ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 26, 1996 TAG: 9604260094
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
note: above
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 27, 1996.
Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets members are not required to belong to
an ROTC unit. A story in Friday's paper incorrecxtly characterized the
ROTC's role with the Tech corps.
Virginia Tech's motto long has been "Ut Prosim:" That I May Serve.
Gov. George Allen invoked the motto Thursday to launch a leadership center as the latest part of a four-year push to boost Tech's 450-member Corps of Cadets to 1,000 by the turn of the century.
"That is what this center is building on ... a significant tradition at Virginia Tech, the Corps of Cadets," Allen said.
The new Center for Leader Development, funded by a $2 million anonymous donation, expands on the leadership minor begun for cadets last year. Bob Denton, head of the communication studies department, will become director of the center, which opens in August.
The once-mandatory corps hit a high of 3,400 members in the 1940s, but was down to a low of 300 in 1973 - the year the corps went coed, said Gen. Stan Musser, commandant of the corps.
About 450 are in the corps right now, but 620 are expected next fall, Musser said. Among efforts to boost their ranks: 100 scholarships worth $3,200 to out-of-state students, and 100 more from corps alumni for Virginians that pay for room and board for all four years of school. Cadets also must be members of an ROTC unit, and many of them have ROTC scholarships.
With the new center, Tech's corps joins the state's two other military schools with a renewed emphasis on leadership, which is a growing discipline in higher education. But unlike Virginia Military Institute and the new Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin College, many activities within the Tech program will be at least partially open to students who aren't in the military corps.
Allen said the new center had nothing to do with the sex-discrimination court case that prompted the formation of VWIL as the all-women alternative to VMI. But the trio of corps - VMI, VWIL and Tech - all make up the Virginia Corps of Cadets.
The center will become a part of Tech's College of Arts and Sciences, but students minoring in leadership will take existing courses ranging from business management to group psychology, Musser said. For now, only cadets can minor in leadership studies.
In addition, center activities to be offered will include a Leadership Training Laboratory that will use Tech's new obstacle course to build both physical fitness and teamwork; a community service project; and noncredit seminars aimed at building personal development.
The $2 million anonymous donation paying for the center also endows the W. Thomas Rice Chair - Denton's new post. The position is named for a former rector, or president, of Tech's Board of Visitors who graduated in 1934 and went on to become chairman of Seaboard Coastline Industries, now CSX Corp. In addition, it pays for the Clifford Cutchins III Distinguished Lecture Series. Cutchins, retired chief executive officer of Sovran Financial Corp., graduated in 1944 and served as rector from 1989-91. He is president of the Virginia Tech Foundation.
Denton said the "climate in America is one of public distrust, cynicism and fear. Recent studies tell us, for example, that young people have a difficult time identifying heroes." Moreover, 75 percent of Americans "think that the American dream of equal opportunity, personal freedom and social mobility will be harder to achieve in the next 10 years. Given this climate, it's not surprising that leadership has become a hot topic."
Allen, who praised the center as yet another option to train students for the future, also pointed out you don't have to be in the military to be a leader.
"Don't tell me a first-grade teacher's not a leader," Allen said.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. ALAN KIM/Staff Seniors in the Corps of Cadetsby CNBperform the annual Changing of the Guard ceremony Thursday. color
2. Gov. George Allen praised Virginia Tech's leadership center as
yet another option to train students for the future. color