VMI Holds Its First Coed Open House

Angelica Garza and Amy Abraham are spending the weekend at Virginia Military Institute to learn what life will be like as “Sister Rats.”

VMI’s first male-female open house since deciding to admit women a month ago included a tour of the 157-year-old campus, a night spent on wooden cots--and television cameras, of course.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Abraham said. “We’re just normal people who are wanting to look at a great college.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that excluding women at state-supported VMI was unconstitutional, and the school last month decided to admit women rather than try to become a private college.

Garza, who lives in northern Virginia, refused to answer questions, and Abraham, a Tennessee resident, spoke only briefly.

“The reason I’m applying to VMI is not because I’m a women’s libber and that women have to go where males are and stuff,” Abraham said. “VMI’s honor and integrity and leadership training, I feel, can develop you as a whole person, and that’s what college needs to do.”

The two women haven’t yet filled out applications to VMI.

The school holds six open houses each year for prospective students, telling them about the physical and mental rigors cadets experience. They even get to watch an upperclassman harass a first-year “Rat,” although the act is scripted.

“This is obviously a very unusual college,” Supt. Josiah Bunting told the two women and 54 men Friday.

The male high school seniors spent one night in the barracks, but the women stayed in a building next door, where the cots used by cadets were the only pieces of furniture. A female ROTC instructor slept nearby.

The first woman to formally apply to VMI is Brooke Elliott, who decided to attend only after administrators said they would not soften the rigorous training to accommodate women.

Elliott, 18, submitted her application last week.

“At first I didn’t want to [apply]. I thought females should just go to the [U.S. service] academies. But I listened to the radio one morning, and they said they were going to hold girls to the same standards as the guys. I went to my guidance counselor that day and got an application.”

VMI intends to enroll about 30 women next year.