ONE STEP AT A TIME CSUN CONTINUES TO NARROW ITS GENDER-EQUITY GAP.

Byline: Scott Magoloff Staff Writer

Forget that today is National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Female athletes in California found a greater reason to celebrate women's sports with the release Tuesday of the results of a California State University systemwide gender-equity report.

Despite the findings, which revealed widespread increases in participation, funding and grants for women's athletics at all CSU campuses, Cal State Northridge was not compliant with the 1993 California National Organization for Women (Cal-NOW) agreement on gender equity.

Still, the vast improvements which have been made - as well as those which are in the planning stages - make the present a perfect time for women to pursue athletics at CSUN.

``I think if you look at the progress that CSUN has made since 1992 it is nothing short of remarkable,'' said athletic director Dick Dull, who took over the post last July. ``Hopefully in three or four years we'll be fully compliant with every standard. This is a genuine commitment we have to women's athletics. It isn't artificial or not real; we intend to go forward.''

And for CSUN, moving forward with the issue means it will have to follow a three-year plan that has satisfied Cal-NOW's concerns over CSUN's non-compliance in participation, funding and grants for women's athletics. The key is the addition of three new women's sports.

The new sports are expected to be water polo and rowing, with the third still undecided, Dull said. He also said the third sport would likely be a reincarnation of CSUN's former gymnastics program. Outside of the addition of these sports, the outline calls for an increase of 80 female athletes on campus and allocation of $450,000 for the new sports.

The effort will be buoyed by the impending move of CSUN from the Big Sky Conference to the Big West, which would allow the football program to decrease its Big Sky-mandated 60 scholarships to perhaps as low as 30 because it will be competing as an independent.

``They have put off hard decisions where the other campuses have bitten the bullet,'' Linda Joplin, chair of the Cal-NOW athletic equity committee, said of CSUN's inability to quickly rectify the inequity the football program played a major role in. Most of the other CSU schools simply dropped the sport.

``They were moving into a new conference (the Big Sky) and efforts were being made on campus to upgrade the football stadium, which, unfortunately, is less palatial than many high-school facilities,'' Joplin added. ``They have a long road ahead but the new AD (Dull) deserves a chance to move ahead.''