To show the cultural history of Title IX, a group of 17 students and one professor made a video focusing on the Burris Laboratory School community and women's volleyball team.
Kecia McBride, fall fellow for the Virginia B. Ball Center and associate professor in the English department, said she wanted to do a video on Burris because she was interested in the community and the building. Burris' women's volleyball team has won four national and 19 state championships and its coach, Steve Shondell, has the best record in number of wins of any sport in Indiana, she said.
"This video is focusing on the extent of the community expectation on what compels the women to be amazing athletes," McBride said. "When you walk through the halls, it's the volleyball players who are the sports heroes.
"You have little kindergartners looking up in wonder, and the high school boys painting their faces blue and gold. A lot of other schools such as Central have a good volleyball team, but they also have a lot of other sports that Burris doesn't have."
McBride said the Ball Center had an annual seminar where a faculty member applied to be accepted. The center gives $15,000 to go toward travel and equipment expenses, she said.
She and the students began meeting the first day of classes, she said. Instead of attending classes like other students, McBride said, the students met with her and earned 15 credits to work on the project.
McBride said when she was putting her seminar proposal together she wanted to think of a connection to East Indiana. She said she thought of the number of talented girls on volleyball teams in the area.
After doing research, she said the video was not going to focus just on the Burris volleyball team, but also on Title IX. From her investigation, she said she wanted to look at successful women's programs and how they have shaped the expectations of young women athletes.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor's Web site, Title IX was part of the Education Amendments of 1972 that said no person, on the basis of sex, could be subject to discrimination under any education program or activity that received federal financial assistance.
"Nowadays people think of it with sports, but it also had an impact on law and medical schools," McBride said. "One of the things I found from my research that I didn't know because I'm not from the area, is that Birch Bayh, who is from the area, had a hand in getting it passed. People don't think of Indiana as being on the edge of equality, but it was an Indiana senator who helped get it through."
McBride said the crew also traveled to the University of Tennessee, which has a strong athletics program with Pat Summitt and the women's basketball team. McBride said she talked to people about gender equality and Title IX at both Burris and at the university.
They also attended games, practices and went behind the scenes of a back-to-school picnic and to dances at Burris, she said. They interviewed teachers, coaches and parents, she said.
"We really tried to get as much as we could of the character of the community by going into their homes and getting their interactions as a community," McBride said. "We really wanted to see what the community is like."
Burris Principal Jay McGee said he was pleased and excited when he learned McBride was doing a video about the school. He said he did not consider the video to be just about Burris because it was really about Title IX and its effects on women in sports with a general focus about the volleyball team's success and the University of Tennessee.
"I think the team, our coach and our record speak for themselves," McGee said, "and I was glad this would be getting some greater attention."
McGee said he hoped the video would help the community understand the various reasons for the quality of Burris' volleyball program.
"Through this video I hope they'd learn of the feeling of this community across this small school and the sense of pride not just about volleyball but about the students in general," he said. "[It'll show] a small school with a very small number of athletes, their achievements and what's possible when there's very committed athletes and coaches involved in a sport."
He said he was interested to see the Title IX part because it has had a positive effect on athletics. He said with women's sports coming into the forefront, it has helped increase the recognition of females and has helped lead to a more equal society.
McBride said she and her students, who helped research, film and write an original music score, were in the final stages of editing and producing the approximately 45-minute video. The video was not something she hoped to market for profit, but it could be shown on WIPB and enter into student film festivals, she said.
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