VMI Cadet. August 30, 2002

              Volume XGVI
Run independently by cadets since 1907
Friday, Allj»ust 30 , 2002
$ 1 . 0 0
Number 1
Rats Meet Cadre Minus Push-ups, Corporals
Commandant Emphasizes More
Focused Training
By Glenn Walton
fiUKTNews Editor
On Saturday, August
17"', the Rat Mass o f 2003 + 3
entered Barracks to begin a
journey that will end for some
in May o f 2006 as a VMI
graduate. Others will not
make it that far, but the ones
who do will look back on the
week they just completed as
the start o f it all.
411 new Rats signed
the Matriculation Book in
Cameron Hall that morning
before moving in to their new
rooms and changing into gym
dyke uniform. While the or­deal
facing the Rats was
something completely new to
them, the veterans o f the
Corps saw a plethora o f
changes to the experiences
they knew from years before.
Cadre members had reported
to Barracks nearly a week be­fore
to train and prepare for
that the key “is a training fo­cus
that focuses more on in­spiration
and less on demean­ing
and degrading activities.”
The goal o f Cadre Week, or
the so-called “Hell Week,’
was to be training rather
than punishing. Rats in need
o f discipline were reported
At that meeting
Hutchings also outlined sev­eral
other new additions to
the week o f training includ­ing
a climb up House Moun­tain,
Company Athletics
nearly every night, a 2.6-
mile run on Skyline Drive,
a trip to the National D-Day
the week ahead.
Immediately after
cadre returned. Colonel Eric
Hutchings, ’77, Commandant
of Cadets, held a meeting in
Lejeune Hall. In that meeting
he laid out the focus o f the
week and what he expected of
Cadre. He made it very clear
that professionalism was the
aim o f the week ahead.
One o f the most obvi­ous
changes to the Cadre Pe­riod
was a lack o f a physical
punitive system. No longer
could Cadre drop Rats for
pushups when they observed
an infraction. Hutchings said
through company Tac Offic­ers,
and were subsequently
counseled by the
Commandant’s Office i f nec­essary.
Memorial at Bedford, Vir­ginia,
and the culminating
event o f the week: the “Rat
Crucible.”
During the rest o f
the week company cadre mem­bers
were kept occupied by
memorizing countless drill
blocks, and staff-level cadre
members planned each and ev­ery
event with meticulous de­tail.
All members o f cadre also
attended coeducational train­ing,
Title IX training, and even
lessons on table etiquette. By
the time the Rats arrived on
Post during the morning o f
August n"*, everyone con­cerned
was more than ready..
Rather than having Rats
spend a day or more being es­corted
by Cadet Counseling
Staff members while they are
issued identification cards and
haircuts, Rats met Cadre almost
immediately after the
Superintendent’s we lcome
brief concluded in Jackson
Memorial Hall. The Rats said
goodbye to their parents and
were assembled on Letcher
Avenue; they marched down
the avenue, through Washing­ton
Arch, and into the New
Barracks courtyard. Cadre’s
Continued on page 5
M a n d a t o r y C o - E d
T r a i n i n g
By Joel Andrus
f iuiTNews Writer
This year cadets re­turning
from summer fur­lough
were bombarded with a
number o f mandatory meet­ings.
Most o f these meetings
were expected, with one ex­ception:
a presentation that
was given by a group called
Triad Consulting. Cadets were
not the only ones that were
required to attend this meet­ing;
attendance was also man­datory
for the entire faculty
and staff. The Triad Consult­ing
Group is an international
company that “specializes in
helping clients navigate com­plex
problems where impor­tant
values are at stake and
emotions run high.” They
have worked with corpora­tions
like DuPont, Ford Mo­tor
Company, and IBM on
leadership and negotiation is­sues,
and have also spent a
great deal o f time working
with the Citadel on its co-edu-cation
program. They help
them establish policy and act
as a liaison between the school
and the Department of Justice.
While cadets dis­cussed
how to keep in line
with Title IX and still enforce
the Ratline, other members of
the VMI family had a slightly
different concern. Their issue
was gender and racial equal­ity,
which received mixed re­views
from the faculty. Major
Roger Thompson, assistant
professor o f English and
member o f the Faculty Edu­cation
Sub-Committee,
agreed with the issues raised
at the meeting. He remarked
that for the most part faculty-to-
faculty dealings were good,
but that there were still prob­lems
which needed to be dealt
with. “For people who are
willing to listen it can be valu­able,”
said Thompson. “These
issues are important to family,
faculty and friends.”
Lt. Colonel David
Rachels felt slightly different
about the meeting. “When it
comes to the practice o f this
thing,” said Rachels, “. . . I
know that we are equals. Why
do I need to go to a meeting
to be told this?” Rachels was
not opposed to the problems
being addressed, but thought
that it would be much more
effective to bring the faculty
together and take care o f the
problems in-house. He added
that he was unaware o f any
sort o f problems o f equality
among Ae faculty.
Many new policies
this year come from the newly
instituted VLP, the VMI Lead­ership
Program. Major Marti
Bissell, Protocol Officer and
Acting Deputy Title IX Of­ficer,
remarked that this pre­sentation
was not originally
planned to be apart o f the VLP,
but it had many o f the same
characteristics as those VLP
was trying to implement. This
helped Triad Consulting to
become more e f fec t ive,
Bissell said, since they were
following what had been al­ready
established earlier in the
week. Bissell added that it was
essential to bring this group in,
as the training cadets and fac­ulty
had had in the past did not
work and something better
was needed. She felt that it
was imperative for everyone
to be on the same page, from
the people in Buildings and
Grounds to the Superinten­dent.
S R C S t a t u s C h e c k
By Daniel J. Cragg
fiUfT Managing Editor
The Honor Ctfuit '
week denied the
administration’s request to
implement a new status check
in place o f SRC formation
because it philosophically dis­agrees
with the idea o f using
the honor code for account­ability
purposes. The Dean’s
office eliminated the evening
formation in order to free up
cadets’ time so that they can
use bigger blocks o f time to
study. (See related article
“The End o f SRC.”) This
also, o f course, frees up
cadets’ time to run the block
(leaving post without permis­sion).
The Commandant’s of­fice
wanted to remedy the
situation with a status check
at 1930 hrs in place o f SRC.
“Their intentions
were good. It does make
sense,” says Honor Court
President Chris Walsh ’02, “It
is not an issue o f the Corps
being dishonorable, but we
are looking further ahead.
This could be the starting
point o f problems in the fu­ture
[similar to the honor code
scandal o f 1994-95].” In that
scandal, multiple formations
becoming status checks led to
eonjusion and cheapened the
honor code in the eyes o f
many. Walsh does say with
absolute certainty, “If we did
administer [this check], it
would be followed.”
If the Honor Court did
agree to this status check it
would have set a historical pre­cedent.
Both the “stick
check,” the Sunday morning
status check, and the taps sta­tus
check were requested by
cadets to replace formations.
The original stick check was
an idea put forth by a cadet that
essentially said: i f the admin­istration
would cancel the
2000 hrs formation, cadets
would give their word of honor
to be in an all right location
when a stick was tapped
against their door, or place
themselves on report. Cancel­ing
SRC formation was not a
cadet-led initiative, nor was
the idea for a status check. For
now, the issue has been de­cided,
but the Honor Court
expects the administration to
push for this again in the fu­ture.
I f f
1 s t B a t t a l i o n T a c :
L T C R u s s e l R i v e r s
ByJohn Thompson.-.,
flUfTNews Writer
A f te r returning
from what seemed to be
a shor t summer, the
Corps discovered that the
Commandant’s Staff had
inf il trated barracks by
converting rooms in the
concourse and on the sec­ond
stoop into of fices for
the new Battalion Advi-
Deny Flight and has been an
administrator, a director o f
maintenance, and a flight in­structor.
His career highlight
was serving as a flight in­structor.
“I l ik e wo rk in g
with young people that want
and try to be the best,” he
explained.
LTC Rivers came to
VMI just for that reason. He
sors. The office located in
the concourse is that o f
LTC R u s s e l l R iv e r s ,
USMC Ret. LTC Rivers is
the Battalion advisor to
P' B a t ta l io n and The
Cadet's Faculty In Focus
for this week.
LTC R iv e r s is
from a Navy family, was
born in Spain, and grew
up in Mississippi. He was
in NROTC and graduated
from Old Mi s s as an
Honor Cadet and c om ­missioned
in the United
S ta te s Marine Corps.
LTC Rivers, an aviator,
has f lown both Cobras
and Harrier jets. He has
f low n m i s s io n s ove r
B o sn ia for Op e ra t ion
likes working with people
and making improvements.
His role is to improve on the
regimental system at VMI,
which seems to have atro­p
h ied o v e r r e c en t year s
since the abolition o f man­datory
commissioning. He
speaks very highly o f the
Corps o f Cadets and looks
forward to wo rk in g with
them to get the most out o f
their training at the Institute.
The placement o f his
office in the concourse was
“intentionally... to infiltrate
barracks,” he explained. “[It
is located] strategically in
the concourse with the Fifth
Yearmen, also b e caus e it
provides better access to ca­dets,
and is away from the
Continued on page 5