ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, July 27, 1996 TAG: 9607300031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
Virginia Military Institute's governing board meets privately again Tuesday in Richmond to go over plans to take the school coed.
The VMI Board of Visitors is expected to decide Sept. 21 if it will admit women or allow the alumni to take the school private.
The secretary to the board of visitors, Ed Dooley, said the meeting will be closed under the state Freedom of Information Act because the board will be meeting with attorneys to prepare a report to be filed with U.S. District Court. That court is expected to oversee VMI's response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 7-1 June decision that says the school can't continue to accept public funds while refusing to admit qualified women.
Among the guests coming to Tuesday's meeting: a woman who is assistant to the superintendent of the corps of cadets at Texas A&M University, said VMI Superintendent Josiah Bunting III. That school's corps went coed in 1988, and the administrator, a friend of some VMI staff, will talk "about the various opportunities and problems they have dealt with," Bunting said.
"For the last two or three weeks, a group of six or seven of us looked very hard at how we would bring coeducation on stage at VMI," Bunting said.
Earlier this month, the governing board, whose members are appointed for revolving terms by the governor, met privately for two days in Lexington in response to the high court's decision. At the conclusion of their meeting, the 17-member board unanimously passed a resolution that said they would make plans to take the school coed, but would also allow the school's private VMI Foundation and Alumni Association to look into taking the school private.
Members of the Alumni Association have since been meeting, president Steve Fogleman said. He added that he doesn't think the group will have "anything definitive" for the alumni group's board to consider when it meets Aug. 16. Going private is widely expected to be a difficult proposition, requiring legislative approval to sell the VMI campus, with a value estimated in the neighborhood of $150 million. In addition, a high-ranking U.S. Defense Department report has recommended against allowing ROTC programs at schools that discriminate against women.
On the other hand, some wonder if alumni would withhold financial support if the school admits women.
"Obviously, there's a lot of speculation," Fogleman said. "We intend to give [alumni] as much as we reasonably can - full disclosure of information - so they can make their own decision."
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB