All the ingredients seem to be there: 23 years of coeducation at Dartmouth, a federal government mandate and an equal number of varsity sports for men and women.
But possessing all the ingredients does not guarantee the final product will be successful. Such is the problem with Dartmouth's quest to achieve gender equity in athletics.
The path to equity in athletics has been filled with pitfalls and problems, and the College is still grappling with the reality of women athletes.
More varsity women
After two club teams -- women's volleyball and softball -- complained to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights about gender inequity in Dartmouth's sports program, the College announced last year it would fully fund both teams.
In a 26-page complaint, filed April 12, 1993, the softball team accused the College's athletic department of giving baseball varsity status because it is "a men's team."
In the complaint, the softball team argued that although 48 percent of the Dartmouth undergraduate student body is female, only 43 percent of the College's athletes are women and 42 percent of the athletic budget is allocated to women's programs.
The women's volleyball team became a full varsity sport in the fall, and the College's athletic department will bump the women's softball team up to varsity status next term.
When the softball team becomes a varsity sport, there will be 16 men's and 16 women's varsity sports at the College.
As a varsity team, the women's softball team will be able to compete in the Ivy League tournament and with other varsity teams.
These recent moves on the athletic landscape are a result of the sweeping changes mandated by Title IX of the Educational Amendment of 1972, which prohibits institutions that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of gender in any of its programs or activities.
"The proportionate number of women in the general student body was constantly going up, therefore your measurement of opportunities for women to participate in sports also had to go up," Associate Athletic Director Josie Harper said.
The diversion of funds in the name of gender equityhas raised interesting questions on whether achieving gender equity is worth the cost. Money hasbeen moved into the construction of the new $50,000 softball diamond at Sachem Field and into hiring of full-time women's team coaches and away from other planned projects.
Athletic Director Dick Jaeger said the College decided to move the two women's sports to the varsity level to put the College in compliance with Title IX in terms of the ratio of male and female athletes. Jaeger said the women's teams showed the interest and ability to move up to a higher level of competition.
Harper said moving the teams to varsity status will cost between $90,000 and $110,000 each.
Unfortunately, Jaeger said, the promotion of the two women's sports had a negative by-product -- leaving men's volleyball without funded varsity status and thus turning them into a club sport.
Club status discourages other varsity teams from competing against Dartmouth because games against non-varsity teams do not count toward the number of league games required for post-season play.
Varsity status also brings increased funds that allow privileges such as a College-funded coach, a maintained field, updated equipment and regular training schedules and facilities.
Mary Childers, the director of equal opportunity and affirmative action at the College, said the Office of Civil Rights does not encourage achieving equity in sports funding by cutting men's sports but by asking colleges to spend more money on women's sports.
"The pursuit of equity should involve realizing that if we always measure women by a male standard, the standard will sometimes be progressive and appropriate, sometimes far too low, sometimes absurdly rigid," she said.
Jaeger said while men's volleyball was originally an unfunded varsity sport, the department decided not to have unfunded varsity sports which require a great deal of administrative time and other liabilities.
Jaeger said club sports have the advantage of being able to run their own teams, hire their own coaches and manage their own funds through donations.
But men's volleyball captain Jeremy Longinotti '96 previously told The Dartmouth the move would virtually destroy the team.
"It is imperative that a form of varsity status be retained in order to maintain a competitive schedule," Longinotti said in September, right before the change was officially made.
"A change to club status will virtually guarantee that all past participants from the last several years will cease scheduling Dartmouth and that the progress we have made in becoming a member of the top division of the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association will be lost," he said.
The gender equity committee
Harper headed a committee looking at gender equity in College athletics two years ago. The committee submitted its report with an outline of objectives and plans to bring about equity to Jaeger and Dean of the College Lee Pelton on April 28, 1993.
Harper said the College has taken several steps to guarantee an equitable accommodation of athletic interests and abilities.
Childers said her office was deeply involved as a liaison between the Office of Civil Rights and the women's teams in their suit against the athletic department.
Childers said she was surprised by the gender equity committee's findings, which showed the College's efforts to increase the opportunities for women athletes were already well underway.
To comply with the final report, the College downgraded men's gymnastics and volleyball to club status and elevated the women's junior varsity lacrosse, field hockey and soccer teams from unfunded to funded status, as well as elevating women's volleyball and softball to funded-varsity status.
The College also targeted recruiting efforts to increase the number of participants in certain women's sports and followed an Ivy League-mandated decrease in the number of recruited football players.
The athletic department's actions range from increasing the scheduling flexibility for certain women's sports to providing tutoring and support services for women athletes to purchasing more weight training equipment appropriate for smaller athletes.
"You can't just do it in terms of dollars," Jaeger said. "You have to do it in terms of opportunity, and the equipment, the space and the coaching and the meal allotments when they travel -- it's not fair to have women eating boxed lunches and junk food and the men all eating steak and swordfish."
The College has also pushed for more equitable opportunities for women, regardless of the source of funding, Jaeger said. The College sometimes merges "Friends" gifts accounts for sports in which there are men's and women's teams.
Additionally, if one women's sport has no male counterpart for "Friends" giving, its budget will now be increased, according to an athletic department report.
"Friends" giving is money donated by alumni or other outside interests with the provision that the money go directly to a particular sport.
Jaeger said based on the analysis of the athletic department and the Office of Civil Rights, the College is in "very good shape" in terms of gender equity and will continue to make "small adjustments" to establish equity.
But he said the College's efforts to reach perfect equity are constantly in a state of flux, because as the student body composition changes, so do the dynamics of reaching that goal.
"If someone wants to challenge" the College's compliance with Title IX "at a given point in time, you got to see where your ratios are," he said. "You can never sit still because once you get there you just don't sit and relax -- you say, where are we still in need of making improvements?"
The legacy of Title IX
According to Harper, Title IX has led to unparalleled advances for women in the arena of collegiate athletics.
The legislation and College action have worked to guarantee "the young student athletes -- male or female -- are having the same type of experience," she said.
She said the sacrifices the College has had to make to accommodate Title IX are mainly a facility issue. As more teams are created, scheduling problems for use of fields and equipment may result.
In the 1992-93 academic year, women made up only 35 percent of the participants in Dartmouth athletics, but the number is expected to rise to 45 percent in 1996-97.
"Therefore the demands and requests of young women coming to different colleges are more varied. That's why Dartmouth can really keep its head high as to how it's moved along," Harper said. "We're out ahead of the pack as far as opportunities for women."
Harper said some of the larger Division I schools will have to make bigger cuts to comply with the law and adjust to a "different style of life."
For instance, the University of Massachusetts has taken more drastic steps than Dartmouth has taken. UMass recently increased women's scholarships by 66 percent.
In the Ivy League, Harvard University increased funding for five women's sports by more than $200,000, while Cornell University and Brown University have also added and reinstated women's sports after cutting a number of men's sports.
Kira Lawrence '96, who plays on the women's basketball team, said Title IX is a well-intentioned piece of legislation that has "helped open a lot of eyes," but is not without its problems which the lawmakers did not foresee.
"I don't think anybody wants to see anybody lose their varsity status, they just want to gain their own," Lawrence said. "But for any gains you make you're going to have some trade-offs."
"I really believe that before Title IX, there were a lot of inequities," Lawrence said. It "has helped women's athletics gain status and prowess nationally and on the individual school level as well. But I don't think that it should go so far as to deny men opportunities."
Childers said she agrees that Title IX is not a panacea that will sweep away decades of inequities in women's athletics. While Childers said she supports the opportunities the law has made possible, she said there have been averse effects for both the sexes.
She said in a push for women to enter terrain previously dominated solely by men, the College could be neglecting the special needs of women's physical well-being.
"What falls by the wayside is the possibility of increasing funding and respect for those noncompetitive, physically challenging activities women already engage in in large numbers," Childers said.
She cited activities such as aerobics and dance classes, in which many women participate, but for which no funding is available under the auspices of Title IX.
Childers said the aerobics instructors are often underpaid, the classes are too large and do not allow for individual attention.
Female athletes' experiences
Women's sports are often plagued with preconceptions that often do not ring true, according to many female athletes.
Lawrence said the difference among the sports with both male and female teams is the greater public appeal of men's athletics. For example, she said, there are frequently lines for men's ice hockey tickets, but admission to women's ice hockey is free.
She said regardless of how successful the women's basketball team is during the season, their fans are usually limited to a group of strong, nearly religious followers.
Sarah Lenczner '97, a goalie on the women's hockey team, and Lawrence both said some people view men's sports as more exciting because they tend to be faster and involve more physical contact. But both women said women's teams are equally dedicated to winning.
"I don't think that anyone feels they need to prove themselves on the based on their sex," Lenczner said. "You have to prove yourself based on your ability and your commitment."
Lawrence said because women's athletics are more protected and involve fewer physical feats involving pure strength, they concentrate more on skill and accuracy.
"I think that we concentrate more on skills because we can't do all these things that the guys can do," she said. "I do think we draw on that more than they do because we don't have the physical attributes they do."
Lawrence said she makes a strong effort to attend the games of her fellow female athletes, just as men go to cheer for their friends, because she understands the time and commitment being a College athlete requires.
"We really try to support one another and I really think that's special about Dartmouth's women athletics -- we back each other up," she said.
Lawrence said one of her experiences as a female athlete affirmed her love for the sisterhood of women's athletics. One year, she said, her team was being pressed hard by a coach who strongly wanted them to win but was somewhat distant and with whom it was difficult to communicate.
"I remember numerous practices. I kept thinking that the next time we had to run a suicide ... I was going to tell her I was through, because I just couldn't take it anymore. I was so sick of being just treated like that," she said.
"I guess the thing that kept me going was because I just looked down the line and I'd see all my other teammates running the same sprints ... just this feeling that we're all in this together."
Lawrence said the teammates' mutual respect and commitment are the fuel that brings success to women's athletics and the bond which brings them together through good and bad times.
"I really think that the women's teams at Dartmouth are close-knit and ... have respect for each other and our endeavors and our efforts to excel in athletics," Lawrence said.
Lenczner said one reason she decided not to rush a sorority this fall was that she already had a sufficient support network available in her sport.
"I feel that my team gives me the emotional support and the social structure that some people look for in sororities. But it's different because we have a totally different focus -- it's a social group second to our athletic hopes," she said.
Women's athletics since 1972
Coincidentally, Title IX was adopted in 1972, the same year Dartmouth began to admit women.
Many of the pioneering and strong-willed women that made up the first few classes with females opted to explore their Dartmouth experiences through athletics.
Harper said before 1972, women at Dartmouth merely played the roles of fiancees and dates for party weekends. After women arrived as students, many men saw them as infringing upon their "sacred land and College" that they were not willing to share.
Dean of Residential Life Mary Turco said Dartmouth's long history as an all-male institution made achieving gender equity in athletics extremely difficult.
"That was hard to do for a school that had spent 200 years as an all-male institution," she said. "It's hard to say that we're going to eliminate 10 men's sports ... There were practical problems all over the place, practical concerns about the quality of Dartmouth."
"We didn't want to introduce programs that were not reflective of the rest of the quality of the institution," she said.
Harper said women who were interested in Dartmouth in the early years probably came from private schools which offered a wide variety of athletic opportunities.
Once they arrived at the College, it was only natural they would want to take advantage of the "outdoors" environment and participate in sports.
Harper said a school that had just turned coeducational would probably have attracted more strong, independent and adventurous young women.
Colleen Bartlett '79, who played on the women's field hockey and basketball teams when she was at Dartmouth, said while women's athletics played a strong supportive role for women during the late 1970s, they were ironically where she faced the most discrimination.
Bartlett said the culture of Dartmouth at the time dismissed much of women's sports, giving men's athletics priority in uniforms, equipment and facilities.
"Coeducation obviously would have to affect [Dartmouth's] all-male, out-in-the-woods, Animal House reputation," Bartlett said.
But she said certain aspects of her Dartmouth experience -- such as athletics and her living in Hitchcock Hall, a relatively "progressive" residence hall which was coed by room -- helped her to alleviate any instances of sexism.
She said not only can teammates become a woman's source of emotional strength, but that "athletics teaches you self-esteem ... that's perhaps one of the most important lessons of athletics."
She said she was accorded as certain amount of respect as an athlete because the women's and men's teams often felt an affinity for each other on the basis of a common lifestyle.
"I think in its own way, athletic teams were almost sororities," Bartlett said.
"You practiced with these kids, you traveled with these kids, you hung out with them, you'd study with them. It became your own support group ... whatever might transpire in a sorority," Bartlett said.
