{"id":23011,"date":"2025-10-15T13:56:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=23011"},"modified":"2025-10-22T13:37:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:37:30","slug":"auto-draft-51","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/auto-draft-51\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Ruth Lautenbach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo of Ruth Lautenbach at her desk. | Photo by @westernoregonuniversity on Instagram<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Oct 15 2025 | Isaac Garcia | Sports Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Students returning to Western this fall may notice that the Old PE building is now Ruth Lautenbach Hall. This change came after an announcement Sept. 29 saying that it would be named after Ruth Lautenbach. Lautenbach was at the university, then known as Oregon College of Education, from 1940 to 1974 and was \u201cthe pioneering female physical education teacher and advocate for women\u2019s sports,\u201d as described by the university in a statement about the change. Dr. Carol Brownlow, a colleague of Lautenbach and inductee into the Western Oregon Hall of Fame, described her as a \u201cprofessional at her core,\u201d and called her \u201cone of my favorite lifetime people.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Most of Dr. Lautenbach\u2019s work came before Title IX, a federal law passed in 1972 that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Because of this, Lautenbach had to advocate fiercely for women\u2019s sports, making sure they had adequate and equal resources. Jon Carey, a former administrator, women\u2019s basketball coach and athletic director, mentioned that when he started his career at OCE in 1975, the women\u2019s sports programs were much more sophisticated than other universities. \u201cI attribute that in large part to the influence of Dr. Lautenbach,\u201d Carey said. Carey explained that many universities did not have a dedicated crew like OCE did to set up women\u2019s athletic events, and athletes at other schools would have to set up their own events. In addition, participants in women\u2019s sports at OCE in the 1940s were able to receive a \u201cletter,\u201d a form of recognition for achievement in a sport, and then eventually a letterman jacket under the same criteria as men. This was nearly unheard of at the time, but was the case at OCE due in large part to advocacy from Dr. Lautenbach.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Lautenbach was also described by Dr. Brownlow as \u201chard as nails, soft as a pillow.\u201d Sharon Baugh, an advisee of both Dr. Lautenbach and Dr. Brownlow, agreed, adding that she was \u201cstraightforward and no-nonsense.\u201d Baugh noted that upon her first meeting with Ruth Lautenbach, she encouraged her to be better academically than she had been to start her college career. \u201cShe set me on the right path the minute she met me,\u201d Baugh said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Baugh, who went on to get her master\u2019s degree and have a career as a principal, wonders if she would\u2019ve given the effort that she did if she had never met Dr. Lautenbach. Baugh also mentioned how Dr. Lautenbach had inspired her to fight for women\u2019s sports herself, telling a story about how she stood up for the girls\u2019 teams at a middle school she was working at, who had next to nothing in terms of resources. Baugh, like Lautenbach, stood up firmly and was able to secure equal funding and resources for both girls\u2019 and boys\u2019 sports at the school.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Brownlow believes that Dr. Lautenbach would be very humbled by the honor, saying that she was very modest and didn\u2019t like to have a big fuss made about her. Baugh brought up how much time Dr. Lautenbach must\u2019ve spent in the building that now shares her namesake, as well as saying that she is \u201csuper proud of what we\u2019ve been able to do for Dr. Lautenbach.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Dr. Ruth Lautenbach","_seopress_titles_desc":"A profile on Dr. Lautenbach\u2019s impact at Western","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":"saragerrick","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23011"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23455,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23011\/revisions\/23455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}