Finished!

I am finished with my paper! Well at least as much as I would like to be finished with having to turn it in today. There is still more I would like to do with this paper but it was due today and frankly, I have 0 energy left in me to finalize it any more. This paper was very hard for me to write as I am not used to writing research papers. There were moments where I felt like giving up but I stuck it through and I am proud of the progress I made. I probably won't use this paper for anything in the future except my graduation requirement credit and possibly a piece for an application to a sports related grad school program.

Latest Abstract

Title IX was enacted as part of the Educational Amendments Act to ensure equality in athletics at higher educational institutions. Since its enactment in 1972, perhaps no federal statute has had a more direct impact on intercollegiate sports. This paper explores the history of Title IX and its effect on the shaping of women's intercollegiate athletics today. The implementation of Title IX has made great strides and continues to strive in today because the fundamental ideas of this law are supported by the largest intercollegiate athletic governing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As a result, women's participation in college sports has increased from 15% in 1972 to 45% in 2010. It is because of the advent of Title IX and through the support of the NCAA that women have truly found a place as participants in intercollegiate athletics.

Meta-reflection 11/28

Here is a copy of my most recent abstract. My paper is almost complete! I still have to write my introduction and go through the revision process to polish my paper. It's finally coming together :)

Title IX was enacted as part of the Educational Amendments Act to ensure equality in athletics at higher educational institutions. Since its enactment in 1972, perhaps no federal statute has had more direct impact on intercollegiate sports. This paper explores the history of Title IX and its effect on the shaping of women’s intercollegiate athletics today. The implementation of Title IX has made great strides and continues to strive in intercollegiate athletics today because the fundamental ideas of this law are supported by the largest intercollegiate athletic governing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As a result, women’s participation in college sports has increased from 15% in 1972 to 47% in 2010. It is because of the advent of Title IX and through the support of the NCAA that women have truly found a place as participants in intercollegiate athletics.

Meta-Reflection 11/15

Well my abstract has changed again. After thinking it over, I decided that my research showed that womens soccer at UC was not added because of Title IX. While it did undergo drastic changes over the years to comply with Title IX there was not sufficient enough evidence for me to make a correlation between the two so I have re-focused the direction of my paper again! My paper will now focus on the history of Title IX and it's impact on women's intercollegiate athletics through the support to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The NCAA is the leading governing body of intercollegiate athletics. The NCAA has made great strides to help schools keep in check with Title IX regulations. In order for an institution to compete under the NCAA rules and policys they must comply with the Effective Accomodations Test under Title IX as well as provide the provisions made as well. I think this is a much better was to focus my paper so hopefully it works out this time!

Meta-Reflection 11/14

Now that I have more than half of my page requirement for this research paper, my abstract and purpose for my paper has changed. My abstract is now focusing how the University of Cincinnati complied with the laws of Title IX by adding a women's soccer team and supporting them throughout the years. While soccer was added to comply with Title IX, it was not the main reason it was added. Throughout my research by contacting former players and coaches, I found out the main reason soccer was added was because there was a group of 17 girls who played on the club soccer team at UC that wanted to make it a full varsity sport. This was in 1980 when schools were adding women's sports to be compliant with the passing of Title IX. It is interesting to see that while womens soccer was added, it didn't reach fully funded status until the 1998 season after Congress passed the Equality in Athletics Disclosure Act in 1994 and universities were required to become compliant with the recent Title IX laws. Women's soccer at University of Cincinnati has specific changes that have been dictated by the changing laws of Title IX so my paper has now shifted focus to how UC has maintained complaint with Title IX laws.

Meta-Reflection 11/8

So far I am pleased with my writing process. Now that soccer is done I have a lot more time to focus on my paper. I have about 11-12 pages on the Title IX part and now I am working on the history of women's soccer at the University of Cincinnati and tying the two together. I am meeting with a a former coach, two former players, a former athletic director, a current coach, a compliance advisor, and a senior-womens administrator to band together information regarding the history of UC women's soccer. It is going well and I am learning so much! I am a little worried about getting to 20 pages. I am afraid that I will not have enough information and will be aimlessly writing to fill space.

Update

I finally have my first part of research done!! I felt like I would never get done with it but I am really happy with how my paper is coming together. Tomorrow our first 10 pages are due. I have 10 pages of single spaced chunks of blocks. I wrote an outline and have been working on it piece by piece based on the information I have been finding from my research. I have narrowed down my topic to Title IX and how it has affected the history of womens soccer here at UC. It is a topic especially close to my heart  since I have played for the UC womens soccer team for 4 amazing years. It is really interesting to hear past stories about the founders and former players. My connections through athletics have been essential to my paper. My next steps are to finish the history of Title IX part and finish meeting with former players for interviews to start the history of womens soccer part. I am really excited to continue my research and finish this paper!

Updated Biblography

Works Cited
Abrams, Roger I. Sports Justice: The Law & the Business of Sports. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2010.

Blumenthal, Karen. Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, The Law That Changed The Future of Girls in America. New York: Atheneum Books, 2005.

Brake, Deborah L. Getting in the Game: Title IX and the Women's Sports Revolution. New York: New York University Press, 2010.

Curtis, Dr. Mary C. "About Title IX." Gender Equity in Sports. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/ge/GEREDESIGN.html>.

Parker-Pope, Tara. "As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends." New York Times (2010): 18 Oct. 2011 <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/health/16well.html?scp=2&sq=title+IX+&st=nyt>.

Pettus, Elise. Nike is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports. Ed. Lissa Smith. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998.

"Title IX Frequently Asked Questions." National Collegiate Athletic Association. 15 Oct. 2011. <ncaa.org>.

Valentin, Iram. “Title IX: A Brief History.” Women’s Equity Resource Center. August 1997. <http://www2.edc.org/WomensEquity/pdffiles/t9digest.pdf>.

Ware, Susan. Title IX: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007.

Wushanley, Ying. Playing Nice and Losing. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004.

Meta-reflection 10/19

Currently in my research process, I am still at the finding resources stage. I have 7 books that I think will be useful to my research and a few websites already. I would still like to get some more websites and journal articles. I think I have a pretty firm grasp of where I want my paper to go with an outline in mind so I am going to start fitting my sources to the outline. In my past writing experiences, I have found it most helpful to start by creating an outline. I then have a solid foundation for my paper and find resources that will help enhance my paper. I am currently still in the middle of finding my resources and solidifying my outline before I go ahead and start the writing process. The writing process for me will start once I feel as if my outline is detailed enough for my to have blocks of important topics I want to cover in my paper as well as sub topics. I would like to finish up my research in the next week or so and complete my outline in the next two weeks so I can begin the writing process, which would allow me time to write, re-write, and re-write again as many times until I feel confident. The week before Thanksgiving break I would like to have a semi-polished paper to have edited.

Quick Proposal Pitch

Are you a fan of college athletics? As a fan of sports and an athlete, I am writing about the history and impact Title IX has had on not only women's sports but the shape of college athletics today.

750words.com Entry

Well I created this account and now I am not sure what I am supposed to do with it. I was not in class on Thursday because I was traveling with the UC Women's soccer team and now I am more confused as ever. I created my Mendeley account and that program looks to be really interesting. I am curious to see how it is used and how we will be using it towards our research paper. I am pretty exicted to start my research for this paper. Although 20 pages sounds hard and intimidating, I think I chose a pretty good topic that will keep me interested for the whole quarter. I chose a topic that means a lot to me. I am writing about how Title Ix has impacted women's sports both in the past and the present. Before Title IX, women's sports and women athletes were not treated as equally and as fair as the men's athletes were. Often women has to cover their own costs and expenses and were given little support by the colleges and universities they were representing. That all changed once Title Ix was passed which stated 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 education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Once Title IX passed, universities had to provide as much for women's athletics as they did for men's athletics, which at the time meant cutting men's prgrams to accomodate women's programs! This is a topic that interests me and I am passionate about it because I am a female athlete and if Title IX has not passed back in 1972, I would not be given the opportunity that I was given 4 years ago to continue my dream and play college soccer. I am very thankful for the opportunities I have been given over the past 4 years and as my senior season comes to an end in the next couple of weeks I am continually reminded of how thankful I am for the opportunity to play college soccer. I have made lifelong friends and have learned some very valuable life lessons that I will forever take with me. Soccer has taught me so many life lessons that go far beyong the fundamentals of the sport and the typical lessons associated with athletics. While many people play sports, I truly believe being a D1 athlete at a top university such as Cincinnati teaches as much about life lessons as it does about a person. Soccer has brought out emotions in me such as passion, prise, joy, defeat, power, confidence, and determination. I can honestly say that I am the person I am today because of how soccer has influenced my life both positively and negatively. Without the opportunities that Title IX paved, I wouldn't be where I am today and wouldn't be the person that I am today. Because I am so passionate about this topic I believe I will stay focused and interested writing about Title IX for the whole quarter. I am kind of nervous to be writing a paper with the length of 20 pages. The longest paper I have written was only about 10 pages and I thought that was a lot! This is double and I am afraid that I will run out of things to say and not fill 20 pages up! I am looking forward to doing more research about Title IX such as why it was passed and the process it took to pass such an instrumental bill in college athletics. Title IX changed the face of college athletics so it will be very interesting for me to see the history behind it. As in a soccer season, there is blood, sweat, and tears that go into the making so I am interested to see what blood, sweat, and tears were shed while pushing for Title IX. I am going to start my research later this week about Title IX and I'm sure throughout the writing process I will shed some blood, sweat, and tears of my own while trying to push out 20 pages of quality work but my hope is that in the end, I will have a polished, well written paper about the history of Title IX and how it affected women's sports today so I can find out the history of why my life is the way it is.

Research Proposal

For my research paper I will be writing about the impact that Title IX has had on both past and current women's sports. I will be focusing on what Title IX is, what women's sports were like before Title IX, what women's sports are like today thanks to the passing of Title IX, and how Title IX has affected the University of Cincinnati. I chose this topic because my life would be greatly affected if Title IX had not passed back in 1972. I play on the University of Cincinnati Women's soccer team and might not be given the opportunity to complete in intercollegiate athletics without the support of Title IX.

I will begin my research by looking both online and at the library for books, articles, and reports about Title IX, being a part of UC athletics will provide me with an extra advantage as I will also be conducting interviews with various support staff throughout athletics to find out how Title Ix has affected the University of Cincinnati specifically. When gathering my research, I will start by chunking together articles, books, interviews, and reports that are related together and are based on the 4 parts I am focusing my paper mentioned above. I am hoping by the third week of research to have a pretty good frame for my paper by creating an outline, which can later be broken down into more specific parts. Listed below are three initial sources I may use to start my research.

Mitchell, Nicole. Enclyclopedia of Title Nine and Sports. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007. Print.

Sherman, Nester W. "Title IX and Women's Participation in Sports." Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance 72.12 (2001): 17-20. Print

Ware, Susan. Title IX: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford, 2007. Print.