IX in Action
CSM’s female athletes build on sports success in a learning community of their own
One of College of San Mateo’s newest learning communities is for female student-athletes. IX in Action—named after the federal law mandating gender equity in education—builds on these students’ positive identity and community as Bulldog athletes to teach academic success skills, transfer-level English composition, and the history of women’s sports as an agent of social change.
Its organizers believe IX in Action, which graduates its first official cohort in spring 2023, is among the first such learning communities in the United States.
Students take a year of English to satisfy general-education requirements and one-unit classes in psychology and Women, Sports, and Society.
IX in Action complements Writing in the End Zone, a highly successful learning community for Bulldog football players. CSM believed its female athletes merited the same kind of support. Bulldog coaches and Athletic Director Andreas Wolf are instrumental in CSM’s athlete learning communities in part because they want as many players as possible to transfer with athletic scholarships. Like other CSM students, Bulldog athletes come from a range of socioeconomic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds, often hindered by systemic inequity. Some might lose confidence in a classroom without their solid identity as athletes to build on.
“IX in Action is, among many other things, a way to capture students who can use the academic support,” said English Professor Sara Lawrence, a former Division I softball player. “Some of our learning communities are culturally based. IX in Action uses identity another way.”
The coaches alternate attending Lawrence’s class alongside the students, said Volleyball Coach Katie Goldhahn, who also teaches the program’s class Social Issues in Sport. In addition, Softball Coach Nicole Quigley-Borg teaches Women in Sport, while Women's Basketball Coach Michelle Warner teaches Sports Psychology. Additional study hall and counseling hours provide structure for the student-athletes to be successful, along with leadership opportunities like a toy drive and Readers as Leaders storytime at CSM’s Child Development Center.
“We are aware of what our kids are learning,” Goldhahn said. “It’s a great opportunity to keep them accountable.”
“The biggest piece is feeling like you’re actively engaged in your student-athletes’ academic curriculum and thus their success,” she said. “Before that, I would do grade checks and it was a little disconnected. With our freshmen taking three classes with us, I have a real understanding what they’re going through day by day.”
On a recent morning, Lawrence’s English 110 class discussed The Peerless Four, Victoria Pattison’s historical novel about Canadian athletes at the 1928 Olympics, the first in which women runners were allowed to compete.
Through ideas familiar to them—athletes’ attitudes toward their own results—the students learned about characterization, narrative arcs, and framing. These are all transfer-level English skills, university-level, and universally applicable. But, by implication, the students learned how storytelling, and awareness of one’s own story, can also shape a reader’s life.
“They have complicated relationships to their talents,” Lawrence said. “Farmer wins gold in javelin and says, ‘I’m just the best among who showed up today. There may be someone in Africa who can beat me. I just beat the ones who got to show up.’ Remember, we are in 1928.”
One student pointed out this reference to discrimination. “People were more racist back then,” she said. “Some people weren’t allowed to compete.”
Though it was pouring rain outside, the class was well-attended and the students well-prepared. There was even a competition: The first to get the page number of a certain plot point won the prize of leaving class five minutes early. Lawrence said that everyone did so well in the end that she let the class out five minutes early.
IX in Action serves to unify CSM’s women’s athletic community, whose members are all very busy with their practices and games. Most members play basketball, softball, or volleyball with Warner, Quigley-Borg, or Goldhahn, though the program is open to all women’s sports, including swimming, water polo, and track and field.
“It’s a team outside of our own team,” Goldhahn said. “Sara goes to all our matches. Softball surprised us by being in the audience when we went to the state volleyball tourney in December in Fresno. It brought tears to our eyes. We were honored.”
One of IX in Action’s first events was a presentation by CSM President Jennifer Taylor-Mendoza, who spoke to the players about her own leadership journey.
“She was floored with this idea,” Goldhahn said. “She aligns with what we’re trying to do.”
Though IX in Action is too new for performance metrics, other statistics support its approach. For example, a 2007 study found that Writing in the End Zone students completed developmental English (English 828) at a rate 20 percent higher than the student body at large.
