Tag: Virginia Military Institute
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Why the Enrollment Decline at VMI? Look to White Males for an Explanation.
by James A. Bacon When the Virginia Military Institute re-opened for its fall semester Monday with its usual parade-ground pageantry, it counted only 375 cadets in the 1st-year class. That’s down 24% from 494 the previous year. “We believe there are a number of contributing factors,” says VMI spokesman Bill Wyatt. “Schools throughout the commonwealth…
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Why So Few Cadets on VMI Matriculation Day?
by Carmen Villani On August 20, 2022, Virginia Military Institute’s Superintendent Major General Cedric Wins announced that a total of 372 matriculants (or “Rats” by tradition) had signed in, officially beginning their four-year journey through the trials, tribulations, traditions, and triumphs of the Institute. But this year’s incoming class was considerably smaller than the school’s…
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Division Ends Today at the Virginia Military Institute
by The Cadet Editorial Staff To the families of matriculants: This is a difficult day for you. As you leave your daughters and sons to face the struggles and challenges that they are about to meet, take heart in the fact that you, too, are about to become a part of the VMI family. Today…
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A Sneak Peak at VMI’s Diversity Training
by James A. Bacon Virginia Military Institute cadets will return to class in a week or so. At some point during the semester, they will undergo a round of “Inclusive Excellence” training. In June VMI’s chief diversity officer, Jamica Love, briefed the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion subcommittee of the Board of Visitors on what that…
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The Only Thing “Systemic” About VMI Is the WaPo’s Cherry Picking of Data
by James A. Bacon Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira was up to his old tricks in an article published over the weekend about Governor Glenn Youngkin’s appointments to the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors. Predictably, he portrayed the divisions at VMI as between rival camps of those who “support change” and “those resisting it”…
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A More Politically Diverse Board for VMI
by James A. Bacon Governor Glenn Youngkin’s board-of-visitors appointments to the University of Virginia and the Virginia Community College System are bound to shake up the status quo, as Bacon’s Rebellion has documented in earlier posts today. His designation of four new members to the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors could generate controversy as…
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The VMI Alumni Association as Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy
By Larry Repress and Sal Vitale Virginia Military Institute Class of 1961 NOTE: This OPEN Letter was originally Sent to Mr. Thom Brashears, VMI Alumni Association COO with a request it be provided to all VMI Alumni in advance of the Special Meeting of the Association scheduled for 11 June 2022. On June 6, 2022…
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Peay’s Service at VMI Honored
by James A. Bacon A year and a half after he was forced into resigning amidst allegations of “relentless racism” at the institution he ran for 17 years, J.H. Binford Peay III, has been honored by the VMI Board of Visitors. The board bestowed upon him the title of superintendent emeritus and ordered that a…
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Dissident Alumni Open a New Front in the Higher-Ed Culture Wars
by James A. Bacon A Saturday meeting of the VMI Alumni Association, convened to elect a new board of directors, broke up in acrimony and confusion. In a series of votes, dissident alumni voted to remove the existing board and replace it with a hybrid slate comprised of some old board members and some new.…
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African-American Alums Support VMI, General Wins
Letter from VMI Senior African American Alumni to the VMI Board of Visitors. The numerous articles about the Virginia Military Institute, both from alumni and non-alumni, have been troubling to us as Senior African American Alumni (SAAA) [several members of the classes of ’72 to ‘76] of VMI. We have known the Institute to be…
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Keep CRT Out of VMI
by Carmen Villani, VMI Class of 1976 Governor Glenn Youngkin was elected in large part to remove “inherently divisive concepts” such as Critical Race Theory (CRT). While his Executive Order #1 speaks to “K-12 public education,” his recent speech to the Jefferson Society at the University of Virginia suggested extending the ban to higher education.…
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DEI Training Comes to VMI
by James A. Bacon As other Virginia universities rushed to build Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) programs over the past decade, the Virginia Military Institute was long a holdout. In the mythos of the military academy, the infamous Rat Line — an adversarial system that leveled all first-year students and built them back up as…
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No Woke-ism to See Here, Move Along Now: VMI Edition
A correspondent has forwarded to me a communication to all Virginia Military Institute employees from the VMI chief of staff: The Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion would like to offer a voluntary workshop (with certification) for employees who would like to learn more about working with the LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer,…
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VMI Conflict Now Focused on DEI Implementation
by James A. Bacon Aside from the occasional Washington Post hit job, the Virginia Military Institute has faded from the daily headlines. But the controversy over race has not diminished in the slightest, and several conflicts are percolating out of public view. For now I’ll settle for outlining the big picture, and I’ll fill in…
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No Clear and Compelling Justification
by Donald Smith Governor Northam’s November speech to the VMI cadet corps has been widely panned for many reasons. Here I offer a new reason: The speech violated a cardinal principle of American leadership: you must be able to articulate compelling reasons for your decisions and actions. When Northam spoke to the assembled Corps of…