Be Prepared
By Lt. Col. Dave Williams ‘79, U.S. Army (retired)
Long before I was a cadet in the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, I was a Boy Scout. The motto of the Boy Scouts of America is “Be Prepared.”
In the past, you have heard me refer to the fall college fair season as being akin to Christmas for Corps alumni recruiters. College fairs (spring fairs are primarily for juniors and fall fairs are for juniors and seniors) are the two times of the year when potential Virginia Tech-bound students beat a path to the tables where Virginia Tech admission personnel and Corps recruiters are ready to talk about Virginia Tech and the Corps of Cadets.
The fairs are sanctioned and organized at both the state and national levels: in Virginia by the Virginia Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers and at the national level by the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
Because of the ongoing pandemic, the in-person fairs last fall and this spring were canceled, and virtual fairs took their places. This fall remains an unanswered question; therefore, be prepared.
There are two obvious branches and sequels for the fall – we gain herd immunity this summer and life begins to return to normal and we are back to in-person recruiting, or the lockdowns on certain activities such as college fairs continues. If that happens, we will have to continue with recruiting by networking.
Networking — reaching out to the children of friends, co-workers, church friends who may be interested in Virginia Tech — is slow going. However, if virtual fairs continue, networking will be one of the few tools left in our kit.
Stay tuned to the Corps’ website and the commandant’s Facebook page. We’ll do our best to keep you informed.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with another Boy Scout thought: Do a good turn daily. This fits nicely with Corps of Cadets alumni who embrace Ut Prosim (That I May Serve).