The NCAA News - News & Features

35% representation for Division I pleases women's committee

Meeting October 7 in Kansas City in conjunction with the NCAA Woman of the Year festivities, the committee expressed its satisfaction with the minimum representation in Division I as the Association moves toward a restructured organization.

The committee worked for two years to convince Division I representatives that minimum female representation should be stipulated and not just endorsed.

Patty Viverito, commissioner of the Gateway Football Conference and chair of the women's athletics committee, said the endorsement of 35 percent minimum representation was the most significant step forward for women in the Association in a long time.

"We were talking about taking a giant step backward," Viverito said. "We were going to go from 30 percent to zero guarantee.

"I don't think the minimum would have been approved if the Committee on Women's Athletics and NACWAA (the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators) had not spoken out."

The Division I transition Board of Directors and the Division I subcommittee of the Presidents Commission recently determined that the "minimum goal" of representation for the Management Council should be 35 percent for each gender and 20 percent for ethnic minorities.

Although present members of the Presidents Commission favor women's representation, Viverito noted that circumstances could change in the future as the composition of the management structure changed and people with different ideas and objectives were appointed. Without the 35 percent stipulation, women in the NCAA could have found themselves constantly fighting for representation, Viverito said.

"We would have been constantly vulnerable," she said. "We want to be more than the watchdogs of women's representation in the NCAA. We want to move on to other things."

Other issues

In another matter, the committee discussed its plans to encourage more member institutions to nominate candidates for the NCAA Woman of the Year.

While noting the high quality of candidates nominated for the 1996 award, the committee also expressed disappointment that only one-third of NCAA member institutions submitted a nomination.

Every institution is asked to nominate a female student-athlete from which 50 state winners are selected. From the state winners, 10 finalists are selected and finally the national winner.

The goal of the committee will be to increase the pool of nominees by encouraging each campus to submit a nomination. Of the more than 900 NCAA member institutions, only 333 institutions nominated one of their student-athletes.

As a part of encouraging wider participation, the committee has suggested that the campus nominees be given certificates denoting their selection as a campus woman of the year. Currently only the state winners receive recognition.

"By naming an NCAA Woman of the Year on each campus, we hope to encourage institutions to nominate their athletes," Viverito said.

A stumbling block for some institutions may be the high caliber of women who reach the finalist stage, she said.

"The finalists are by far the best of the best," she said. "However, there are a lot more women with well-balanced achievements who could be recognized at the campus level and the state level."

Viverito said institutions should not be discouraged from nominating their student-athletes because they do not have a 4.000 grade-point average or are not exceptional in every category.

To increase the diversity among the candidates, a special effort will be made to encourage nominations from historically black institutions.

The nomination form does not specify race of the candidate so the selection committee does not take race into consideration, Viverito said. But if more minority candidates are nominated, the likelihood of more diversity increases.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Committee on Women's Athletics
October 7/Kansas City, Missouri

* Commended the College Football Association for a public-service announcement it produced in conjunction with the Liz Claiborne Foundation and Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society.

The committee viewed the 30-second video, which uses high-profile college football student-athletes to discourage men from participating in relationship violence or tolerating it in others.

The women's committee said the PSA was a good beginning in terms of education and raising the consciousness of people about the issue of relationship violence. The committee will develop an outreach effort, using the CFA as a model, to encourage other coaches associations and groups to join in the athletes against violence campaign.

The PSA will be shown at stadiums during college football games and broadcast during regional television coverage of college football games.

* Discussed developing public-service announcements promoting women's athletics to take advantage of the increased interest resulting from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

* Discussed the need for establishing objective criteria for emerging sports to assist the women's athletics committee with recommendations for adding or deleting sports from the current list.

* Announced dates for the NCAA's 1997 Title IX Seminars: April 21-22 in Atlanta and May 12-13 in Kansas City, Missouri.

* Noted that the NCAA women's resource center is available to assist with women's issues through networking and has material available on Title IX.

* Recognized the Take a Daughter to A Game Concept being implemented on some campuses.

* Noted that the updated Achieving Gender Equity guide will be available in early November.