ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 27, 1996 TAG: 9605280074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: STAUNTON
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
note: strip
WHATEVER THE SUPREME COURT decides about VMI, say the women in Mary Baldwin's leadership program, they'll stick with VWIL.
In one of the final acts of their freshman year, the shorts-clad students of the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership plopped onto the gym floor and took a vote of potentially historic proportions. They named their freshman classes, in perpetuity.
You've heard of the Virginia Military Institute "rat"? Look next year for the VWIL "wog." As in "polliwog."
As at VMI, freshmen will spend the first months of college under the dominion of upperclassmates. But the women of VWIL will dispense a different brand of discipline. The wogs won't have to "strain" their chins back as they march in and out of the dorm rooms, as rats do, or eat mechanically.
"Our freshmen aren't rats," VWIL student Amy King said. "We're not going to make them drop and do push-ups in front of everybody else."
But they will have to be in by midnight on their single night out during the school week, and they'll be restricted to using only two of the staircases that run up and down the steep mountainside campus.
So grows new tradition at VWIL, which opened at private, all-female Mary Baldwin College last August with 42 freshmen as a counterpart to public, all-male VMI. The 38 cadets remaining in the program left school after a final dress parade May 18 still wondering: What will the U.S. Supreme Court decide about VWIL?
The court is expected by the end of June to decide whether VMI's all-male admissions policy is constitutional. Depending upon that decision, it also may make another: Is VWIL a legal, separate-but-equal alternative to admitting women to VMI?
The court issues its decisions on Mondays, so Shannon Baylis of Norfolk expects to tune in every Monday until the end of the court term in June. Like many of her classmates, she says she'll return to VWIL next year.
But she and her classmates are concerned about what may happen if the court orders VMI to admit women.
"I think we're worried our program is going to lose its validity," Baylis said.
Her classmates agree.
"We are VWIL," Karen Zeliznak said. "We are the female program for [VMI]. The bond is there."
"How is the relationship between VMI and VWIL going to be continued?" asked Trimble Bailey of Roanoke. "Since we don't know what's going to happen, a lot of rumors are flying."
College President Cynthia Tyson has said from the start the program would continue regardless of the court's decision. The rising sophomores and this fall's freshmen are guaranteed their four years of VWIL, she said.
Their education is underwritten by about $750,000 donated thus far by the private VMI Foundation and a legislative per-student subsidy that will reach $7400 for each Virginia student next fall. Foundation funding of about $22,000 a month will continue for the incoming class of 2000, college officials say. In addition, Mary Baldwin awards scholarship of varying size to many students to offset the $19,755 tuition.
And women continue to apply for the program. In court papers filed May 1, Mary Baldwin said it has 325 active VWIL prospects for the class of 2001. Twenty-seven had paid deposits, and college administrators say they expect 40 to 45.
The women's relationship with VMI developed through the school year, but was founded on their coed ROTC courses, held at the VMI post. Bailey, in fact, was named the top Air Force ROTC cadet, beating out 140 others - most of them VMI cadets.
"I've been very pleased," said Col. Al Moyer, who runs the Air Force ROTC program at VMI. Coeducation "is more typical of what you see in a normal Air Force training environment, and I think it's important the young men at VMI learn that early on."
The idea for a women's counterpart to VMI emerged after a 1993 federal appeals court decision that VMI's men-only admissions policy violates women's rights. The court ruled that VMI could go private, admit women or, with the state of Virginia, set up a separate, parallel program.
From the beginning, administrators at all-female Mary Baldwin have said they're trying to create a teamwork-based, cooperative leadership program for women, not a mirror of VMI. But the fact that VWIL is not is one of the arguments made against the program by the U.S. Justice Department, which first brought suit against VMI during the Bush administration.
Many students came to VWIL because they wanted to go to an all-female school. Baylis, for instance, wanted first to go to Mary Baldwin and then joined VWIL, where ROTC is mandatory and students participate in dress military parades.
King, formerly of Columbia, Md., also found Mary Baldwin first. Dominique Duncan, from Tidewater, transferred into VWIL from the traditional program in time for second semester.
Even if the court orders VMI to admit women, they don't want to go.
"I don't know of anyone who wants to go to VMI, the way it is now," Duncan said.
"I've heard some people say they'd like to have their own little college, maybe next to VMI," King said.
"I wouldn't want to go there and I haven't heard of any girl who wanted to," Duncan said.
VWIL's first year was not without its ups and downs. Reporters and television cameras were a constant presence the first week. But VWIL students say that helped bring them together.
Then the rest of the Mary Baldwin students arrived.
Dealing with other students' misconceptions about their program "was tough at the beginning of the year," Bailey said. That included "what we would look like, how we would act. Some of them expected macho, egotistical, big ..., I guess, Amazon women. We were not."
College academics were tougher than high school. Four students dropped out in the first semester for reasons ranging from personal to academic, said director Brenda Bryant. Plus, the VWIL students had to deal with the program's special rules. Those included a prohibition against changing roommates and all of the special team-building, problem-solving activities that are a part of VWIL.
A demerit system was not in place until second semester. That meant infractions of the rules came without consequences for one semester. Attitude adjustments were in order when demerits came into being, said the group's first company commander.
"That should have been in place the day they got here," said Kelly Murphy, a graduating Mary Baldwin senior, National Guard member and seven-year ROTC veteran who served as company commander during the first semester.
But along with the snags came successes.
Baylis, named yearbook executive editor during the second semester, connected with the program in its first days, when she stood at the edge of a huge ravine on a wilderness exploration.
Could she make it across the rope bridge? Behind her stood Bryant, prepared to cross behind her, or, if Baylis wanted, to climb down into the ravine and up the other side.
"I don't think I'll ever forget that as long as I live. I'm very afraid of heights. To me, it was like all the others were doing it and it was no big deal. It was a really big deal to me," Baylis said.
She crossed, followed by Bryant.
"To only be in the program for two days and have all those girls on the other side cheering for you, even though they didn't know you from anywhere
The VWIL women are asked often what they think might happen at the Supreme Court, where some attended arguments. Some, such as Bailey, decline to make predictions.
"I've gotten to the point where whatever happens, happens," Baylis said. "In the long run, I'd like to see our program given the recognition it deserves by the court, but I don't think the court decision is going to affect me. I wanted to go to Mary Baldwin."
Bryant looks back on a lively year that's been nothing if not fun and intense.
"There is a lot of speculation about what the outcome of the case will be," she said. "The main question [is]: Is Mary Baldwin committed to VWIL irrespective of the funding implications?"
The answer, for the students now enrolled, is yes.
Murphy, headed for a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army come fall, stood in the sunshine as the VWIL cadets practiced for their last dress parade in shorts, sporting ponytails. Rain had been predicted and they didn't have to wear their uniforms.
"I think it's a good start," Murphy said as she watched a straggler get in line. "They've got a long way to go.
"I think it'll be a lot more interesting to come back in four years and see how far they've come."
LENGTH: Long : 165 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. CINDY PINKSTON STAFF Dr. Brenda Bryant (left) joinsby CNBother college officials in congratulating Trimble Bailey of Roanoke
on her accomplishments during the first year of the Virginia
Women's Institute for Leadership. Bailey was named the top Air
Force ROTC cadet, beating 140 others - most of them VMI cadets.
color
2. chart - Comparing the Schools. STAFF
3. chart - Employment Status STAFF KEYWORDS: MGR