`Korean Youth Must Dream Big and Ponder Global Issues`

The Korean American set to take over Dartmouth College told The Dong-A Ilbo yesterday, “I intend to spend as much time possible with students after taking office to reflect their opinions in school management.”

Jim Yong Kim said, “Korean students should be in harmony with other ethnicities and understand their culture to get into mainstream society (in the U.S.).”

The Ivy League comprises eight prestigious private universities on the East Coast: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Pennsylvania, Columbia and Dartmouth.

In 1902, an official athletic conference was created among the eight schools. American media began to use the term Ivy League in the 1930s since many of the historic buildings of the eight schools were covered with ivy, symbolizing their age and tradition.

The Ivy League is considered a cradle of education known for academic excellence and social elitism. Many U.S. presidents and politicians graduated from one of the eight schools, including U.S. President Barack Obama (Harvard) and his predecessor George W. Bush (Yale).

For these reasons, a degree from any one of the eight schools is considered a shortcut to success in America. Nearly all of them place near the top of world college and university rankings.

Asian students account for about 18 percent of the Ivy League student body. Jews comprise just two percent of the U.S. population but about 20 percent of Ivy League students.

The academic excellence of the Ivy League has also led to similar nicknames for other prestigious American universities. “Ivy Plus” refers to Stanford, MIT, Chicago and Johns Hopkins, and “Public Ivys” to the universities of Michigan, Virginia and Texas.