ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, January 20, 1997               TAG: 9701200048
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG
SOURCE: Associated Press

VMI LOOKS AT MENTOR PROGRAM

Virginia Military Institute is considering a mentoring program to help women ease into VMI's first class to include female cadets.

The school also may enter into an exchange program with other military colleges, bringing in female juniors and seniors to act in a sort of ``big-sister role,'' a VMI official said Friday.

But the Lexington school is on schedule to welcome its first women cadets with minimal program changes, retired Army Col. Michael Bissell told a gathering of the Shenandoah Valley Retired Officers Association on Friday in Harrisonburg.

Bissell, chairman of VMI's executive committee for the assimilation of women into the Corps of Cadets, said VMI has accepted 14 of 26 female applicants for the fall.

VMI's planning began last year when the Supreme Court ruled that VMI, a state-funded institution, must end its 157-year, all-male admissions policy and open its doors to women. Unlike The Citadel in South Carolina, VMI chose to take a year to get ready for the transition.

The orientation part of the assimilation program will include a lot of briefings and mandatory training on sexual harassment, hazing and other issues, Bissell said. A private company will handle the special training, he said.

A mentoring program would involve women in administrative and staff positions at the school, Bissell said.

The U.S. Justice Department tried to pressure VMI to develop a transition plan immediately, but a federal judge allowed the institute to make quarterly reports on its progress. The second of those reports is due next month.

Barracks life, which Bissell called the keystone to the VMI experience, will remain essentially the same. He called barracks life a fishbowl with no privacy.

The presence of female cadets means some privacy will be afforded, he said, with separate bathrooms and showers and pull shades on doors when cadets are dressing.

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