THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606300094
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LESLIE TAYLOR, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
LENGTH: 88 lines
Virginia Military Institute has, in its 157-year history, adapted to the changing composition of its cadet corps - to out-of-state students, to foreign students, to black students.
It can adapt, too, to women students, said Abigail Adams, a cultural anthropologist who spent two years studying the rituals of the all-male, state-supported school, ordered last week by the U.S. Supreme Court to open its doors to women or go private.
From 1991 to 1993, Adams studied the rituals of VMI, particularly one rite of passage called Break Out, in which ``rats'' - freshmen - become full-fledged cadets. It is a grueling endeavor, in part involving trudging through a rifle range that has been transformed into a muddy field.
``When you look at who's running across the field right now, who does it include that it didn't include 40 years ago?'' Adams asked Friday. ``It includes non-Virginians, foreigners and African Americans.''
Adams focused her study on Break Out because of her interest in rituals. She has been a lecturer in sociology at Hollins College since 1990, but her professional descriptions include ``scholar of ritual.'' She also is working on a doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of Virginia.
In the spring of 1991, Adams was teaching an anthropology class at Hollins. There was discussion about a rite of initiation of the Chagga Society in Africa that prepared 12- to 13-year-old boys for manhood and life away from their village.
``It involved a lot of mud,'' Adams said. ``And one of my students said, `Well, you know they do something really similar to that at VMI. You might want to look into it.' ''
Adams was not familiar with VMI's legal wranglings over its all-male admissions policy when she approached the school about studying Break Out. She wanted only to study the ritual itself.
She found that that the school's rite of passage had evolved over the years. Break Out was only about 13 years old, she said.
In its early years, VMI had no such ritual. Rats remained rats their entire first year. After World War II, the Gantlet was created, in which upperclassmen lined up in two rows and the rats ran through, enduring various forms of hazing.
``Running the Stoop'' followed, in which rats had to move as a class from the ground floor of the barracks to the fourth floor, with upperclassmen doing all they could to prevent the rats from succeeding.
Break Out was created in the early 1980s after the school administration expressed concern about the safety of Running the Stoop, Adams said.
After learning of VMI's legal fight, Adams said she had hoped the ritual could tell her something about the deep values of an all-male institution steeped in traditions that did not include women. How did tradition relate to that exclusion?
Adams found that the ritual alone could not answer the question, so she went directly to cadets for answers.
``I said, `Why can't women come to VMI?' '' she said. ``One thing I heard was, `Women couldn't take what we take.' And I was sad to hear that. They really didn't know because they hadn't been exposed to women who could do that.
``The second comment was that any woman who could, wouldn't be very womanly. And I thought, `Too bad you're not getting a different image of women.' '' But Adams said that in changing its rite of passage over the years, particularly in changing stoop-running to ``breaking out,'' VMI has demonstrated an ability to adapt.
``They had a condition, the condition changed, and these upperclassmen responded - I think pretty creatively - to it,'' Adams said. ``I think cadets have it in them, if it is that women want to go to VMI, to respond to it if they take the right attitude.''
Adams said she supports single-sex education, as she does co-education.
She was one of the first women to enter previously all-male Haverford College in Pennsylvania in the early 1980s, transferring from the all-women Byrn Mawr College, also in Pennsylvania.
``It was a rough year,'' she said.
There were no female role models, Adams said. There were very few tenured female faculty members. Female historians had to make an effort to ensure that history was read from both the male and female perspectives.
There were no female guidance counselors, but a nurse practitioner helped with ``passages that young women go through that young men don't go through.''
But ``once (Haverford) worked out the kinks, what Haverford had to offer to young men exclusively, initially, transferred very well into coed. I think the same thing can be true for VMI.''
She said, ``VMI is in for a time of it. But I think as an institution that the students will benefit from learning how to mentor and be mentored by women and how to be colleagues across gender lines.
``They're not getting that experience now.''
KEYWORDS: MILITARY ACADEMIES VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE
WOMEN U.S. SUPREME COURT RULINGS by CNB