The following is reprinted by permission from The Phoenix, the Swarthmore College campus newspaper.

Jenepher Shillingford admits that her collegiate coaching days are over. But as the keynote speaker at Swarthmore’s first annual Women in Sports Symposium, she said that sports are always going to be a part of her life.

“There are a lot of ways you can give back to women’s athletics without coaching,” she said to a room of about 50 students, faculty and coaches. “I’m 76, and I’m going to stay involved until my last breath.”

In an effort to both celebrate the history of women in athletics and address still-present gender inequality in sports, Swarthmore seniors Anna Baeth and Erin Heaney organized a three-hour symposium April 5.

“The symposium today was to celebrate the history of women in sport, celebrate current female student-athletes at Swarthmore, and learn how we can stay involved and encouraging women and girls to stay in the sport in the future,” Heaney said.

Baeth and Heaney, who were captains of the college’s field hockey and volleyball teams, respectively, were inspired to hold this symposium after attending the Snell-Shillingford Symposium at Bryn Mawr this past January, which was founded and hosted in part by Shillingford. The symposium focused on promoting careers for women in athletics, stressing that while the number of women’s teams today is at an all-time high since the implementation of Title IX, the representation of female college coaches is actually at an all-time low.

In 1972, Title IX was passed, which states that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Back then, women coached more than 90 percent of women teams; now it is roughly 42 percent, the lowest ever, according to a 29-year longitudinal study conducted by Linda Jean Carpenter and R. Vivian Acosta of Brooklyn College. The percentage of all women head coaches is also at an all-time low of roughly 18 percent.

Athletics falls under the provisions of Title IX. The most common way to discern equality between male and female teams is to compare certain areas, such as opportunity to receive coaching and academic tutoring, provision of locker rooms and practice and competitive facilities, medical training facilities and services, and financial assistance.

In addition to celebrating women’s history, Baeth said that the college’s symposium was meant to “(educate) current student-athletes about Title IX and the implications of it in our daily lives and in the future of other student-athletes.”

“We wanted to come back (from the Snell-Shillingford conference) and share what we learned with the campus,” she said.

The symposium started with a panel of six women who are involved in sports, from current college head coaches, to Swarthmore’s own associate athletics director, to an international field hockey umpire. Baeth asked them, among other questions, how gender has affected their role in athletics and what ways women in the future can stay involved.

Of the 50 people who attended, an overwhelming number of them were female student-athletes. Despite the fact that Baeth and Heaney said that they invited all of the college’s sports teams, women’s head soccer coach Todd Anckaitis and men and women’s cross country and track head coach Peter Carroll were the only men who attended.

After the panel, Shillingford gave an hour-long talk, followed by a question and answer session. She talked about how Title IX has and still does face criticism, pointing specifically to challenges to the law between 1980 and 1992 and again during the George W. Bush administration.

“I’m not sure if the fight will ever be over…because it’s about money and power,” she said. But having a symposium like this is a positive “way to spread the word that things are still in flux.”
She added that, for change to be made, “everyone needs to get involved,” whether it be coaching, participating, encouraging others to participate or even writing about sports.

In addition to helping found the Snell-Shillingford Symposium, Shillingford is a former president of the United States Hockey Association, and she served as a coach and athletics director at Bryn Mawr for 20 years.

Senior lacrosse player Kelsey Hatzell, who attended the symposium, said in an e-mail that she thought the symposium helped to “create a space for sharing experience from multiple generations regarding the ongoing struggle with Title IX.

“While I have not witnessed the Title IX struggles first hand, I have reaped the benefits that came with Title IX, and thus I feel an obligation to stay informed, and seek out methods to address the present problems,” she said.

Hatzell added that she was surprised that Title IX, though enacted decades ago, still doesn’t stand on “firm ground.”

“The fact that there exists a contingent that opposes its purpose was shocking,” she said. “This is an ongoing problem, and while we have made great strides, continued progress can only be met with the current generation’s participation.”

Heaney and Baeth were pleased with how the symposium went. In some ways, they were surprised at some of the panel and audience’s responses, namely about what it means to be a feminist.

When Baeth asked the panel if they considered themselves feminists, its members were split. When a member of the panel turned the question to the audience, Heaney said, “not as many hands shot up as we thought would, which is interesting because this is Swarthmore.”

“It brought up some new issues, even for Erin and I,” Baeth said. The question prompted many to ponder what the term means, such as if it’s stigmatized as equivalent to “man-hater,” Heaney added.

The college’s most famous feminist, Alice Paul, was actively involved in sports, Baeth said. Paul, who was at the forefront of the women’s movement in the early 20th century, played three sports at the college and started the college’s women’s basketball team.

“I feel like people always disregard athletics at Swarthmore, but it really is embedded in what Swarthmore is,” Baeth said.

Though she and Baeth are graduating, Heaney said that they both hope that the symposium continues in the future.

“We’d be willing to help anyone that wanted to (organize it),” said Heaney.

And though there are still obstacles ahead, Shillingford ended the symposium on a positive note, citing an Irish proverb.

“Life isn’t about surviving the storm,” said Shillingford. “Life is about taking a deep breath and dancing in the rain.”