Title IX 50th Anniversary Celebration Featuring: Betsy Mitchell
Title IX 50th Anniversary Celebration Featuring: Betsy Mitchell
Betsy Mitchell
Caltech | Director of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation
Betsy Mitchell has led the dynamic growth of the Caltech Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation for the past decade, a time which has seen the Beavers experience unprecedented success across every sport while providing a first-class education to the world's top young STEM minds.
Mitchell is a transformational leader with 25 years of experience and expertise in helping students, coaches and organizations manage strategic change toward positive results. Her primary canvas for inspiring others toward maximizing their potential has been in first-class educational institutions at the secondary and higher education levels. An athletic director for four organizations and former coach of two sports, Mitchell thrives in the administrative and managerial roles essential in an educationally sound athletic program. The balance of her professional experience comes through volunteer work, consulting, and motivational speaking. Her specific strengths include strategic planning and implementation, organizational culture, human resources, and budget management. An inspirational team member, she leads with humor, integrity, and deep commitment to process over strict results.
For more information on Betsy Mitchell and the Caltech athletics program, click here.
1. What does Title IX mean to you?
Title IX means a lot of different things to me. Personally, I am certain that my life has been shaped by the opportunities made available by Title IX. I joined the summer swim team in my rural Ohio hometown because I was not allowed to play tee-ball with my brother when I was 6 (the year Title IX was passed). My life has been shaped by my meaningful and fun swimming career, including earning an athletic scholarship to pay for my college while pursuing my passion. So it is central. The notion of fair but not equal is something that I have brought forward into my professional life, so I try to administrate and lead from a place of fairness and objectivity. I try to shape perspective via what the program or activity needs to be successful, rather than in a comparative or subjective way, about what others have. Lastly, the recent shift to focus on sexual violence protections means that we are trying to have a respectful and safe campus culture and that we need to be thoughtful in how we do that for all.
2. How has Title IX affected you?
There is a duality to the role of Title IX in my life. Title IX has provided a cultural context for me to enjoy a personal athletic career and professional opportunities doing what I find purpose in and passion for. However, the choices that some universities make about escalating the intercollegiate arms race and spending inordinate amounts of money, unnecessarily, and then blaming women's sports in order to drop non-revenue men's sports just makes me crazy. The elevating of some and the reducing of others is nothing short of a lack of moral courage and integrity. While I have been the first female athletic director at three different institutions, to me, this is not a big deal, as is always made of it. I do not think I have experienced a glass ceiling, rather worked hard to get where I am, doing what I enjoy. I realize that is not the perspective of everyone, but it is the path I prefer. I think that hard work creates opportunities.
3. Why is Title IX Important?
Continuing to educate young people on the tenants of Title IX, and fairness regardless of gender is critical because while we have come so far in the past 50 years, history has a way of repeating itself that we are starting to see with other SCOTUS and state actions. It is great that young men and women today, understand that women and men alike should have sports programs and opportunities similarly, however, not understanding the past endangers us from repeating it.
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