Female Numbers High in Corps of Cadets
By Molly Cullen
Early women students at Virginia Tech formed their own basketball team, maybe as a way to escape from their frustration of fitting in with the dominant male cadets on campus. The cadets who attended their games rooted for the girls’ opponents, according to Women and Leadership in Philanthropy at Tech.
The history of women at Virginia Tech reveals a past of difficult challenges. Though today, women in the Corps of Cadets say they feel gratified by their experience.
You see them march on the drillfield. Their sharp uniforms, adorned in ropes and badges, stand out on Virginia Tech’s vast campus. From a distance, they blend in with their shaved-head male peers wearing white or camo hats, yet their faces without makeup separate them from a typical freshman girl trying to impress her male classmates. These are the women of the Corps of Cadets.
“I’m not in the Corps for me,” said Danielle DiCicco, a junior enrolled in the Army ROTC program. “I’m in it for a greater purpose.”
It wasn’t until 1921, during its 49th year of operation that Virginia Tech first admitted women as civilian day students. According to University Archives, only five women enrolled that year. These first female students were drenched by water thrown on them by the male students when they walked by the barracks that housed the Corps of Cadets. It would be another 52 years before women were admitted into the Corps. Today, there are close to 800 students in the Corps at Virginia Tech. Women make up 20 percent of that population, according to the Office of the Corps of Cadets.
Virginia Tech was among the first universities to enroll women into the Corps of Cadets. Twenty-five women joined Tech’s Corps in 1973, the first year the Corps was open to them. This named Virginia Tech the first school in the country to officially have female members of its Corps of Cadets. These 25 women were organized in the “L” Squadron.
The admission of women into Tech’s Corps brought many hardships, and it didn’t guarantee acceptance. Second Lt. Patricia Ann Miller, a Virginia Tech graduate of the class of 1959, faced many trials before being named the first woman commissioned in the Army Specialists Corps. Before her commissioning, she tried every semester to register for the required military courses, but was denied because the Corps was not open to women. She applied a final time in her senior year to the Medical Specialists Corps and stated, “I've talked to the Surgeon General, and he would very much like to…commission me along with the other graduates.” Her request was granted and Lt. Col. Raymond O. Miller honored her during her graduation ceremony.
Emily Pillsbury Davis was an “L” Squadron Commander in 1975. “We struggled to find our identity, to find ourselves as ‘L’ Squadron,” said Davis during a 1998 interview with Virginia Tech. “For one thing we were women, and we think differently anyway…we were struggling as a unit to try to come up with our own identity.”
Today, female cadets are finding acceptance, though some of their counterparts might like to continue a history of rivalry. The males in the Corps do see their women peers as leaders, though some agree that recognizing them as high ranking officials is difficult.
“Women in the Corps fit in for the most part,” said Dave Dickinson, a junior cadet. “However, they are highly scrutinized when in leadership positions…most men still don't want to follow a woman’s orders.”
On the other hand, cadet women are able to surpass the scrutiny and live in their given circumstances. “For the most part, we’re treated like one of their buds,” said Monica Tubesing, a freshman cadet. “If I wasn’t treated the same I wouldn’t like it, or be here.”
Virginia Tech’s Corps offers a Spend the Night program. This allows high school seniors to get a firsthand look at life in the Corps. Cadet Col. Christina Royal participated in Junior ROTC in her high school. It was there that she learned about Virginia Tech’s program and was eager to sign up. “During my stay, I felt a sense of camaraderie and pride and knew it was something I wanted to be a part of,” Royal said, an Air Force ROTC senior and the Corps’ first African-American female regimental commander.
Choosing a life in the Corps can be a life-altering commitment. The reasons that women choose to take on this challenge vary. Some choose to follow a military family tradition. DiCicco decided that a career in the military was the path she would like to take before her freshman year. She originally enrolled as an Air Force ROTC member, following in her father’s footsteps. “I knew I wanted something more challenging so I made the switch to Army my sophomore year.” DiCicco is currently one of just seven junior girls in Tech’s Army program.
Tubesing applied to Virginia Tech as a civilian student. During her freshman orientation, she came across the Corps of Cadets’ booth that invited her to take the challenge. “I signed up to be in the Corps only to be safe from making a long-term commitment,” Tubesing said. “Once I got to Tech, I decided to go ROTC, just like my mom had.” Tubesing’s mother is currently stationed in Germany.
Cadets such as DiCicco, Tubesing and Royal in the ROTC program are required to sign a four-year commitment of service post-graduation. ROTC is similar to the commitment one gives upon graduating from The Naval, Army or Air Force academies. “I think academy life is single-minded…I get the best of both worlds at Tech,” DiCicco said.
Virginia Tech is one of only two senior military colleges in the United States located within a major state university; the other is Texas A&M. This gives students a traditional military college feel while experiencing life in a large university.
The mission of Virginia Tech’s Corps of Cadets is to provide a leadership program that aims to produce leaders of character and integrity. Most women agree that their commitment gives them exactly what the program is designed to do. “I have gotten so much out of the program, such as leadership, social and time management skills,” Royal said. “I have gained a better understanding of working with different personalities. I have developed as a person overall.”
“You learn a lot about yourself when you learn to function under huge amounts of stress,” Tubesing said. “I’ve been yelled at numerous times until I got it right. If I wasn’t dressed in my formal uniform in under a minute, I had to go back and start over.”
“You really learn to think under pressure, not just remember something but doing it right away,” DiCicco said. “This definitely helps me in my training and in the classroom.”
Today’s Corps experience reveals the abilities of women to compete on both mental and physical levels of achievement against men. Both female and male cadets develop endurance mentally and physically. The Corps community currently holds the highest campus wide QCA of 2.9, beating out the Greek community and athletes.
“Scientifically, there is a difference between the physical abilities of men and women, but this doesn’t mean that women are given any slack during physical training, or PT,” DiCicco said. “Everyone brings something they’re good at, like a team. We all contribute to the whole.”
“If we are all running together and someone is falling behind, everyone goes back with the slowest person,” Tubesing said. “Everyone is expected to try their very hardest, regardless of gender.”
Many difficult choices certainly lie ahead for the women of the Corps. Upon graduation, a ROTC member is faced with an unpredictable lifestyle. This military obligation finds cadet graduates to be stationed anywhere. “There’s a good chance that I might end up overseas with the war going on,” DiCicco said. Though, many of Tech's female cadets, including those of high rank, want a domestic lifestyle eventually.
Life after acceptance provides gratification to Corps women. Tech's female cadets will face life with an extraordinary amount of confidence as a result of their experiences in the Corps. “I am excited for the moment when my lieutenant bars are pined upon my shoulders and I enter the active duty of Air Force,” Royal said.
