Janet Parks women's sports collection

Collection

Identifier: MS-1223

Staff Only

Collection Overview

Abstract

Materials primarily created and/or collected by Dr. Janet Parks, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus and former coach of women's track, tennis, and golf at Bowling Green State University. The collection dates from 1901-2014, with the bulk of material spanning 1968-2008, and includes Dr. Parks’s professional and scholarly papers, materials collected by Dr. Parks over the course of her teaching, research, and coaching career at Bowling Green State University and subsequent retirement, and materials collected by the BGSU Athletic Department and later transferred to the CAC with the assistance of Dr. Parks. Materials mostly relate to subjects within Dr. Parks's academic and professional specialization, including sports administration and management, gender equity in sports, and representations of women in sports journalism and media, as well as the development of women's sports programs at Bowling Green State University.

Dates

Creation: 1901-2014
Creation: Majority of material found within 1968-2008

Extent

9.19 Cubic Feet (20 legal archival boxes)

Creator

Parks, Janet B., 1942- (Person)
Bowling Green State University. Athletics Department (Organization)
Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (Organization)

Scope and Contents

The Janet Parks women’s sports collection spans the period 1901-2014, with the bulk of the material spanning the years 1968-2008. The collection comprises ten cubic feet of material created and/or collected by Dr. Janet Parks over the course of her career at Bowling Green State University, as well as materials created and/or collected by Dr. Parks after her 2004 retirement. In addition, a smaller amount of material in the collection had been collected by the BGSU Athletic Department, primarily by Mickey Cochrane, a former coach in the men’s soccer and lacrosse programs, professor in the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (a predecessor of BGSU’s School of Human Movement, Sport, and Leisure Studies), and later a steward of documents and artifacts relating to the history of BGSU Athletics. This latter material was later transferred to the Center for Archival Collections and integrated into Dr. Parks’s collection.

Materials contained within the collection include Dr. Parks’s professional and academic papers and subject files; records, photographs, and printed materials and ephemera relating to BGSU’s Athletic Department and its women’s athletics programs; records of women’s athletics organizations, particularly the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW); articles, reports, studies, and subject files concerning Title IX legislation and its enforcement; and copies of historical guides and rulebooks that have been seminal in the development and professionalization of women’s sports. Collectively, these materials primarily document Dr. Parks’s activities and interests as a teacher, scholar, and coach at BGSU, as well as her involvement and leadership in the wider professional and academic field of sports management.

Subjects well-represented within the collection include Dr. Parks’ academic and professional career, the development and enforcement of Title IX legislation, conflicts between the AIAW and the National Collegiate Athletic Association concerning the governance of women’s intercollegiate sports programs, and the history of BGSU’s women’s athletics programs, particularly prior to the institution of NCAA governance over such programs in 1982. Much of the material relating to Dr. Parks’s scholarship concerns her interest in equity and fairness in women’s sports programs in relation to men’s programs, particularly the development of practices utilizing gender-neutral and inclusive language to preclude the prevalent usage of gender-biased language.

Biographical / Historical

Dr. Janet Parks is a Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus and Honorary Alumna of Bowling Green State University. Throughout her thirty-nine-year career at BGSU, and continuing into her retirement, Dr. Parks was and remains a prominent and renowned figure in the field of sports administration and management.

After earning her baccalaureate degree from the University of Chattanooga and her master’s degree from Illinois State University, Dr. Parks joined the faculty of BGSU’s Women’s Health and Physical Education department (later absorbed into the School of Human Movement, Sport, and Leisure Studies, or HMSLS) in 1965, teaching courses in the physical education major and general programs, and later going on to specialize in courses relating to sport management, sport and gender, and critical issues in human movement, sport, and leisure. She also served as the HMSLS Graduate Studies Coordinator and Chair of the Sport Management Division. Dr. Parks also coached the women’s track, tennis, and golf teams in the earlier part of her career at BGSU, and enjoyed several winning seasons throughout her coaching tenure.

Dr. Parks received her Doctor of Arts Degree in 1977 from Middle Tennessee State University, after which she researched, published, and spoke widely in her field, authoring or co-editing seven textbooks, fifteen book chapters, and an extensive number of scholarly articles, presentations, lectures, and workshops. Her ample scholarship has focused largely on issues of sports equity, including gender-biased and inclusive language, gender gaps in sports administration and the employment status of women, and representations of women in sports journalism and media. In 1994, Dr. Parks’s produced an educational video through WBGU-TV, entitled One Person’s Struggle with Gender-Biased Language, which was widely used within and beyond higher education institutions for purposes of training employees in the use of gender-neutral, inclusive language.

Dr. Parks’s achievements and honors within her field are numerous. She was a founding Executive Council member of the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) and a founding coeditor of its Journal of Sport Management; was editor-in-chief of Fitness Information Technology, Inc.’s Sport Management Library; and served on the National Association for Sport and Physical Education’s (NASPE’s) Task Force on Sport Management Curriculum Accreditation, Sport Management Program Review Council, and Task Force on Sport Management Curriculum Standards. Her many awards include NASSM’s Zeigler Award for professional achievement, Distinguished Service Award, and research fellowship; a fellowship in the Research Consortium of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; the Outstanding Achievement Award from NASPE’s Sport Management Council; and the Presidential Award from the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport. She was also selected twice as an honorary fellow in the Women’s Studies Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, received a lifetime achievement award from the Southern Sport Management Conference, and was selected as a Pathfinder Award winner by the Ohio Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.

Since her retirement from BGSU in 2004, Dr. Parks has remained active in her field, speaking widely on issues of sports equity and advocating for girls and women in sport. She was the writer and producer of a 2009 WBGU-TV documentary, Title IX: Implications for Women in Sport and Education, which is widely considered to be among the most comprehensive reports on the history and contemporary application of Title IX legislation and featured interviews with over thirty experts on issues related to Title IX. In 2010, Dr. Parks coauthored Forward Falcons, a comprehensive history of women’s sports at BGSU during the period 1914-1982, before women’s sports at BGSU fell under the governance of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

As of this writing, Dr. Parks continues to reside in Bowling Green and volunteers for several local community service organizations, among them AmeriCorps, the Cocoon Shelter, the “Save the Woods” Campaign, and the League of Women Voters.

Conditions Governing Access

No known access restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Researchers using this collection assume full responsibility for conforming to the laws of libel, privacy, and copyright, and are responsible for securing permissions necessary for publication or reproduction.

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into five series, further described in the series descriptions in the Collection Organization:

Janet Parks, 1901-2014
Title IX, 1972-2008
Women’s athletic organizations, 1968-2008
BGSU Athletics, 1929-2011
Women’s sports guides, 1919-1986

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The Janet Parks women’s sports collection primarily comprises several individual donations made to the Center for Archival Collections by Dr. Janet Parks beginning in the early 2000s, with additions continuing to be made on an intermittent basis, as well as materials collected by the BGSU Athletic Department and later transferred to the CAC with the assistance of Dr. Parks.

Processing Information

The collection was processed and the finding aid was prepared by Jordan Del Allen, graduate student in the BGSU School of Human Movement, Sport, and Leisure Studies, during the 2016-2017 academic year under generous funding provided by Dr. Parks. The collection was further processed and the finding aid was revised by Nick Pavlik, Curator of Manuscripts, during the fall 2017 semester.