Venue
UWL Student Union
521 East Avenue N
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601
Event Details
This event is free and open to the public, with lunch available at 11 a.m. First come, first served.
Couch Conversations is a storytelling and dialogue series that brings campus and community voices together for honest, insightful conversations about identity, leadership, and belonging. Each event invites a special guest to join us on the couch for a candid discussion—unfiltered, unscripted, and grounded in connection.
Eileen Narcotta‑Welp is an Associate Professor in UWL’s Department of Exercise & Sport Science, specializing in the cultural study of sport, feminist theory, and media representation of women in athletics.
She earned her doctorate in Health and Sport Studies from the University of Iowa in 2016. Her dissertation, “The Future of Football is Feminine,” examined the cultural and historical significance of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team. Her scholarship has appeared in academic journals including Journal of Sport History, Sport & Society, and Soccer & Society, and she has contributed chapters to multiple edited book collections on sport and culture. Narcotta‑Welp has also presented nationally at conferences such as the North American Society for Sport History and the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport.
Since joining UWL in 2016, Narcotta-Welp has taught courses in Sport Management and Society, Financial Aspects of Sport, Sport and Fitness Administration, and Event & Sport Operations. She has also led first-year seminars exploring identity, gender, and equity in athletics.
Her teaching engages critically with the everyday gendered experiences of women’s sport, where gender norms and cultural expectations persist. She brings thoughtful insight into navigating gendered spaces in both higher education and athletics.