Men
’s and women’s sports at Gavilan College are on the way to
having a level playing field.
Men’s and women’s sports at Gavilan College are on the way to having a level playing field.
The college athletics department, often criticized for a lack of participation from female student-athletes and few, if any, female coaches, is formulating a plan to bring parity to the program.
“When we put this together, our main focus was, ‘How do we improve our women’s programs?’ Because that’s where we need the most work,” Athletic Director Ron Hannon said. “This was a plan that I’ve been working on for almost two years now; it’s my vision for where I think the athletic department needs to go.”
Hannon, along with a Title IX task force, generated the Gender Equity Action Plan and informally presented it to the college’s board of trustees Tuesday. Title IX is a civil rights law passed in 1972 requiring equal opportunity for men and women in public and private schools.
The gender equity plan is in preliminary stages and has not yet been approved by trustees.
Spanning seven years, the plan highlights some of the improvements made since Hannon joined Gavilan in 2001 and maps out steps the college will take through 2008.
Some specifics in the plan include:
• Forming a Gender Equity Advisory Committee
• Conducting a Title IX program review, using an external consultant
• Increasing funding for women’s sports
• Hiring a part-time athletic/academic counselor to monitor student athletes’ progress
• Hiring a full-time women’s coach in 2005
“(Title IX) has been something that’s out there that we’re talking about on a regular basis. It’s not something that we’re trying to deny,” Hannon said. “We have a long way to go, there’s no doubt about that. But I know that the college as a whole, and the athletics department, is trying to get there.”
The first step toward gender equity and full Title IX compliance at Gavilan, Hannon says, is education.
“Title IX doesn’t apply just to athletics, it applies to every program on campus that gets federal funding,” he said. “Every single program on this campus is going to have to look at what they’re doing.”
Hannon points to the disparity in the two sexes’ enrollment in the college as one reason why participation in sports and other programs probably will never be half men and half women. The trend with enrollment, however, is the reverse of the trend in athletics: 63 percent of Gavilan’s students are female and 37 percent are male, according to college Researcher Terrence Willett. That excludes police and fire academy students, who are mostly white males and are enrolled through other colleges.
Participation opportunities must be proportionate to male/female enrollment.
The focus of the plan over the next four years is primarily on women’s sports. Today, only 26.5 percent of Gavilan student athletes are female; 73.5 percent are male. The college will increase funding for women’s sports and improve female participation by 5 percent each year.
“A lot of that’s going to be based on our coaches recruiting, being active in the community, especially our feeder schools,” Hannon said. “But we’re also going to have to reach out to those other schools that we can recruit in (from San Jose to Watsonville to Fresno).”
In improving the women’s sports, Hannon said, the men’s program won’t be reduced in order to create a balance.
Trustee Mark Dover said that, while the immediate focus is – and should be – women’s sports, the overarching goal is equity.
“There comes a point when we’re going to have to add full-time coaches and put more money in women’s athletics to put them on par with the male program,” Dover said. “We definitely need to address that issue. … I just believe that for a competitive athletic department to be a strong department, it should be skewed not just toward women or just toward men, but to bringing equity.”
Between six and eight people, including student athletes, coaches and other college instructors, will form a Gender Equity Advisory Committee this fall to oversee the plan.
The plan will be a working document, Hannon said, changing with the program and needs of students. This fall, the college will survey students at Gavilan and high schools in Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Hollister to get a sense of what students most want to see happen with the athletics department.
The athletic department already covered some ground since Hannon took the helm in 2001. Prior to his hiring, the three women’s sports – soccer, softball and basketball – were reinstated since nearly becoming extinct four seasons ago. Hannon also established a new golf team. There are currently four men’s sports.
The gender equity plan will help athletics fit into Gavilan College President Steve Kinsella’s plan to make Gavilan “the college of choice” for local students, Hannon said.
“Obviously, students want to be a part of (winning), so that’s something we’re working: having a quality program year in and year out,” he said. “We want Gavilan to be, consistently, their first priority, their first choice where they want to compete when they get out of high school.”
