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AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

The private Northwest Washington school has been cited by USA Today and the Chronicle of Higher Education as being one of the frontrunners in gender equity.

American's 5,000-student undergraduate population is 60 percent female. There are 222 athletes participating in 15 varsity sports of which 121 (55 percent) are female. Women can choose from eight varsity sports—basketball, field hockey, lacrosse, tennis, volleyball, soccer, swimming and cross country.

Senior Associate Athletic Director Barbara Reimann, who has been with the university for 30 years, points to one very obvious factor in American's success at gender equity: "One thing is we don't have football."

With no football roster to balance against, American devotes less time to roster management and more resources to women's sports.

Still some disparity exists. American awarded $1,679,935 in athletic scholarships during the 1995-96 school year; men received 53.6 percent. In addition, the men's programs spent nearly $26,000 more on recruiting than the women's programs did.

Lee McElroy, who became athletic director in May 1996, has in place a five-year plan that seeks in part to increase the number of playing slots on existing women's teams, add approximately 20 schorlarships for women and increase the base salaries for head and assistant coaches of women's teams.

"I don't see adding sports," McElroy said. "I see increasing opportunities."

American has not added any varsity sports, men's or women's, since it added women's soccer in 1990 and women's lacrosse in 1991. No men's programs have been cut or lost scholarships in American's attempts to reach gender equity.

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company

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