According to a group of researchers at Penn State University, Oregon’s athletic department isn’t quite making the grade in terms of gender equity.
Oregon finished 10th in the Pacific-10 Conference and 97th out of 115 schools judged in the Gender Equity Scorecard, which rated Division I colleges and universities on their rates of female student athlete participation and, more importantly, funding.
The Ducks finished just behind Auburn, Georgia Tech and Notre Dame and ahead of schools such as Clemson, Vanderbilt and Memphis.
But what does this all mean and, crucially, how does this reflect on Oregon’s athletics?

Oregon’s report card

Senior Associate Athletic Director Reneé Baumgartner doesn’t agree with the ‘F’ grade the Ducks received.
“The survey doesn’t fairly represent our efforts in gender equity,” Baumgartner said in a phone interview. Baumgartner is the athletic department’s Senior Women’s Advisor, and said that she and others at the Casanova Center are currently gathering information to understand why Oregon finished near the bottom of the scorecard, where Oregon scored a -50.17. The Pac-10, however, was the top BCS conference, finishing third overall behind only the Mid-American and Western Athletic Conferences.
The Gender Equity Scorecard is written and compiled by Charles Kennedy, a political science instructor at Penn State University’s York campus. The Gender Equity Scorecard uses statistics gathered from research done by the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as criteria the Chronicle used in studying gender equity.
The Gender Equity Scorecard only considers one of the three “prongs” by which a college or university can qualify under Title IX. The scorecard only considered proportionality, or how close gender-wise the percentages of student-athletes are to the full student population. Fifty-three percent of students at the University are female; if Oregon used the proportionality rule to qualify for Title IX, 53 percent of its student-athletes would be female.
However, Oregon doesn’t qualify by proportionality – the athletic department goes by prong two, in which a college, according to the NCAA’s Gender Equity manual, “has a history and continuing practice of program expansion.” Oregon has done this – competitive cheerleading will be the next addition to the women’s varsity roster, following in the footsteps of lacrosse in 2004 and soccer in 1996. Oregon remains in compliance with Title IX, but loses points on Kennedy’s scorecard, and Baumgartner feels it misrepresents the athletic department.

“We follow the history of expansion and we have been very consistent at adding programs,” Baumgartner said. “Different schools go by different prongs, and we have chosen to go by prong number two.
“They could do the same study and go by history of expansion and we could get an A.”

All about the money

The rest of the scorecard deals with financials – both in scholarship proportionality and athletic department budgets.
Despite the discrepancy in proportionality, Baumgartner said that Oregon’s varsity sports uses its full allotment of scholarship money. “All of them are fully funded,” Baumgartner said, adding that women’s lacrosse, now in its fourth season, finally offers all 12 of its available scholarships. Lacrosse ramped up to its scholarship limit over a four-year period, a plan Baumgartner said the women’s soccer team also followed.
Counting against Oregon, though, are sizable contracts for football head coach Mike Bellotti and men’s basketball coach Ernie Kent. Kent is guaranteed $1 million per season per the contract he signed last April, and Bellotti earns between $1 million and $1.5 million per year. New baseball coach George Horton has a contract reportedly worth a total of $400,000 per year. Though there might be a discrepancy between the so-called “revenue” sports and others, Baumgartner said the athletic department is always keeping contracts in mind.
“We are constantly evaluating our coaches’ salaries and it’s a priority for us to make sure that we are looking at where they stand in our conference and nationally,” Baumgartner said.

Oregon State succeeds on scorecard

Oregon State finished in seventh overall on the scorecard, and was second in the Pac-10 rankings behind only Stanford. How did it succeed where Oregon failed? Marianne Vydra, the senior women’s advisor for the Beavers, said via e-mail that some of that success is due to “major events” for Oregon State women’s sports falling in the same year: increasing salaries for volleyball and women’s basketball coaches and adding women’s cross country and track and field to the varsity roster. “The spike was a bit inflated because of these events,” Vydra said. Oregon State was 30th overall in the previous year’s scorecard.
Vydra also added that, while Oregon’s student population is 53 percent female, Oregon State’s is the opposite – about 52 percent male.
“Bottom line, however, (Oregon State Athletic Director) Bob DeCarolis always considers Title IX issues when making administrative changes,” Vydra said. “For example, if we get funding to add men’s cross country, we will add women’s indoor track in the same breath.”
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