ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, February 8, 1997             TAG: 9702100033
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: LEXINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press

VMI NEEDS A FEW GOOD WOMEN

HOPING TO AVOID the troubles The Citadel has experienced, the Lexington school wants a significant number of females cadets in the fall.

Thirty-three women have asked to join Virginia Military Institute's first coed class this fall, and the admissions director predicted the number could rise to 55.

But Vern Beitzel told the Board of Visitors Thursday that it's still too early to tell whether VMI will meet its goal of enrolling 30 female cadets.

The historic military college would end up with close to that number if the application and acceptance rates of women follow traditional VMI patterns, spokesman Mike Strickler said Friday.

In the past, VMI has accepted 78 percent of its applicants, Strickler said. Of those, about 55 percent end up enrolling. If those averages hold and 55 women apply, 43 would be accepted and 24 would enroll.

VMI administrators said having about 30 females among a freshman class of up to 410 cadets is almost critical to the school's effort to make the U.S. Supreme Court-mandated coeducation work.

Too few women, they said, could result in problems such as those experienced at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. Two of The Citadel's four female cadets quit after accusing male cadets of hazing them. Two male cadets also quit because of the scandal.

Despite the bad publicity at The Citadel, applications from women at the Virginia and South Carolina schools are about equal, although The Citadel's freshman class has about 170 more students.

Thirty-six women have applied to The Citadel and 27 have been accepted, while 20 of VMI's 33 applicants have been accepted.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that VMI could not remain both all-male and state-supported. The Citadel quickly decided to enroll women last fall, meaning the school had less than two months to recruit women before the semester began. Seven women were accepted, and four enrolled.

The VMI Board of Visitors, turning down alumni pleas to take the school private, voted 9-8 in September to admit women.

Since then, VMI has sent information to more than 30,000 college-bound women and held several open houses for men and women.

Five of the 33 women who applied to VMI, or 15 percent, have put down money and agreed to attend. Of the 480 men who have applied, 87 - or 18 percent - have been accepted and sent in deposits, which are due by May1.

``I think right now we're doing very well,'' Strickler said of the effort to recruit female cadets. ``If you project it out to the end, we could still be enrolling 20 to 30 in the first class.''

Meanwhile, overall applications are up at both military colleges.

More than 750 men and women have applied to VMI, a 22 percent jump from the 619 applicants at this time last year. At The Citadel, 1,060 men and women have applied, the most since an equal number applied at this point in 1993, the school said Friday.

LENGTH: Medium:   66 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  FILE 1995. Students in the Virginia Women's Institute 
          for Leadership at Mary Baldwin College have taken ROTC training on 
          the VMI campus since the fall of 1995. Filing out forms on their 
          first day in Lexington are Ashley DiYorio of Wytheville (from left),
          Trimble Bailey of Roanoke, Kim Bond of Radford and Kristen VanWegan 
          of Front Royal.