Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 29, 1995 TAG: 9508290058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Long
Gen. Robert E. Lee gazed upon the fatigue-clad 42 from a framed portrait in the corner of the classroom. Gen. George Marshall, the venerable VMI alumni from the class of '01 - the only soldier ever to win the Nobel Prize for Peace -symbolized the revered institute traditions in a photo montage on an adjacent wall.
And the women of the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership edged a little closer to the rigid military life.
For instance, those who opted Monday to join Air Force ROTC learned they'll have to let their superiors know if they violate any laws or school honor codes - like getting a parking ticket. That's called an "involvement." Nobody's saying a simple parking ticket would affect a ROTC career, but the service likes to know of all such matters, said John Alerding, a VMI alumnus and Air Force ROTC instructor.
"Today, reality set in," said Trimble Bailey of Roanoke, a VWIL student. "Our first steps on the VMI campus."
Not that you'd have known it if you hadn't been at Kilburn Hall, located down the hill from the rest of the campus - or "post."
At exactly noon, two vans, one maroon and one black, headed out on a 35-mile trip that soon will become a well-worn path: The stretch of Interstate 81 from Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, where VWIL is headquartered, to VMI.
The van pulled into the Kilburn parking lot, which happens to be in back of the building. The women trooped into a big classroom - followed by a press coterie that has dwindled since their program opened Aug. 22 - sat down, and heard orientation pitches from all four services. Then each woman chose her service, complete with its own set of demands.
Like the VMI rats, ROTC for the VWIL students will be mandatory. The twice-weekly coed ROTC classes held for students in the two programs will be their major interaction. The first joint class is Wednesday.
While these women are the first to take school year classes at VMI, a handful of women do take summer courses there every year. A federal appeals courts approved VWIL last winter so women could have a taxpayer-funded leadership program but VMI could remain all-male. The Supreme Court is expected to say this fall if it will hear the U.S. Justice Department's appeal.
In South Carolina, the program is being watched as a way for that state to keep women out of the nation's only other public all-male military school, The Citadel.
Since VWIL opened last week, it has been taking on its own identity more and more. By Monday, few connected to the program seemed inclined to talk much about the court case.
"I know that everybody is getting tired of hearing about Shannon Faulkner," said student Shannon Baylis of Washington, D.C., referring to the woman who called it quits four days after becoming a Citadel cadet, 21/2 years after launching a suit against the school.
"That's not relevant to what we're doing."
ROTC Army instructor Capt. Mike Farley sees the intersection of the men's and women's ROTC programs as a valuable way to protect single-sex education while infusing a dose of real military life into the students' training.
"I think it's a step in the future. I think it's the right thing," he said, as the women wrapped up their first class there.
During his two-year tour at VMI, Farley said he has come to see the value of its all-male traditions.
But he also sees his cadets when they go to field training at Army bases.
"The first time a female gets up and says 'Let's go,' the males are apprehensive. They don't have females integrated with them," he said.
The arrival of VWIL means the few other Mary Baldwin students who take ROTC will do so at VMI now. Before, they might have gone to another college or university campus.
Kelly Murphy, a senior and longtime ROTC student who was named VWIL's company commander, is one of two Mary Baldwin upperclassmen who'll be spending more than a couple of hours a week at VMI. The pair have nearly a day of ROTC classes there - as these freshmen might by junior year -and Murphy made a request to VMI.
She wants to eat lunch in the "sub mess," not the dining hall, apart from the VMI corps and its military life that continues 'round the clock.
"I'm not here to go to VMI. I'm not here to disrupt their lives," she said. "It's just like when I went to JMU for ROTC. I just went there for ROTC."
And anyone who wants to see the other ROTC women now taking classes at VMI, the students of VWIL, will have to catch a glimpse as they come and go from Kilburn Hall twice a week.
Although one student on Monday couldn't help but wonder about the oft-discussed VMI.
"I've never been here before," said Jennifer Atkins of King George County. "I wish they could take us around campus."
by CNB