Athletic Dep't report shows gender inequity

Despite $500K gap between men's and women's teamDespite $500K gap between men's and women's teamoperating expenses, official claims Title IX progress The University's first-ever Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act report, released yesterday, reveals significant disparities in funding and number of athletes between men's and women's sports. Title IX of the Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires universities that receive any federal funding to have equal resources for male and female athletes. But Senior Associate Athletic Director Carolyn Schlie Femovich said the University has made considerable progress on these issues in the past and will continue to do so in the future. The Athletic Department released the report in accordance with the EADA, a 1995 law that requires most universities with intercollegiate athletic programs to provide certain information to the public upon request. The report includes the number of participants, operating expenses and the number of coaches for each team, as well as total recruiting expenses and average coaches' salaries for men's and women's teams during the 1995-96 school year. While the University's undergraduate enrollment is 53 percent male and 47 percent female, the student-athlete population is 63 percent male and 37 percent female, according to the report. "I think we have made progress," said Femovich, noting that three years ago the student-athlete population was 67 percent male and 33 percent female. "We certainly recognized a number of years ago that participation numbers for women is something we wanted to work on." Femovich called former Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson's efforts essential to improving gender equity in Penn athletics. "I think we're going to continue to close the gap," Femovich said, attributing the growing number of female student-athletes to improved recruiting and an increase in the number of women playing high school sports. Still, the EADA report shows that the men's teams' 1995-96 recruiting expenses added up to $192,000, while the women's teams only received $66,000 for recruiting. "We've seen growth in women's recruiting budgets in the last couple years," Femovich said. "But I think we need to be continually responsive to their recruiting needs." She noted that the football program incurs a large portion of the men's recruiting expenses. The EADA report also presented a team-by-team breakdown of operating expenses. The University's 16 men's teams had a combined operating budget of $983,000, while the 14 women's programs totaled $484,000. Part of the large gap was due to football operating expenses -- by far the largest at $321,000. But several men's sports had significantly higher operating expenses than the women's teams in the same sports. Men's basketball rang up $106,000 in operating costs last year, while women's basketball spent $63,000. Femovich said she could not explain the large disparity in basketball, especially since the two squads' travel, meal and uniform expenses were nearly identical. Another large gap was evident for lacrosse: $56,000 went for men's expenses, while just $29,000 covered the women's costs. Femovich attributed the higher men's costs to the larger team size -- 35 members to the women's 25 -- and the fact that the men wear full protective equipment, while the women do not. In tennis, the men's $37,000 budget was $10,000 more than the women's team's expenses. Women's tennis coach Cissie Leary said the greater number of male players, along with her own frugality, account for the difference. "I tend to save money for bigger things that might come along," she added. The statement also reported the average men's and women's teams' head coach's salary at $49,981 and $45,091, respectively. Assistant coaches for men's and women's teams respectively received average salaries of $17,478 and $13,973. According to Femovich, when Athletic Director Steve Bilsky took over in 1994, he and other athletics administrators met with representatives from each team to examine individual operating budgets.