about the Ball women and their role in the suffrage movement. 06
Female coaches share their journeys in the pre-Title IX era of athletics. 08
Ball State women’s basketball’s record season continues in the NCAA Tournament.
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VOL. 104 ISSUE: 26
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Kate Farr, Editor-in-chief
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CORRECTION
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Remembering Jason Phillips
Professor Jason Trent Phillips, lecturer of telecommunications in the Department of Media, died March 11 at Baptist Health Deaconess in Madisonville, Kentucky. Phillips was born on September 3, 1972, in Madisonville to the late Sherry Phelps Todd and Phillip L. Phillips. He had an extensive Batman collection and enjoyed comic books. He is survived by his grandmother, Inez Phelps, and his stepfather, Robert “Bobby” Todd, both of Madisonville. A graveside service was held March 14 at Pleasant Grove Cemetery with Reverend Bobby Todd officiating, according to Harris County Funeral Home. If Ball State University students or colleagues would like to share condolences, they can drop a card in the Media Office, located in the Ball Communication Building, room 201, by March 21 to be mailed to Phillips’ family.
Penn federal funding suspended
The Trump administartion suspended approximately $175 million in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) over a transgender swimmer who competed at the school in 2022, according to the Associated Press (AP). This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order Feb. 5 intending to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports. The following day, the Department of Education began to investigate Penn’s swim program. According to AP, a Penn spokesperson said the school had not received any notification or details of the action.
Ball State Women’s Basketball is making its first trip to the NCAA Tournament in 16
years. 14
Gordon, Weather forecaster, Benny Weather Group
BALL STATE UNIVERSITY, PHOTO PROVIDED
TOM GRALISH/THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/TNS
ANDREW BERGER,DN
‘OUT OF LOVE’
Federal layo s spark concerns over the Indiana Dunes maintenance and visitor experience.
Campus
Kate Farr Editor-in-chief
Nevada Silsby-Inman’s love for national parks began with her mother. Summers at Acadia National Park were a tradition for her family, cementing the destination as where her childhood unfolded in the scent of the park’s evergreen trees and the sound of waves crashing on the shore of Sand Beach.
The yearly treks to the national park — nestled in the mid-section of Maine’s Mount Desert Island near where Silsby-Inman’s grandparents lived — started when she was a toddler.
“We would usually lounge on the beach for hours, drive up to Cadillac Mountain[’s] summit and hike through the evergreen woods doing ranger programs,” Silsby-Inman said via email. But for the second-year public history major at Ball State University, one hike remains a poignant memory nearly three years later. The Silsby-Inman family made a journey back to Maine in the dead of winter rather than June, as they always had, to hike to the familiar summit of Cadillac Mountain.
Lacing up their hiking boots and starting their expedition in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, the family’s hike marked several firsts for Silsby-Inman: her first winter spent in Maine, her first hike from sea level to the mountain’s summit and her first time returning to Acadia since her mother’s passing that past fall.
Silsby-Inman said the park’s rocky coastline, steep summits and sandy beaches were the same backdrop of her mother’s teenage summers.
In a March 17 press release, Ball State announced Rodney Nassiri as associate vice president for facilities, planning and management. In his new role, Nassiri will oversee the 788acre campus. His March 31 start date makes him an asset to the upcoming Village revitalization project, according to the press release.
With her younger brother and father in tow, the freezing first morning of the new year was spent scaling up the tallest mountain on the eastern seaboard.
BRENDENROWAN , DNILLUSTRATION
“We were unprepared for Maine winter, especially while hiking up a mountain,” she said. “But it was so beautiful and so worth it.”
With icicles clinging to the mountain’s exposed rock faces and the frozen ocean air stinging their skin, the family reached Cadillac’s summit and took in the panoramic view at its peak. SilsbyInman said reaching the summit was a “feeling so out of body” — a break from the grief that had been ever-present in the months following her mother’s death.
Over the past few years, Silsby-Inman has volunteered at the Indiana Dunes National Park and Zion National Park, driven by her goal of building a career with the U.S. National Parks Service (NPS). But as she packed her bags for her week-long volunteer trip to the Dunes this past spring break, she received the news that hundreds of national parks employees were being fired across the country.
“My first thought was, ‘These rangers and employees are good people,’” Silsby-Inman said. “They have helped raise me nearly every summer since age five.”
In late February, nearly 1,000 National Park Service employees were fired following
government-wide reductions spearheaded by President Donald Trump’s administration and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, currently captained by senior adviser and billionaire businessman Elon Musk.
In the early months of the new presidential administration, agency leaders were urged to plan for “large-scale reductions in force,” according to the Associated Press (AP). With upward of a thousand NPS workers removed from their posts, concerns over how the United States’ 433 national parks, historic landmarks and other protected sites will be managed have been heard from all corners of the country.
While the Trump administration partially backtracked on its elimination efforts and vowed to restore the jobs of dozens of employees let go from their NPS positions, only an estimated 50 NPS positions are currently undergoing restoration. Some of the Hoosiers who helped maintain the Indiana Dunes National Park and other protected sites are still without jobs.
See PARKS, 04
Second Harvest Food Bank will host a Tailgate Food Distribution March 27, according to a March 18 press release. The event will take place at Muncie Mall, 3401 N. Granville Ave. It’s open to all. No ID or proof of income required, and distributions are while supplies last. Volunteers can sign up at CureHunger.org.
Local State Rodney Nassiri to join university staff March 31 Muncie Tailgate Food Distribution announced
Indiana unemployment rate at 4.4 percent
of Workforce Development. The
Indiana’s unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in January, higher than the national rate of four percent, according to a March 17 press release from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. The state’s labor force participation rate is 63.8 percent with job gains in business services and manufacturing.
PARKS
Continued from Page 3
Over the past month, Betsy Maher, the executive director of the Indiana-based nonprofit Save the Dunes, has been in contact with multiple sources, who confirmed four employees were “abruptly fired” from the Dunes around Feb. 14. Additionally, a Denver-based employee — an individual who lived locally and was assigned to several regional projects — was also let go.
Maher added that the five individuals were impacted by probationary firings, meaning their positions had “less protection” due to being hired only within the last year.
Because these individuals were federal employees, Maher said information on the number of people fired and their positions had to be obtained from outside organizations. She said that of those fired, one individual managed wildfires — a “regular occurrence” for the Dunes — and worked on fires regionally for the NPS. Another employee allegedly worked in the maintenance and restoration department.
summary of the initial request, additional questions and contact information for the publication before forwarding the email to the NPS Office of Communications.
“All media requests on the government restructuring must be sent to our Washington Communications Office for response,” Rowe said via email.
The DN’s initial media request asked for a statement providing the total number of park employees fired from the Indiana Dunes following the government-wide federal firings and if the Indiana Dunes would restore those positions and hire more seasonal workers as a result of the president’s avowal to restore NPS jobs and employ additional seasonal workers.
In an email statement, the NPS said the federal agency is “hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience” as the parks “embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management.”
The statement goes on to state that the NPS is “working closely” with the Office of Personnel Management to “ensure [it is] prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people,” adding that NPS teams are “dedicated to staffing to meet the evolving needs of [national parks] visitors.”
After a follow-up request from the DN, emphasizing the request for a confirmation of how many NPS workers were fired from the Dunes and if those jobs would be restored, the response email from the NPS stated the agency had “nothing more” to add.
Maher said that while she understands the need of “doing less with more,” the national parks and their services aren’t areas with “a lot of fat to trim.”
We
as the American public need to be advocating hard for our parks and their protectors. There needs to be a united public front of people who are vocal about how much the parks mean to them. Help them.”
- NEVADA SILSBY-INMAN, Aecond-year public history student at Ball State University
The restoration efforts of Indiana’s only national park, which preserve a biological diversity that ranks the Dunes as the fourth most biodiverse national park, are just one piece of the puzzle in maintaining the park’s 15,000 acres and numerous complexes.
“Rangers do all they do out of love, and it’s hard to watch them lose what they have worked so hard for as someone wanting to do the same,” SilsbyInman said, adding that with an “understaffed and underappreciated park” like the Indiana Dunes, the outcome could be “extremely damaging.”
The Ball State Daily News (DN) contacted Indiana Dunes National Park and was put in contact with Bruce Rowe, the park’s education and public information officer.
Rowe requested an email compiling a short
“You may experience less staff at visitor centers to answer questions, longer lines getting into the park and [affected] positions that collect the fees when you enter the park,” she said. “… It has a domino effect.”
According to NPR, a Maryland federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate thousands of unlawfully fired federal employees across 18 agencies March 14, hours after a similar ruling in San Francisco. Although temporary, restoring the positions of fired NPS workers and recruiting seasonal staff may take time. Maher warned the firings, along with a “freezing” of the seasonal hiring positions, could still impact the visitor experience as the park approaches its peak visitation season in the spring and summer.
“If there’s an emergency and someone needs first aid, unstocked things, trash receptacles, those kinds of things are the nuts and bolts of the park,” Maher said. “The park has already seen a decline in [staffing] budget by 20 percent while the visitation has increased by 16 percent.”
Growing up in Chicago’s southwest suburbs, just a car ride along Lake Michigan’s shoreline from the Dunes, Maher said the park has been a part of her entire life. Now, in her role with the environmental advocacy nonprofit, she continues to work to “protect and advocate for the perpetual health and vitality” of the national park.
In light of the recent firings, Maher hopes discussing the Dunes will raise awareness of the topic and encourage more volunteers and visitors to visit the park.
A Facebook post from Save the Dunes urged
Hoosiers to call state representatives to voice their concerns. The organization provided a script and included a link from the Indiana government website, where interested Hoosiers can find and contact their congressional legislators.
“It’s important the community understands what the impacts are going to be for their experiences and the parks they care about,” Maher said.
Beyond contacting local politicians, SilsbyInman said speaking out is a “good step in the right direction.”
“We as the American public need to be advocating hard for our parks and their protectors,” Silsby-Inman said. “There needs to be a united public front of people who are vocal about how much the parks mean to them. Help them.”
Contact Kate Farr via email at kate.farr@ bsu.edu.
It’s important the community understand what the impacts are going to be for their experiences and the parks they care about.”
- BETSY MAHER, Executive director at Save the Dunes
(Top) The welcome sign for the Indiana State Dunes National Park is photographed March 6 in Chesterton, Ind. ANDREW BERGER, DN (Bottom) The west bank of the Indiana Dunes National Park is photographed March 5 in Chesterton, Ind. The photo was taken by second-year public history student Nevada Silsby-Inman while she was volunteering at the national park over spring break. NEVADA SILSBY-INMAN, PHOTO PROVIDED
Letter from the Editors
At the Ball State Daily News, we recognize we operate in a unique space where most of our editorial board identifies as female. However, in an industry where women are still underrepresented in leadership roles and where female journalists continue to face discrimination, we do not take our positions for granted.
Throughout the nation, men frequently dominate the highest positions in newsrooms. A 2024 study by the Reuters Institute examining a sample of 240 major online and offline news organizations in 12 diverse markets across five continents revealed that just 24 percent of the 174 top editorial roles are held by women. On average, women make up 40 percent of journalists in those 12 markets.
We can change this narrative. Our newsroom is led by women who make editorial decisions, and we have the opportunity to provide a space where female journalists can grow without barriers. However, this privilege is not the reality for many women in journalism.
Recognizing this, we are responsible for advocating for a future where more newsrooms reflect what we experience here. Women in journalism deserve to see themselves in leadership positions, and newsrooms should reflect this.
As we celebrate Women’s History Month, we honor the women who have paved the way for our voices to be heard, but we also want to recognize that more work needs to be done to ensure women feel fully empowered in their positions.
Sincerely,
The Ball State Daily News Editorial Board
Winning the Fight
Hannah Amos Reporter
A convention in July 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, sparked a 72-year-long, persistent national movement.
Various women donned white dresses wearing sashes of purple and green — and later on purple and gold — marching for American women’s right to vote.
Landmark women of the Women’s Suffrage Movement included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ida B. Wells, but many others contributed, including the Ball State University’s founding family.
In Indiana, Elizabeth Ball (Brady), Emma Ball (Wood), Frances Ball (Woodworth), Sarah Ball (Rogers) and Bertha Ball (Crosley) played influential roles, from quiet financial support to hosting meetings and representing the movement at the state level.
Throughout Indiana and Delaware County, suffragists were a diverse group; men, people of color and people of different socioeconomic classes joined the cause, not just wealthy white women, said Melissa Gentry, Paul W. Stout Map Collection supervisor at Ball State University Libraries and member of the board of directors of the Delaware County Historical Society.
According to Gentry, one of the first women to register to vote in the 1917 special elections in Muncie was illiterate and used an “X” as her signature to register.
Jessica Jenkins, former Minnetrista Museum and Gardens archivist and current executive director of the Litchfield Historical Society in Litchfield, Connecticut, studied the Ball family’s involvement in the Suffrage Movement.
The Woman’s Franchise League (WFL) of Indiana, founded in 1911, connected state, county
and local suffrage efforts with the Ball women active in Muncie’s chapter.
In these organizations, “white women of wealth and high social standings tended to find themselves in leadership positions, but the membership of state, county and local organizations was multicolored and diverse in terms of social class and economics,” Jenkins said via email.
Emma helped organize Muncie’s WFL convention in 1912 and served as vice president. She advocated for laws protecting women and children, reflecting the broader motivation for suffrage: influencing legislation on labor, poverty, education and healthcare, Gentry said via email.
“This is why many prominent women in the community supported women’s suffrage,” Gentry said. “They believed that women voters would influence legislation on behalf of children, like child labor laws and poverty, education, healthcare and aid programs for women and children.”
In the starting years of the franchise league, many members hosted private meetings in their homes, since not every member’s spouse approved of the movement.
Emma, Sarah and Elizabeth all hosted meetings and held various positions on the board of directors for the organization, while also being a part of various committees for the organization.
In 1912, Emma and William C. Ball hosted a pep rally at their Maplewood home. At this rally, the women discussed educational reform, child labor laws and temperance — abstaining from alcohol.
They also hosted a meeting in 1913 where their son William H. Ball entertained guests with musical numbers.
Elizabeth gained permission to host meetings at her church, St. John’s Universalist, which helped provide stability for the organization.
When the Indiana Legislature temporarily passed a bill for women’s suffrage in local municipal
The Ball wives, among their various organizations, joined the fight for women’s suffrage.
elections in 1917, Elizabeth held civic and voting issues classes in the church. She invited other local franchise leagues, including at least two African American franchise leagues, Gentry said.
In addition to her church meetings, she hosted a garden party in June 1918 which over 300 women attended in honor of the Muncie Central High School (MCHS) graduating classes of 1868 and 1869.
Bertha hosted a party at her home, Nebosham — known today as the E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center — for league members to hear Ida Husted Harper, a national suffragist leader and MCHS 1868 graduate, who presented the commencement speech at MCHS.
That same summer, Bertha also hosted a luncheon for franchise league members and Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected into the U.S. House of Representatives in 1916, when Rankin was invited to speak at Muncie’s July Fourth celebration.
Jenkins cited that these meetings were open to suffrage membership, which was socioeconomically diverse, meaning one’s social status didn’t gain or block entry into these meetings.
Beyond hosting, the Ball family provided various financial support to the movement.
Sarah’s husband, Dr. Lucius L. Ball joined the league as a founding member as well as offering financial support to the suffrage movement.
Frances, like her sisters-in-laws, was a member of the WFL of Muncie, but she took on a more quiet form of support, supplying crucial monetary support to the state level suffrage near the time of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
She was “a major contributor to this specific financial campaign at the moment that it really counted,” Jenkins said.
Their various forms of support helped the suffrage movement beyond the direct impacts.
Houses of the Ball Women
According to Gentry, in the early stages of the suffrage movement, most Americans viewed suffragists as radicals. When prominent women, like the Ball women, showed their support, it helped persuade men and other women to join the cause.
The Balls supported women’s suffrage because they believed it would help the Muncie community through labor reform, education and health improvements.
Susan Smith, Minnetrista Museum and Gardens archivist, said the Ball family valued education, especially higher education, along with serving their community. These values empowered the family to impact the community, such as their involvement in the suffrage movement.
“[The Ball family] contributed a lot to this community and other wealthy families who could have stepped up didn’t necessarily, so when they saw an opportunity, they did,” Smith said. “They did what they could, and other people could have done the same. The opportunities were there.”
Beyond womens’ rights, the Ball women left a lasting legacy in Muncie. The women were involved in various organizations, varying from the arts to health, so their involvement with the suffrage movement was just one of many ways the Ball women were serving their community.
Though their time with the WFL of Muncie is over, the impact of the organization is still going strong since its transition into the League of Women Voters after the 19th Amendment was ratified.
“It’s important to remember that women were not given the right to vote,” Gentry said. “Women and men battled for the suffrage cause and the people of Muncie were actively involved in making history and still are today.”
Contact Hannah Amos via email at hannah. amos@bsu.edu or on X @Hannah_Amos_394.
Oakhurst - Frances Ball E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center (formerly Nebosham) - Bertha Ball
Maplewood - Emma Ball
Shelby Anderson Reporter
As women continue to break barriers across industries, the fight for equal pay remains an enduring struggle for those who work in maledominated fields every day, according to a National Park Service (NPS) summary of the Equal Pay Act of 1963.
“During the first decades of the 20th century, women made up less than 24 percent of the U.S. workforce,” but in the midst of World War II, labor shortages brought 37 percent of women into the workplace, according to NPS.
Sergeant Samaria Cooper has worked for the Ball State University Police Department for a decade and said she has never faced any issues related to her gender within her department, but rather, through interactions with the public while on duty.
Cooper said one of the hardest parts of her job is getting people to recognize her point of view as a police officer.
“The public, especially with true crime documentaries, see that stuff, and they think that they know a lot more than they do,” she said.
Cooper said she does not believe in the wage gap since she has never dealt with it and is thankful for how Ball State has treated employees of any gender.
Mind the(Pay)Gap
Mind the(Pay)Gap
Women working and studying in male-dominated careers share their stories.
“I’m happy to say that Ball State hasn’t fallen into that trap [of] not treating women as equals,” Cooper said.
For women who want to join law enforcement, Cooper mentioned an initiative called 30 for 30, an organization that helps women in law enforcement succeed.
According to 30 for 30, “Women make up less than 14 percent of sworn officers and 20 percent of recruits in state and local law enforcement agencies.”
According to a March 2022 article from National Public Radio, over the past decade, women only made up 12.7 percent of songwriters. That doesn’t stop one Ball State student from making music and breaking barriers.
Bella Myers, a first-year music media production student, feels “anxious” about going into the maledominated career path.
“I am scared there will be discrimination against me and other women,” she said. “I am afraid some men may look down on [women] and may be misogynistic.”
Myers said this is a real problem that women face every day, from past to present.
“Women should have better equality and rights when trying to make a living. Us women have had voices since the very beginning,” she said.
Emma Fowler, a first-year legal studies student, worked in the mortuary field throughout high school. She said she often feels “intimidated” by
the male-oriented nature of the trade.
“Families themselves are somewhat intimidated by female funeral directors from what I’ve seen directly working in a funeral home, but it’s really important for families to have connections with a whole variety of funeral directors … to make them feel safe and heard,” Fowler said.
Unlike other industries, a career in mortuary is growing with women. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, nearly 65 percent of graduates from funeral director programs in the United States in 2017 were female.
According to the Insurance & Risk Financial Facility Global Organization, only 35 percent of participating, working group members were women in 2024. Natalie Yoder is a first-year finance and risk management and insurance student who is trying to uptick that percentage.
As Yoder continues her studies, she said she has made it a goal of hers to try tp focus on what she brings to the table, rather than outside negativity.
“If I dwell on the negative parts of entering the [business] field, I think it may hinder me more than help,” she said.
Yoder believes there is a pay gap between men and women, but it varies by profession, citing the pay disparity between men and women’s basketball.
According to the National Partnership for Women & Families, the NBA has paid its players between 49 and 51 percent of the league’s revenue,
but WNBA players have received a maximum of 22.8 percent.
“To be honest, I think the whole thing is kind of dumb. However, I do understand the frustration, as women are working the same job as men and getting paid less,” Yoder said.
There have been things done to try to manage the wage gap, such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963 signed into law by then-President John F. Kennedy. The act prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women.
In a March study, the Pew Research Center updated the change in the pay wage gap.
“In 2024, women earned an average of 85 percent of what men earned, [an] analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. In 2003, women earned 81 percent as much as men,” according to the center.
This statistic reflects a trend from years past. Yoder feels that while women have come a long way, the future is still uncertain.
“[Women] have made a lot of progress, and our voices have been heard, [but] I would be wary of getting cocky. There is sexism in the workplace, [and] if we are going to keep making progress and not take steps backward, we must have the mentality to be the bigger person,” she said. Contact Shelby Anderson via email at sanderson9@bsu.edu.
(Left) Sergeant Samaria Cooper puts her report in after a call March 13 on Ball State University’s campus. Cooper works for the Ball State University Police Department and has worked for them for over a decade. ISABELLA KEMPER, DN; (Right) Sergeant Samaria Cooper talks to two Ball State students after responding to a call March 13 in Muncie, Ind. ISABELLA KEMPER, DN
Leveling the playing field
Previous Ball State coaches helped pave the way for female athletes after Title IX.
Ella Howell Lifestyles and Copy Editor
Growing up as a girl in the ’50s and ’60s, Debra “Debbie” Powers was told a lot of things about herself that she knew, and would later prove, to be untrue.
Expectations that she would always be polite, quiet and “ladylike” were enforced. Slacks or jeans weren’t feminine enough — she needed to wear a dress or skirt. She even had a teacher tell her in elementary school that no one would want to marry her because she was “too aggressive and competitive.”
The most difficult standard for Powers to conform to was that it was not culturally appropriate for her to enjoy sports of any kind. Growing up around three brothers and developing a love of
basketball early in life, her exclusion from sports was disheartening and confusing.
“I could not figure out why, why I couldn’t play in sports … I mean, I loved it so much, I didn’t understand why they said I couldn’t play, even on any of the boys teams,” Powers said.
Powers, head coach for Ball State’s women’s basketball during the 1976 to 1982 seasons, didn’t let any of these expectations stop her from pursuing her passion. She practiced in skirts and dresses on the playground and went home to play in her driveway.
She didn’t know it at the time, but Powers would eventually join the fight to advocate for women in sports and prove to people that her “aggression” and competitive nature could be utilized as positives.
Women on the outside
Throughout Powers’ childhood, she continued to watch her male peers be encouraged while she was reprimanded for participating in sports.
It wasn’t until Title IX was implemented in 1972, when Powers was in college, that it became somewhat accepted for girls to be involved in any sport.
Title IX is a federal civil rights law stating educational programs and activities that receive federal funding can’t deny anyone benefits or discriminate against people because of their sex, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Andrea “Andi” Seger also played a big role in advocating for women’s sports in Indiana. She started as an assistant athletic trainer at Ball State
before being promoted to the school’s women’s athletic director in 1983. After 12 years in that position, she became Ball State’s first female athletic director when women’s and men’s athletic departments were combined into one at Ball State.
She had a similar experience to Powers growing up watching her male peers be taken seriously in athletics.
“They didn’t have organized sports for girls, but we had a girls club in town, and we were able to play some sports informally through that,” Seger said.
Unlike Powers, Seger eventually got the chance to play on teams in high school. When her school introduced women’s teams she joined multiple, which led her to seek degrees in
Helen Martin (left) and Andrea Seger (right) at a Ball State University women’s gymnastics meet Feb. 27, 1987, in Irving Gymnasium. The meet was the Cardinals versus University of Iowa Hawks. BSU ARCHIVES, PHOTO PROVIDED
physical education and, later, athletic training. Powers also received a degree in physical education, starting in 1969 at Indiana University (IU). Due to the discrimination she had experienced, she felt that this was the only way she could be involved in what she loved.
“All I knew was I could be involved teaching physical education in the gym all day long, and enjoying my love of sport and sharing that love with other students,” Powers said.
When Powers was at IU, she saw a sign in the women’s locker room announcing women’s basketball tryouts. While thrilled when she found out she made the team, she quickly discovered it still wouldn’t be the same experience as the men.
“We had to pay for our own uniforms, our own shoes, our coach drove us in a station wagon to away games played in little, tiny cracker box gyms,” Powers said. “It was because there was no law to say it had to be any equal. There was no law until 1972 when Title IX was passed.”
‘You’re supposed to be cheerleaders’
The passing of Title IX was met with pushback from many Americans. Powers said the law was a step forward, but it didn’t immediately reverse the idea so deeply ingrained in society that women didn’t belong in sports.
“The boys kind of thought it was silly that girls would want to even play a sport and sweat,” Powers said. “It was still that males versus females. ‘Look at those girls, why would they do that? You’re supposed to be the cheerleaders. You’re supposed to be supporting us.’ So we always felt like secondclass citizens.”
In 1976, the NCAA unsuccessfully sued the Secretary of the Department of Wealth, Education and Welfare arguing Title IX shouldn’t apply to sports as they aren’t directly federally funded, according to the National Association of College and University Attorneys.
“Sports was not even [directly] mentioned [in Title IX], but the NCAA and men figured out, ‘Oh my gosh, that means that will involve sports,’ and they petitioned to keep sports out of Title IX,” Powers said. “They said, ‘That’s going to ruin football. It’s going to ruin men’s sports if these girls have an opportunity.”
According to the U.S. Department of Education, three years after Title IX was passed, the government gave educational institutions a compliance deadline of three years. The transition period expired on July 21, 1978, and by the end of the month, the department had received nearly 100 complaints of discrimination in athletics against over 50 higher education institutions needing to be investigated.
Seger said Ball State received an anonymous Title IX complaint that forced the university to develop an equity plan, and it turned into a “huge fight.”
In 1975, Seger became very involved in faculty meetings when the issue of implementing Title IX was brought up.
“We tried to add a certain amount of money each year to the women’s program and spread it amongst the teams. When we first started women’s athletics, we were getting leftover warm up suits from the men’s programs,” Seger said. “We gradually started to increase the operating budgets.”
She said, like any other school, transitioning Ball State’s program to include women’s sports was a
slow process. They worked each year to allocate additional dollars to women’s scholarships, but it was gradual, and they couldn’t just reallocate a large amount of money at once to even it out.
“We did a good job at Ball State of adding one or two scholarships every year for the women’s program, and so we came into equity under Title IX in the early ’90s,” Seger said.
While Seger worked to implement Title IX as an administrator, as the women’s basketball coach, Powers saw the other side of the slow progress toward equity.
Powers’ team didn’t have to pay for their own uniforms as she did at IU, but it still wasn’t the progress many were hoping for. She said their uniforms were purchased from a sporting goods closeout sale and were blue, not Ball State’s colors, and they were shared between the women’s basketball, volleyball, and softball teams.
“I was thrilled to get to be involved in a sport, but it just was not fair,” Powers said. “We did not have separate locker rooms, the girls had to buy their own shoes. We played in the old Ball Gym which was not even renovated out of a leaky roof. We didn’t even get to play on the main floor.”
Opportunities opened for future athletes
Nearly 53 years after Title IX became a federal law, the push for equality continues. It has had a significant impact on female participation in sports, but there is still progress to be made; male athletes have a much larger pool of opportunities, and collegiate women are doubly impacted by this lack of opportunity and the correlating scholarship dollars, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation.
“Even for the next 10 to 15 years women really had to scrape to get equality,” Powers said. “[Young female athletes will] have to work a lot harder … You don’t have very many women, and it’s still an old boys network.”
She sees how far women’s sports have come since she was a college athlete and is mesmerized by the opportunities they have now.
“I like to think I was one of the pioneers that trudged along and had to do with lesser facility and lesser opportunity,” Powers said. “I think the future is bright for women. Every little girl that wants to play soccer, softball, gymnastics, whatever sport, there is opportunity for them.”
Seger said while women still require more chances to exist in these previously male-dominated spaces, it’s no longer a question of if they deserve to be there, like when she was growing up. Rather, it’s about how to get them there and choosing between all the options women like Seger and Powers have opened up.
“When you’re an athlete, it doesn’t matter what sport you play, an athlete is an athlete,” Seger said. An opportunity to play sports is what’s important, and so women should have that same opportunity and those numbers of opportunities.”
Contact Ella Howell via email at ella.howell@ bsu.edu.
The 1977 Ball State women’s basketball team pose for a photo in the locker room. Debbie Powers said the “infamous” blue uniforms were purchased from a sporting goods closeout. DEBRA POWERS, PHOTO PROVIDED
(Right) Ball State’s first female athletic director holds up the women’s basketball schedule and team photo March 17, 1983 in Muncie, Ind. Seger said transitioning Ball State’s programs to comply with Title IX was a slow process.
PHOTO PROVIDED
‘FOCUSING
ON EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT’
Across the nation, more women are enrolled in higher education than ever before.
Katherine Hill Co-News Editor
In 2022, women were nine percent more likely to enroll in college than men, according to a March 2024 report from The American Institute for Men and Boys.
As of March 2024, women were 11 percent more likely to graduate from a four-year institution in four years and seven percent more likely to graduate within six years than men.
The report summarized that while the trends aren’t new, the continued growth of these “disparities pose significant questions for administrators, policymakers and students.”
Ball State University is aligned with such trends. 31.1 percent more female-identifying students than males graduated from the university in 2022, including from both graduate and undergraduate programs, according to a breakdown analysis from Data USA.
Katie Lawson, a Ball State professor and assistant chair in the Department of Psychological Science who studies gender-related topics, said this can largely be traced back to society’s changing
The jobs that we’ve ‘funneled’ women into require a degree.”
- KATIE LAWSON, Ball State University professor and assistant chair in the Department of Psychological Science
connotation of a “traditional” family unit.
Citing from the Pew Research Center, she said, “Out of all the households in the U.S. that have children, just slightly under half are actually that traditional ‘Leave it to Beaver’ household, with a mom, dad and kids.”
As family dynamics change, the Pew Research Center has published a range of reports from Dec. 2015 through Sept. 2023, outlining the composition of “the American family today.”
Their most recently updated data collection essay from Sept. 2023 — “The Modern American Family” — details that a key change in family dynamics is the baseline marital age among U.S. adults, which intrinsically has led to more women having fewer children than in the 1970s, according to Pew.
“If women are postponing marriage and children, it allows them to focus on their educational development in a way that is much more challenging when you have children,” Lawson said.
She credited the uprising of women in higher education to a variety of factors, including the nation’s rising cost of living and exponential wealth
inequities, which she said simultaneously impact the age at which couples settle down. Ultimately, she said the trend of more women enrolled in — and graduating from — higher education than men could most likely be attributed to the fact that “the types of jobs that women tend to go into tend to need a degree.”
“If you want to be a nurse [or] a teacher, you’re going to need some sort of educational background. It’s not something that easily fits into vocationaltype training. The jobs that we’ve ‘funneled’ women into require a degree,” Lawson said.
Autumn Voegerl, a second-year social studies education student at Ball State, agreed with the increased cost of living as a plausible cause for women attending higher education, but she also mentioned a cultural shift in mindset.
“There are more resources now than ever women can use to attain a college education, and for a long time, women weren’t really encouraged to go to college,” she said via text. “That has drastically changed in recent years, and [American] culture has shifted from, ‘Girls don’t do that’ to ‘You can do anything you set your mind to.’”
Professor Katie Lawson teaches her Psychology of Women and Gender class in the North Quadrangle Building March 13 at Ball State University. Lawson has observed the workforce to be still “very segregated.” MALLORY HALL, DN
Despite society’s idealistic correlation between women and nurturement, research shows no concrete, statistical evidence to support it, as Lawson pointed out.
There are more resources now than ever women can use to attain a college education, and for a long time, women weren’t really encouraged to go to college.”
- AUTUMN VOEGERL, A second-year social studies education student at Ball State University
July 2024 psychological research from WellSpring Center for Prevention enforces the benefits of positive affirmations, leading to enhanced academic or career performance, especially when affirmations are written down.
“Simply telling someone they are capable of doing something has been proven to be very effective in increasing people’s chances of success in whatever they choose to do, college or not,” Voegerl said.
Voegerl is a first-generation college student with the goal of becoming a social studies teacher. She said that she was driven to pursue higher education by her parents who “both work blue-collar jobs.”
“They knew, even without having much experience with college, that it would afford me opportunities to learn that I couldn’t get anywhere else,” she said.
Ball State has a track record of attracting firstgeneration students. According to the university’s administrative offices, 32 percent of Ball State’s undergraduate student population are firstgeneration students, and one in every three firstyear students is also first-generation.
That, coupled with a locality far enough from home, a smaller-sized campus and professors who “genuinely care” about the academic success of
For a long time, teaching has been the only thing I want to do, and my ultimate goal is to be able to have my own classroom with students to teach and [the ability] to make a difference in places that could use some positivity.”
- AUTUMN VOEGERL, A second-year social studies education student at Ball State University
their students, made the university the ideal choice for Voegerl.
“The learning environment is amazing, and being able to do extracurriculars in addition to go[ing] to school for something I love is icing on the cake,” she said.
Ball State’s learning environment is something Voegerl hopes to emulate in her own classroom in the coming years.
“For a long time, teaching has been the only thing I want to do, and my ultimate goal is to be able to have my own classroom with students to teach and [the ability] to make a difference in places that could use some positivity,” she said.
Although women seem to dominate higher education, Lawson, who also specializes in the psychology of women and gender, has observed the workforce to still be “very segregated.” The majority of women continue to occupy “traditional jobs,” such as nurses or caretakers, reinforcing the societal perception of women being inherently more nurturing than men.
“We fill the roles that we think [we’re supposed to],” she said.
A Dec. 2017 report from the Pew Research Center acknowledged the differences between men and women but declared “no public consensus” on the origins of those differences.
“While women who perceive differences generally attribute them to societal expectations, men tend to point to biological differences,” according to Pew’s report.
In Voegerl’s case, social studies is a predominantly male teaching field, with 58 percent of men teaching the subject — according to a 2018 Brown Center report on American education — compared to just over three-quarters (77 percent) of K-12 public school teachers who are women, according to a September 2024 Pew Research Center report.
The still-existing need for women in the workforce is not something that has gone unnoticed by Voegerl.
“At Ball State, specifically, I don’t feel the uneasiness [of] being a woman in college as much because there are lots of female students here. However I feel the difference a lot more on a smaller scale when I’m in some of my humanities classes … [I try] not to think super deeply about it, but I’m conscious [of the disparities] in other domains, like some of my classes,” she said.
Lawson said historical strides have been made to help mitigate blatant inequalities and inequities between men and women. “There was flat out discrimination that used to keep women out of [certain] areas,” she said. “There were programs, colleges and universities that said, ‘[women] can’t go here.’”
Lawson added that in light of primitive advancements, there are “barriers” that still exist today, urging the importance of their continual removal.
Contact Katherine Hill via email at katherine. hill@bsu.edu.
Professor Katie Lawson teaches her Psychology of Women and Gender class in the North Quadrangle Building March 13 at Ball State University. Lawson said historical strides have been made to help mitigate blatant inequalities between men and women. MALLORY HALL, DN
Professor Katie Lawson teaches her Psychology of Women and Gender class in the North Quadrangle Building March 13 at Ball State University. MALLORY HALL, DN
JESSICA BERGFORS, DN ILLUSTRATION
Charlotte Jons is a first-year journalism major and writes “The Peanut Gallery” for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper.
If you were on the internet in the summer of 2023, you likely saw the term “girl dinner.” Created by TikToker Olivia Maher, according to Table Magazine, the trend showcased a snack-centered dinner, often with a collection of various cheeses, pickles, bread and other smaller, random foods.
Similarly, “girl math” was the next girlhood term to take the internet by storm. This refers to women using their own mathematical system to justify something, typically a purchase.
In the same summer that the girlhood terms of TikTok began to run the world, Greta Gerwig, a Hollywood writer and director known for showcasing feminine dynamics on screen, released her third film. This movie was, of course, “Barbie.”
This movie quickly became 2023’s highest-grossing film. “Barbie” kicked off another internet trend, one that inspired female friend groups to dress in pink and attend the movie’s showings together to celebrate the femalecentered story.
That same summer, Taylor Swift began her extremely successful Eras Tour. Although Swift has received criticism for her tour’s grandeur and environmental impacts, it is impossible to overlook the positive social impact of this tour on women everywhere, giving them a largely female space to come together for the most streamed solo artist of all time.
This summer, the Paris 2024 Olympics made sure these trends didn’t fizzle out like other internet phenomena, with new female Olympians competing and winning: Simone Biles, Ilona Maher, Coco Gauff and Suni Lee. For the first time in Olympic history, the Paris 2024 Games saw an equal number of men and women competing.
The game is changing.
With this, the “trendy girlhood” concept snowballed. The end of 2023 brought the bow trend, with many women loving the look of a ribbon on clothing, in their hair or worn on accessories. “Female rage” and “girlhood” films began circulating on cinephile’s independent algorithms, sparking re-watch parties of any woman-led film.
Tradwife (or “traditional wife”) TikTok accounts even commend women for leaning into their femininity and allowing themselves a simple, romantic life in the housewife lifestyle.
And that brings us to today, March 2025.
It is no secret that women have repeatedly been shown more criticism and put into more direct danger than their
male counterparts. Considering Title IX began in 1972, the guaranteed right to abortion began in 1973, womanowned bank accounts and credit began in 1974 and legal protection against sexual workplace harassment began in 1977, a lot of legal developments that grant more power to women are a lot newer than we imagined.
There has been a repeated cry out for power to the female community for as long as our country has been creating its history, taking the forms of riots, letters, strategized attacks and peaceful protests.
For the longest time, the word “power” in our country has been strictly male-owned. “Power” was the CEO of a company in menswear. It was the tomboy stereotype spoonfed to me as a little girl, all because wearing pink meant weakness. It was the all-male presidential line-up on the posters that I have spent my entire life looking at in classrooms.
I see the “trendy girlhood” of today that has birthed new adoration and celebration for a very feminine time as a new form of this cry for power.
Psychology Today underlines this with the article “Reflections on Feminine Power” by CEO of Women Rising Megan Dalla-Camina. Power, the article explains, is something shared between the genders in a complex and difficult way. Dalla-Camina details that power is different when held by a woman than when held by a man — different in appearance, energy and amount.
The age-old female cry for power is a repeated theme in our history. And if the theme is so repeated and obvious, why hasn’t the problem been solved entirely?
The danger in general attempts at change in the feminist community is that they can often place a filter onto the content’s viewer, indirectly saying that to be a successful woman you must be exactly what is shown.
This decade’s “trendy girlhood” doesn’t trip into
this pitfall. While other movements might encourage women to swap out their romance or feminine desires entirely for the idea of high success and achievement, these trends of the 2020s allow women their own agency over what womanhood, and the power within it, looks like to them.
For example, while many feminist movements advise and push against it, the tradwife trend has encouraged women to settle down in a simple, comforting and traditional lifestyle — if they choose to do so.
Other decade trends, such as Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet tour, give women another option of lifestyle and success to choose from. This one supports women through dating around and having extreme self-confidence and personal success, all while dressing in pretty dresses in the same way their sisters in the tradwife community can.
Other trends still give more contrasting options to young girls finding their life’s desire. Ilona Maher, American rugby union player and 2024 Paris Olympic bronze medalist, has gathered a cult following on her social media platforms for being a single woman who chooses to prioritize her personal career and personal achievement.
However, the rugby player, while outwardly intense and strong, isn’t devoid of femininity despite her inherently and stereotypically masculine athletic success. Maher competed on “Dancing With the Stars” last year, spending the season in gowns and makeup. She placed second.
That is what feminism boils down to, as perfectly shown in this decade’s girlhood trends: choice. Women being able to choose their identity is such a big part of the movement, one that is simply being packaged differently in the 2020s.
I personally find lots of joy in my own femininity. For a long time, I tried to make my identity more masculine. I connected masculinity to an almost effortless power that I felt I could never get with feminine hips and long hair.
And yet, in 2024, I won my second Ohio Speech and Debate state championship title in a pink mini-skirt suit after presenting a thesis on this very topic. I wore heels, bows and makeup. I was able to reach the success I had worked for.
I still hold many gender biases and beliefs that I am working on removing from my mindset. The inherent rewiring of power as a non-gendered concept, as well as prioritizing female choice, consistently is something that I think many of us can work on as we navigate these new girlhood culture trends. We are all responsible for continuing the work of all of the strong women before and around us this Women’s History Month and every day forward.
Contact Charlotte Jons via email charlotte.jons@ bsu.edu.
Columnist, “The Peanut Gallery” Charlotte Jons
16-2
RECORD IN THE MAC RECORD IN THE MAC
The Ball State women’s basketball’s 11-0 start in MAC regular season play was the Cardinal’s best ever.
No. 12 Ball State will face No. 5 Ole Miss in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. PUT ON YOUR
Ball State women’s basketball secured its first trip to the NCAA tournament since 2009.
Elijah Poe Reporter
Ball State women’s basketball is officially dancing.
The Cardinals are a No. 12 seed in the NCAA Women’s Basketball National Tournament to face the No. 5 seed Ole Miss in Waco, Texas, March 21 at 6 p.m.
Ball State made the dance with their MidAmerican Conference (MAC) Tournament Championship win over rival Toledo March 15.
Head coach Brady Sallee said there have been moments where he has had to pinch himself just to make sure all this is really happening.
Even if the Cardinals knew they were in the dance, Sallee said there were still some butterflies on waiting to see who Ball State will face. He said regardless of the opponent, the Cardinals are excited to be able to represent the MAC, Ball State University and Muncie on a national level.
Senior guard Ally Becki said it means everything to be in the tournament with the senior class. The Cardinals have had this goal
gets
since the beginning of the season, and seeing it play out has been special, she said.
“You dream of this as a kid when you watch March Madness when you’re young,” Becki said.
Associate head coach Audrey McDonaldSpencer gets goosebumps when talking about Becki. She has known the guard since she recruited her when she was 15 years old.
Sallee athletics.
Becki has been the starting point guard from the minute she walked into the door at Ball State. Sallee said she has also been the face of the program, which is a tall task.
“I think there’s going to be a day where that [No. 0] jersey is hanging in Worthen Arena, and she has earned every bit of it,” Sallee said.
Ball State Director of Athletics Jeff Mitchell said seeing athletes on a national stage is the “why” for Ball State athletics. He said the university celebrates student and athletic success, so seeing the Cardinals have their hard work paid off is special to see.
success, so seeing the Cardinals have their hard from
Though the NCAA Tournament is newly charted territory for Sallee and the Cardinals, Sallee said from a competition standpoint, it is normal. He said he scheduled the nonconference to prepare for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Sallee said it is unique to be a part of only the second time Ball State women’s basketball has been to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. He said the banners that will soon be in Worthen Arena will cement how historic this tournament is for Ball State.
“At Ball State, in the Muncie Community, and hopefully in the state, there’s a lot of people proud about what we accomplished this year,” Sallee said. “… We’re not going to forget the moment we’re in and the memories we can make while we’re doing it.”
Contact Elijah Poe via email at elijah.poe@ bsu.edu or on X @ElijahPoe4.
Madelyn Bischoff #24
5 Starting
