Ithaca to forgive transgressions, er, I mean spread the joyous Word in honor (persecution?) of Cornell’s LGBT Resource Center and general allowance of gay pride.

According to the release, the anti-religious group will be out in full force this Thursday at the ungodly (ha!) hour of 8:30 a.m. in an undisclosed location, all thanks to the First Amendment. The text, in all of it’s Samuel L. Jackson-as-Jules Winnfield-esque glory:

This is a seat of higher learning in America, an Ivy League no less, which is filled with perverts running things, and they are trying to make fags and dykes out of all of their students. They, like the rest of America, have taught and CONTINUE to teach full-blown rebellion, to teach their sons and daughters to be snakes just like they themselves are and their father the Devil. Matthew 23:33- Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? John 8:44- Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. Jesus Christ called them poisonous snakes! He is not a wimp, and He is going to continue to bereave you of your children until he finally executes the Judgment upon you as he did the Sodomites (Genesis 19) and countless other nations (the Canaanites, the Benjamites, the Philistines, Pompeii, Egypt). America is doomed! She shall be laid desolate! The siege is coming!

Confused yet? Yeah, I am too, and I actually tried to stay awake in Sunday School. To add fuel to the fire, the date on this tour of love comes after the previous day’s stop at a New York high school to picket the memorial of five deceased cheerleaders, or “raised-for-the-Devil, American whores.” All because the school was “promoting sodomy among students” through a diversity club. Talk about not catching a break.

With a history of making waves on Scarborough Country and Hannity & Colmes and protesting at services for killed Iraq vets and Virginia Tech students — oh, and reportedly saying the Holocaust was “miniscule” — it’s sure to be a tailgatin’ good time. Hell, when FOX News calls you “radical,” it’s gotta count for something. Word has it that a counter-protest among the Big Red ranks is in the works, so to any Cornellians with a nice view from the ivory tower, be sure to send along the visual goods at ivygate.guest@gmail.com.

Oh, and Aleksey Vayner has nothing to do with this. We just need to get our irrelevant potshots in early. – ANDREW NUSCA