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Gender Equity in UC Davis Athletics
Fact sheet: Women's athletics at UC Davis
Women's athletics are a high priority at UC Davis, which has received national honors for the strength and variety of its women's sports, including twice being named the best Division II school for women athletes by Sports Illustrated for Women. Three times since 1991, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has selected a student-athlete from UC Davis as the NCAA Woman of the Year.
UC Davis currently sponsors 14 women's varsity sports, significantly more than the national average of 8.4, and two more than the 12 men's varsity sports.
UC Davis is committed to gender equity.
UC Davis and its Department of Intercollegiate Athletics are committed to gender equity and adherence to federal Title IX requirements.
The program is considered a leader in gender equity and will continue to develop programs and procedures to maintain its leadership role. When UC Davis embarked in 2003 on its transition from Division II to Division I athletics, officials established eight core principles to guide the campus through the process and future Division I competition.
Those principles included a mandate that UC Davis not retreat from its Title IX (gender equity) progress, and in fact must continue to expand its efforts and compliance.
UC Davis supports an outstanding program in women's sports.
Today, UC Davis sponsors 14 women's varsity sports, significantly more than the national average of 8.4 women's sports per college or university, according to a national study.
Sports Illustrated for Women named UC Davis as the best Division II school for women athletes in 1999 and 2000, and UC Davis has produced three student-athletes who have won the NCAA Women of the Year, an honor begun in 1991.
UC Davis and the University of Georgia are the only schools to have won the title that many times. A total of 11 UC Davis women's teams have participated in, or been represented at, 59 NCAA Division II championships and one NCAA Division I championship since 1995.
Between 1995 and 2005, UC Davis female student-athletes received a total of 253 All-American awards.
In 2002, then-Assemblymember Helen Thomson (D-Davis) named Pam Gill-Fisher, senior associate athletic director of Intercollegiate Athletics at the time, the 8th Assembly District Woman of the Year for her many contributions to women's sports.
The campus expands opportunities for women athletes.
The campus has demonstrated a history and continuing practice of expanding its women's varsity sports program.
In the past 10 years, the following five women's varsity sports have been added: lacrosse, rowing and water polo (1996-97); indoor track and field (1999-2000); and golf (2005-06).
The last time UC Davis discontinued a women's varsity sport was 1982, when it eliminated field hockey at the end of the fall season and added women's soccer for the next year.
Today, UC Davis sponsors 14 women's varsity teams: basketball, cross country, gymnastics, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming, diving, tennis, outdoor track, indoor track, golf and volleyball. All are NCAA sports.
In 2006-07, UC Davis had 812 student-athletes participate in varsity sports. Of the total, 400 or 49.3 percent were male and 412 or 50.7 percent were female.
The proportion of female student-athletes was within 4.65 percent of the campusís proportion of female undergraduate students overall. UC Davis maintains 15 percent more women student-athletes than the NCAA Division I average.
UC Davis' organization fosters gender equity.
UC Davis maintains a combined men's and women's intercollegiate athletics program. The sizes of the men's and women's squads are basically equal and closer to an even distribution than the average NCAA Division I ratio.
UC Davis created a Title IX workgroup to address gender equity issues many years before other universities took steps to carry out the mandate of Title IX.
Intercollegiate Athletics uses a Plan for Equity in Athletics to ensure fair distribution of resources and staffing. The university's faculty athletics representative is a woman, Kimberly Elsbach, who is a professor in the Graduate School of Management.
UC Davis has significantly more female coaches for women's sports than the NCAA average, and the campus exceeds the NCAA average for women head coaches for men's teams.
Scholarships are distributed fairly.
The number of men and women sports participants is nearly equal at UC Davis, and scholarship funds are distributed on a gender-neutral basis in accordance with NCAA requirements.
Athletic scholarships for 2006-07 totaled nearly $4.1 million.
Of that total, male student-athletes received nearly $2 million, or 49.01 percent, and female student-athletes received nearly $2.1 million, or 50.99 percent.
Male student-athletes received on average $7,516 in athletic scholarships, and female student-athletes received on average $9,162.
Last updated August 30, 2007