Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 21, 1993 TAG: 9308210023
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Where orders are followed by pats on the back - and officers do push ups, too.
Where words like "positive," "family" and `'understanding" dance in the air, in a corps in which one of each six cadets is now a woman.
Where in the midst of what should by tradition and legend be the absolute worst week of her life, freshman Catherine Wattendorf says this:
"I didn't think it would be this fun."
Fun?
It was Cadre Week for Tech's corps of cadets.
Cadre Week - which has historically been anything but fun for a freshman cadet - ends officially at 10 a.m. today with a review on the Tech drill field. The public is invited.
It was a week in which cadets had the campus almost to themselves - classes start next week - and thus a reminder of how things used to be.
In the mid-1960s, Tech began a rapid march from small all-male college with mandatory corps membership to state university with more than 20,000 students.
Today the corps, at 425 cadets, is just a fraction of the university's total enrollment and of its former self; corps enrollment peaked at 3,200 during World War II.
But it endures.
And this week, as the cadets poured onto the campus as they have for more than a century, was a time to summon up remembrances of things past - when the tramp of heavy boots and the call of the bugle was all there was.
When bristly headed freshmen were known as "rats" and treated like the dregs of the Earth.
Those hazing days are gone, say corps officials. So is the segregation. The new corps is almost 17 percent women - the highest percentage of any comparable corps in the country, Tech officials say.
Women are not only admitted to the Tech corps but completely integrated into corps life, corps leaders stress. Three of nine corps companies are commanded by women. Women live in rooms beside men, on the same hallways, in campus dormitories.
Corps Commandant Stanton Musser, the retired U.S. Air Force major general who took over the corps of cadets here in 1989, said living in close proximity with female cadets has meant the men must dress decently before leaving their rooms. But that's about all.
"It teaches them a little bit of decorum," Musser said. He said the biggest problem has been figuring which bathrooms should be used by the men and which by the women.
Of course, women aren't the only thing new in the modern corps.
Faced with a free and overwhelmingly indifferent student body, the corps has been forced to shop for students just to survive. Which means corps leaders aren't about to intentionally drive them away.
Thus, "I don't allow the screaming and yelling and bullying or any kind of harassment," Musser said. "First of all because it's illegal, and second because it's a terrible way to train people. . . . Our training philosophy is a positive motivational philosophy, rather than tearing the kids down and building them up in our own image."
Meanwhile, the Tech Board of Visitors is committed to keeping the corps, Musser said, and efforts are under way to beef up corps enrollment. Musser hopes to rebuild the corps to 1,000 students - in part through a new $5 million fund-raising drive that will permanently endow cadet scholarships.
The campaign is already showing dividends. Corps enrollment is up slightly this fall for the first time in several years, Musser said. "We're in much better shape than we were before."
The Tech corps also has attracted attention recently as a possible alternative to admitting women to VMI. The military school's attorneys have argued that VMI's all-male admissions policy is justified because women can join the corps at Tech.
A federal court judge has directed VMI and Gov. Douglas Wilder to submit a plan for accommodating female students to the U.S. Justice Department by Sept. 29.
"Any of the degrees and any of the commissions offered at VMI are also offered through the Tech program," VMI Superintendent John Knapp said this week. He also said the Tech corps has "a great and honorable tradition, and we hope to see it flourish."
Musser said he would be happy to admit more women - and perhaps get funding from the state for doing it - as the VMI alternative. But he also said he doesn't expect that to happen.
Musser stressed that Tech's and VMI's training philosophies are substantially different.
Tech's training accentuates the positive, say Musser and others.
Which doesn't exactly mean Cadre Week - the word "cadre" refers to the upperclassmen who handle the training exercises - is one long picnic. Though there was one scheduled for Friday night.
Consider:
Each day the cadets rose at 5:20 a.m. for calisthenics and jogging, followed by a daylong regimen of exercise, drills and academic orientation. Lights out came at 10:30 p.m. Few minutes were unaccounted for in between.
Tech cadets toured the campus and library, learned about the cadet honor code, jogged and drilled on the drill field with plugged Springfield rifles.
They learned to stand in formation - and to march, march, march. Men and women participate equally in all drills, corps leaders said.
"They learn in a very short amount of time how to exist in the corps," said Richard Friendlich, a computer science major from Maryland and the regimental executive officer in charge of Cadre Week.
It is an environment that at least a couple of cadets apparently found not to their liking.
"We've had a few cadets leave," Friendlich said. "There are some cadets the corps is not right for. And we understand that."
"We've got cadets who are very stressed out this week," Musser said. "It's tough."
Freshmen who sign up and then leave without giving the corps at least a six-week tryout must drop out of school as well, Friendlich noted - a policy with which he agrees. "We've gotten this place ready for you, and we've gotten our people ready for you. You've got to give us a chance to show you what this is about," he explained.
Several cadets interviewed this week clearly had no plans to leave.
"It's kind of hard, it's kind of fun," Jennifer Blakeslee said of Cadre Week, as she took a break from her afternoon volleyball game. "A lot of physical training, a lot of marching."
One of the hardest things to handle is the hours, she said.
"We've had the long summer break and most of us have slept until noon. Getting up at 5 is definitely a culture shock. . . . There's not a whole lot of time to breathe."
What is the best part of Cadre Week?
"Being with your `buds,' " Blakeslee said. "You're like one big family. You stick together."
The worst?
"There is no worst part. Nothing is really that difficult."
Indeed, few here were complaining. Not even Taylor Griffin - who had reason.
Griffin, a finance major from Portsmouth, sprained his ankle early in the week - then wore blisters on his hands trying to keep up on crutches. His hands were heavily bandaged. He also had a knot on his head from a fall.
Was he having fun?
"It's great," said Griffin. "It's worth doing. It makes you feel like you're a part of the institution but you're also a part of the corps."
Teamwork is a high priority during Cadre Week.
"The big thing they stress is you can't hose on your bud [translation: let down a fellow cadet]," said Catherine Wattendorf. "Your buds," she explained, "are all the freshmen."
Wattendorf values the camaraderie of the corps.
"I definitely wanted a family. That's one reason I wanted to be in the corps," she said.
Concerning the proposed admission of women to VMI, the cadets had mixed opinions.
"You hear both sides," Friendlich said. "I think we're about as divided as the general public. I think, all in all, we agree Tech is better."
Tech Senior Jennifer Howard of Fairfax wouldn't argue.
"I wouldn't trade what I went through for a million dollars," said Howard of her time in the corps. She was serving as the corps' emergency medical technician for Cadre Week. "It gave me self-confidence, a very good sense of discipline and pride. And some of the best friends in the world."
by CNB