Progress made on the Gender and Diversity Issues Audit Report was a primary topic of discussion at the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics meeting January 22-23 in Indianapolis.

The committee noted that it had continued to request that Division I provide a plan for increasing women and minority representation within the NCAA governance structure, and that the efforts so far had been insufficient.

One example the committee cited was the NCAA's newly created Committee to Oversee the NCAA Football Study, on which the Committee on Women's Athletics recommended that one of its own members serve as an advisor, similar to the arrangement in which the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee has an advisor on that group. The Committee on Women's Athletics also expressed concern that no women had been selected to serve as ex-officio members of the football study oversight committee.

Also as part of its review of the audit, the committee reviewed national office staff changes, including a document that contained information on the current status of gender and ethnic diversity at the NCAA national office. The committee requested additional information, including more specific information about the gender and ethnicity of managers (director level through president).

In a related matter, the committee noted that Judith M. Sweet, the new NCAA vice-president for championships, had been designated as the national office's senior woman administrator. Sweet appeared before the committee and discussed her responsibilities related to championships, as well as her role as senior woman administrator.

The committee asked its Subcommittee on Women's Advocacy to develop a list of recommendations regarding the SWA's role in the national office, including how an SWA might help to develop a national office gender-equity plan.

Also as part of the audit, the committee requested that the national office staff collect data on conference championship opportunities for male and female student-athletes for review by the committee at an upcoming meeting.

The issue also will be incorporated into the NCAA diversity training program, and materials on homophobia also will be presented to the three NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committees at their summer meetings.

Other highlights

Committee on Women's Athletics
January 22-23/Indianapolis

Noted that the NCAA Executive Committee's Subcommittee on Gender and Diversity had recommended to the Executive Committee's Budget Committee budget recommendations of $590,700 to address gender and diversity issues.

Noted that legislation was adopted at the 2001 NCAA Convention to add women's rowing and women's ice hockey as Division III championship sports in 2002-03.

Noted that Division II adopted a resolution at the 2001 NCAA Convention to support and enhance the role of the SWA at the Division II institutional and conference levels.

Recommended to the Division I Management Council that the Council reconsider the CWA's previous recommendation for the definition of conference SWAs to appear in the Division I Manual. The committee reiterated the need for Division I conferences to select an individual to serve as conference SWA in the same manner as SWAs serve member institutions and the national office.

Made several recommendations regarding the NCAA Summit on Athletics Opportunities for Minority Women, an event planned for February 28.

Noted that four colleges had forwarded correspondence to the NCAA expressing interest in identifying rugby as an emerging sport for women. The CWA encourages interested institutions to submit the paperwork, which can be found on the NCAA's Web site at www.ncaa.org. The committee noted that the emerging-sports guidelines require 10 schools to submit such paperwork before the CWA can consider establishing an emerging sport.

Noted that it planned to forward letters to President Bush and U.S. Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige encouraging that the nominee presented for the position of Assistant Secretary for the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education be an individual who has a "demonstrated record of supporting gender equity in education programs" and one who will "publicly commit to do all in his or her power to continue the significant participation gains of women in higher education."

Noted that it shared the concern expressed by other NCAA committees regarding the lack of diversity in the group of individuals chosen as Honors Dinner speakers.