Past, Present and Future: Title IX at Virginia Tech
Celebrating 50 years since the passage of Title IX, key figures from Virginia Tech’s women’s athletics joined the students of my Spring 2023 students in Moss Arts Center to discuss what it means for women to have opportunities to play collegiate sports. Students moderated two panels of guests – one featuring past athletes and one focused on current issues – to have discussions about what’s improved for women athletes and what work is still to be done. After the panels, they invited the community to a mixer as they discussed and showed their journalism.
News coverage of event:
Roanoke Times – “Trailblazers, current Hokies basketball starts discuss impact of Title IX at Virginia Tech.” April 11, 2023.
WSLS 10 – “Virginia Tech celebrates 50 years of Title IX progress.” April 11, 2023.
WDBJ 7 – “Virginia Tech hosts discussion on Title IX and how far women’s athletics have come.” April 11, 2023.
Cardinal News – “Two members of Virginia Tech women’s basketball team to speak at Title IX event.” April 7, 2023.
WSLS, News 10, Roanoke, Va. – “Virginia Tech Title IX history event.” April 7, 2023.
Documentary on women’s athletics at Virginia Tech
I directed Autumn Zipfel’s (M.A. ’18, Reputation Management) master’s project on the history of women’s athletics at Virginia Tech. A shortened version of the project was shown in-arena for a sold-out Hokie’s women’s basketball game and was aired on the ACC Network.
Sports media majors & gender
Two graduate students, Nicole Verdin and Rory Ailor, worked with me in an independent study about sports media and gender. As part of our work we completed an audit of the gender discrepancies in the burgeoning number of sports media, sports communication, and sports journalism majors in U.S. universities. This work was presented at the annual conference of the International Association of Communication and Sport.
Megan Ann Duncan 