Penn State women’s intercollegiate athletic teams have enjoyed success in recent decades, winning team championships and individual titles in many sports since the first varsity match in 1964. However, the history of women participating in sports at Penn State dates back to the early 1890s. This course is a brief overview of the history of women’s sports, from its humble beginnings to the present, documenting the accomplishments of instructors, faculty, coaches, students, and student-athletes, along with the struggle of women’s athletics for equity over the last 130 years.

Instructor: Paul Dzyak is the sports archivist and curator of sports history and STEM in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library. He has worked with Intercollegiate Athletics and donors for more than 20 years to build the Penn State Sports Archives into one of the largest research collections in the country. He is active in helping patrons and researchers and has been active in outreach activities, creating various sports-related exhibits and presentations for students, faculty, and alumni groups locally and in the mid-Atlantic region.