Women's sports at Penn State began with a brand-new varsity field hockey team that gathered on the HUB lawn on a chilly fall day in 1964. These athletes became the first University women to participate in varsity competition.

More than 30 years later, the issue of gender equity in collegiate athletics has pervaded university and athletic conference boardrooms throughout the nation.

As colleges and universities attempt to make their athletic programs equitable, there are a variety of different possible solutions currently being discussed.

Penn State began its efforts by adopting the provisions in Title IX almost seven years before the federal deadline, said Ellen Perry, Penn State associate athletic director.

Title IX prohibits discrimination in education programs and activities by institutions receiving government funds.

Although the law has not been strictly enforced by federal agencies, there have been firmer rulings by individual states and athletic conferences.

The Big Ten ruled in 1992 that all its members must reach a 60/40 percent male/female participation level in athletics by 1997.

"Penn State really went into the Big Ten 34/66 percent," Perry said.

She added that the University reached the 60/40 ratio with the addition of varsity women's soccer last fall.

Perry said the University has improved gender equity by adding sports and increasing the number of grants-in-aid for women. Perry said there is little chance the University will cut men's sports to reduce disparity, which is something that has happened at schools such as Michigan State and Illinois.

"I think that the intention of any of the gender equity programs is not to deny men's programs, but to let women students have equal opportunities," she said.

Equalizing men's and women's sports is difficult because no women's sport matches the roster size of football. But Penn State does not plan to exclude football from the calculations.

"Obviously, there are people who would like to see that happen, but I don't think football will be excluded from the gender equity ratio," said John Bove, Penn State NCAA compliance coordinator. "We're someone who has 85 grants in football, but still have satisfied the ratio."

While some schools in the Big Ten struggle with issues like whether to include football in the ratio, Iowa has loftier goals -- and quite different methods.

Kathy Bongiovi, women's sports information director at Iowa, said the men and women have had separate athletic departments for 20 years.

"I think because we're separated we get a lot more attention from the community and the media because we have our own people plugging away," she added.

Iowa was already at the required 60/40 ratio when the Big Ten ruling was made, so its board of trustees set its own goal at 50/50. Bongiovi said Iowa will add women's sports rather than drop men's sports.

But having separate athletic departments presents some drawbacks.

"Sometimes it creates a little tension between men and women," Bongiovi said.

Unlike Iowa's voluntary stringent internal athletic policies, other schools have been forced to comply with gender equity standards set by state court rulings.

Several female athletes at Washington State filed a discrimination suit in 1979, claiming inequal treatment. Known as the Blair Case, the first round of decisions required state universities to provide funding for each sex in a ratio reflecting the undergraduate student population.

But this ruling excluded football from the ratio. Eventually, it was appealed to the state supreme court. The final ruling required inclusion of football.

"Once the second ruling came down there was a very major commitment to make it work," said Barbara Petura, assistant vice president for university relations at Washington State. "The Washington State program today probably has one of the best programs in gender equity funding anywhere."

The school's efforts have encompassed adding women's sports, equalizing scholarship distribution, improving and increasing women's facilities and introducing a tuition waiver that channels one percent of undergraduate tuition and fees to support women's sports.

This waiver amounted to a contribution of $375,000 in 1991. Washington State has not segregated its men's and women's athletic departments to avoid creation of a "ghetto mentality," which might overshadow less-popular women's sports, Petura said.

At the heart of these efforts is the goal of providing women an equal opportunity to excel in athletic endeavors, Petura said.

"At least a piece of the proof of the pudding is the success," she said, adding that the school's women's teams have succeeded at national levels.

Perry said recent years have brought increased visibility and popularity to women's sports. Mass media coverage has increased dramatically in the past few years, she said.

"In fact," she said, "I think probably before, it was only in Olympic years that women were on TV a fair amount."