Balancing Act

When Erin Borcherts graduated from Cimarron Memorial High School, going to college meant leaving Nevada. The avid golfer wanted to compete on the collegiate level as she worked toward a degree in marketing.

“Growing up here, I always thought it was a shame that UNLV didn’t have a women’s golf team because Las Vegas is such a golfing town,” she says. “There were so many talented high school golfers here who wanted to play their way through school. Like me, they had to leave the state to do it.”

Borcherts returned to her hometown school for her junior year when UNLV added women’s golf to its lineup in 2001. Along with golf, UNLV added women’s soccer and volleyball as part of President Carol C. Harter’s initiatives to bring the school’s athletics department into compliance with the gender equity requirements of Title IX legislation.

“I jumped at the opportunity to play here,” says Borcherts, who is now a senior. “I knew every time the team went out on the course, we’d be making history. That’s just a cool experience.”

Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is the landmark legislation that bans sex discrimination in schools, whether it be in academics or athletics. The law applies to all educational institutions, both public and private, that receive federal funds, thus including the UNLV athletics department.

In 1995, a task force for gender equity in athletics at UNLV was appointed to identify the department’s Title IX compliance status and direction.

Lisa Kelleher, UNLV associate athletics director for olympic sports, serves as the liaison to the gender equity committee. “It is my job to make sure there is equity between the men’s programs and women’s programs,” Kelleher says. “The committee did a full review and compared UNLV to what other schools were doing. We also brought in a consultant to evaluate our situation.”

Lamar Daniel, who runs Consultants for Gender Equity and Sports Management, was hired to help UNLV athletics assess its Title IX challenges and offer suggestions on how to achieve compliance. Daniel is a consultant for numerous universities across the country and previously worked with the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.

“Since I have worked with the program, UNLV has made tremendous progress with its Title IX compliance,” Daniel says. “Everyone has been very responsive to recommendations, and UNLV has moved closer to full compliance. In fact, there is little that remains (to be done).”

There are three basic parts to Title IX compliance as it applies to athletics: participation, scholarships, and other benefits. The law requires that women and men be provided equitable opportunities to participate in sports, but does not require institutions to offer identical sports.

Student-athletes of both sexes must receive scholarship money proportional to their participation. The law also requires the equal treatment of female and male student-athletes in such areas as equipment and supplies, scheduling, travel, and per diem funding. Female athletes must have equal access to tutoring, coaching, facilities, medical services, and housing and dining facilities, and their sports must receive equal resources for publicity, support services, and recruitment.

One of UNLV’s biggest challenges has been in the participation area. In the 1996-97 academic year, there were 145 participation opportunities for women, which represented 37 percent of the total opportunities that year. In 2000-01, women had 213 opportunities for sports participation, or 49 percent of the total.

The athletics participation percentages are then compared to the ratio of female-to-male students on campus. In spring 2001, 54.5 percent of UNLV’s full-time undergraduate students were female.

To achieve the right number of female student-athletes, schools typically add women’s sports programs or cut men’s programs. In fact, many universities have cut men’s teams, including wrestling, swimming, and soccer to achieve compliance.

UNLV administrators are proud of the fact that, while the school has added three programs since 1996 (women’s volleyball in ’96, women’s soccer in ’98, and women’s golf in ’01), it has not dropped any existing men’s program to achieve Title IX compliance.

In the past few years, Borcherts says she’s seen many of her fellow student-athletes benefit academically from increasing athletic opportunities. “When I was in junior high, you had to be some kind of awesome player to make a women’s golf team,” she says. “Today, you can even play in community colleges. It’s become a way for you to put yourself through school, just like many male students have done for years.”

At the same time, she added, late-blooming athletes have more opportunities to develop their skills through competition. Nationally, schools will face greater Title IX compliance issues as the proportion of women in the overall student body continues to increase. In the next few years, UNLV projects that women will make up between 58 and 60 percent of its student body. “As the proportionality number on campus continues to rise, you continue to have to chase that number,” Kelleher says. “And it takes funds to do that.”

When considering new programs, universities typically look at the available club sports on campus as well as the sports already offered in local high schools, Daniel says. Volleyball, soccer, and golf were all offered in Nevada high schools, so it was a natural step to add them to UNLV’s lineup.

Daniel predicts that UNLV will add another sport in the near future. Under consideration are water polo, crew, and equestrian sports, but the front-runner may be bowling. “Bowling has been discussed at length because UNLV already has a bowling club and Las Vegas is a major area for intercollegiate bowling with three major tournaments being held in the city every year. However, without funding none of that is possible.”

Kelleher credits Nevada’s leaders with making it possible for UNLV to add women’s programs while holding onto the men’s programs. “The state has stepped forward in three different bienniums to fund efforts to ensure compliance for Title IX at its state universities. It has given over a million dollars in each biennium to help us be in the forefront nationally in terms of adding sports – but not at the expense of existing programs.”

Daniel says that UNLV is lucky to have the state behind the funding for Title IX. “It is rare for any state government to contribute money specifically for Title IX. A number of states have contributed money to athletics, but it is not specifically earmarked for any one purpose. In addition, some states are cutting back on funding for athletics departments.”

While the National Women’s Law Center recently reported to the contrary, UNLV has no significant issues related to scholarship funding. Not too long ago, however, there was major concern about facilities. The additions of the Cox Pavilion for women’s basketball and volleyball in 2001 and the Eller Media Softball Stadium earlier this year have given women multiple top-notch venues.

The athletics department is in good shape in terms of the benefits portion of Title IX. That is not to say, however, that UNLV does not have areas in which improvement is needed. “We are behind in areas such as recruiting and marketing dollars, but the nice thing is that we have solved many problems already,” Kelleher says. “In other words, we have dealt with the ‘major’ problem areas and are now focusing on the next tier of issues.”