GENDER GAP AT THE UNIV. OF PORTLAND

The University of Portland, where I am working as a visiting professor this semester, is typical in its gender gap. The Oregonian reported the other day about how this gap is even wider at private colleges. UP is 61% female. The average of all universities nation-wide is 57%. UP is more balanced than many private colleges in the area: at Pacific University, women outnumber men 2 to 1! The solution proposed by some of these private colleges? Football! That's what men want, they argue, so they'll give it to them.

There's also a half-baked theory that private colleges don't offer programs most often wanted by men: engineering and other "career-preparation" majors. I don't buy it, and it still doesn't explain the significant gap even at public universities. (UP DOES have an engineering program and a business school.) Title IX has even been blamed, which required schools to offer equal athletic opportunities to women. (In other words, women have been taking away previously untouchable opportunities for men.) I think perhaps this statistic needs to be studied more before schools offer "solutions" to something that may not even be a long-term problem. Even if it is, do we really want football to be a solution? The reason football had been dropped from some schools in the first place had to do with high cost and dramatic (sometimes fatal) injuries. What about more "life sports" for everyone? Just a thought.