More Penn women flocked to the swimming pool, the volleyball courts and the soccer field last year than ever before, according to the University's annual gender equity report.
Each year since 1997, colleges have been required to complete this report according to the provisions of the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act. The reports chronicle athletic participation, staffing, and revenues and expenses by men's and women's teams at every school that participates in intercollegiate athletics.
In the 2000-01 season, female participation in Penn athletics increased 3.2 percent from the previous season.
"When you have over a thousand athletes, that's a significant number," Athletics Director Steve Bilsky said. "It gives the impression that the women on the present teams are having good experiences."
In recent years, a number of women's sports have been added, and their increasing popularity has led to greater participation. In addition, the number of women quitting teams mid-season has decreased.
Many women's teams are also witnessing increases in the size of their incoming freshman classes from year to year. This increase is due, in part, to improvements in recruiting, as well as to the increasing success of Penn's female sports teams.
"The general success of women's athletics in the past few years is definitely an attraction for high school seniors," field hockey player and College senior Nikki Battiste said.
Despite the increase in women playing sports, male participation in athletics remains significantly higher than that of women. In the 2000-01 season, 59.3 percent of all athletes were male, while only 40.7 percent were female.
These percentages are due in part to the large numbers of male athletes on certain teams. Football and sprint football alone account for about 170 of Penn's athletes.
"The number of football players is large, and there's not a women's football team, so you don't have the ability to match that," Bilsky said.
In contrast, several women's teams must have small teams because the sport necessitates it, which also contributes to the smaller overall percentage of female athletes.
"We couldn't really increase our team's number because you can only have so many people on the [gymnastics] team," gymnast and Engineering junior Courtney Morgan said, adding that the team's number is also limited by its number of coaches.
According to sprint football coach Bill Wagner, several teams, even those with corresponding female teams, boast larger numbers of participants simply because of the nature of the sport, citing the baseball and softball teams as an example.
"We have more men in our baseball program than [women] in our softball program," Wagner said. "[Baseball] needs to have anywhere from eight to 12 pitchers, whereas if [softball] has three or four pitchers, they've got a lot, so they don't need as many players."
Wagner also speculates that there is a greater tendency for women to quit a team mid-season as a result of a lack of playing time.
"I think they want to play, but if they aren't [receiving significant playing time], with so many things that can be found to do on Penn's campus, maybe that's the reason they quit," Wagner said.
Due to Ivy League policy, Penn does not give athletic scholarships, and any athlete can therefore quit a team without repercussions.
"There are no athletic scholarships, so people can leave a team at any time and there's no down-side other than leaving the team," Bilsky said. "They don't lose their tuition, they don't lose their housing and all those other things that would happen with a scholarship situation."
As a result, many women choose to concentrate on academics rather than athletics as they approach the end of their Penn careers.
"As people grow older, they feel like they have different priorities," field hockey player and College senior Monique Horshaw said.
The smaller number of female athletes is also a result of the smaller amount of revenue brought in by women's sports. Although the total amount of revenue brought in by all sports increased in the 2000-01 season, the revenue brought in by men is consistently higher every year.
With less revenue than men, less recruiting can be conducted, and there is less money for equipment, travel, and other expenses.
A large part of this revenue comes from donations from alumni.
"Every sport needs to approach their former players and ask them to donate funds and endowments," Wagner said. "The new [women's teams] that were just added in the last 10 years, they don't have the history and tradition and the numbers because they're young."
