Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 4, 1990 TAG: 9005040757
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Just ask a cadet - male or female.
The men, invoking a lofty tone, extol the virtues of learning to work with their female comrades, some of whom may someday be their bosses in the boardroom or their commanding officers in the war room.
"Being in a coed environment, it's more difficult to develop chauvinist tendencies because you're around females 24 hours a day," said Chris Ireland, a junior from Wayne, Maine. "It makes you a better officer."
The women, who make up about 15 percent of the 540-cadet corps, strike the same chord. Equal opportunity reigns, they say, stressing that they are accorded no special privileges - save their own bathroom and some lowered standards for physical training.
Army ROTC, for example, requires women to complete 58 pushups within two minutes, while the maximum for men is 82. For situps, the difference is only two, 90 vs. 92.
For a few, the standards need not be different.
Mary Barile, a diminutive freshman from Sterling, outperforms many of the men in the physical conditioning tests - and carries a 3.96 grade-point average.
The commandant talks about her, a deputy commandant, too. The male cadets hold her up as the perfect example of a woman who can tackle whatever physical challenges are thrown her way.
"She's a P-T monster," one of her male comrades gushed about her physical training capabilities. Barile aced the Army ROTC conditioning test during a 33-hour, non-stop Ranger Challenge Team competition in North Carolina last month, cadets said.
The corps, female cadets insist, is blind to differences of race and sex. Promotions to staff positions are based on a merit system patterned after that used in the U.S. armed forces.
"I really don't run into any racial or sexual discrimination, and I've been in [the corps] for three years," said Coretta Oden, who is black. The junior from Norfolk will be regimental adjutant.
"None of the guys are really prejudiced against you in any way," Barile said. "The only problem is there aren't a lot of girls in the corps. . . ." Many of her closest friends are male cadets.
Maybe that's why Tech cadets are somewhat perplexed by the hoopla surrounding the federal government's attempt to force Virginia Military Institute to admit women.
Male cadets at Tech say an integrated corps reflects the real world in which women can be found in top positions of corporate and military leadership.
"If we didn't have women here, I think I would have grown up into the military with a one-sided point of view," said Eric Dorminey, departing regimental commander.
Their commandant, Maj. Gen. Stanton Musser, agrees.
"We fought it [integration] at the Air Force Academy and came up with a lot of reasons why it wouldn't work," said the general, who was vice commandant at the academy when women were first admitted in 1976.
"Sure, we were wrong. Women have been very, very successful in the armed forces, just like they've been in every other environment. There's no doubt in my mind that we could have women as fighter pilots, and they'd be damn good ones," said Musser, a retired fighter pilot. "But the fact remains [that] Congress says we can't do that."
Dorminey said, "It's tougher on them, but not by design. It's a male-dominated structure, so they have to go above and beyond" to succeed.
They have.
A female cadet has served as regimental commander, the highest student position in the corps, and many women have been on the regimental staff. A woman headed the 2nd Battalion this year; women have been named outstanding company commander the past two years, and two more will be on the regimental staff next year.
The success that women have enjoyed in Tech's corps proves the so-called weaker sex can master any job in the corps and that women are just as likely to succeed as anyone else, male cadets agree.
"Females as a whole, they're definitely an asset, and not just because they're females," said Mark Stillwagon, a junior from Bolivar, Mo., and next year's regimental commander. "There's a lot of potential for leadership.
"Here at Tech we have a good integration of females. They're just cadets. They're not a problem and they're not the cream of the crop, necessarily. Everybody's on equal footing here."
VMI cadets say the same thing, but their idea of egalitarianism doesn't include women. The vast majority of cadets and alumni want their "citadel on the hill" to remain all-male - despite charges by the U.S. Justice Department that VMI is violating the 14th Amendment.
Said Kevin Oakes, a Tech cadet from Woodbridge: "I think they need to open their minds a bit. I don't see any reason for them to keep females out."
Tradition, perhaps more than anything, is what drives VMI's staunch resistance to the federal attempt to integrate the school, Tech cadets suggest.
"It's not so much `women can't take it,' as it is, `we're a male school,' . . . whereas at Virginia Tech we're a cadet school, not [one] for women or men," Stillwagon said.
Some of Tech's female cadets point to the Lexington school's tax-supported status and say that a public school should not be allowed to exclude women, whatever the traditions.
And they, better than any, know what it takes to succeed in an environment that, until recently, had been dominated almost exclusively by men. They predicted, some more forcefully than others, that VMI eventually will be forced to admit women to its 1,300-cadet corps.
Ginger Hiemenz thought about going to VMI - for about five minutes.
When the junior from Alexandria was awarded an Air Force ROTC scholarship more than three years ago, the letter said she could enroll at Tech, VMI and the University of Virginia.
Her father, a retired Air Force navigator, quickly corrected that.
"I was kind of, like, `I guess I won't apply there,' " she said. "It's a state-supported school, how can it not accept women? The military today is almost 20 percent women. And if the military is accepting women, why can't they?"
by CNB