Wednesday, September 24, 1997 'Rats' see if they can make the grade By MATT CHITTUM THE ROANOKE TIMES It's been about three weeks since a female "rat" left VMI voluntarily, and a week since a male departed, but those streaks could end this week when rats get their first glimpse at their grades.     Grades for the first four weeks of class are expected to be posted before the end of this week, and that typically sends a few rats scurrying from an academic sinking ship.     "Some of them I guess wait around until they see what their grades are like," said Mike Strickler, VMI's public relations director.     The 8.08 percent attrition rate for VMI's first coed class is just below the 20-year average for this point in the year. So far this year, 33 male and 4 female rats have left VMI, including female rat Angelica Garza, who was suspended for slugging an upperclassman.     Rat attrition traditionally gets a boost over holidays, when rats get a furlough from the "ratline" training system and go home. They get a taste of civilian clothes, Mom's cooking and the fun their friends at other colleges are having, cadets say, and they don't want to come back to the regimented drudgery and general sleeplessness of the "ratline."     The first break this year comes earlier than in years past. In October, the corps of cadets gets a long weekend off, thanks to a new "fall break" instituted by Superintendent Josiah Bunting. Officer gives first women fitness support     Carol Green's ability to do 15 pullups has made her an official footnote in the history of coeducation at VMI.     At the bottom of the last quarterly progress report the institute filed in federal court was a note that 51-year-old Green, a Title IX anti-discrimination compliance officer hired by the college, has been training to take the same VMI fitness test all male and female cadets must take.     The note said she was up to 14 pullups, but Green said she's since added one to her record performance.     "I was so tired of people telling VMI that the women couldn't handle the fitness test," said Green, the wife of 1967 VMI grad Bob Green. So the spry 5-foot-4, 117-pounder, who could only do one pull-up last October, started a strength-training program.     To pass the fitness test, a cadet must do five pullups, run a mile and a half in 12 minutes, and do 60 situps in two minutes.     Passing the test is not a requirement for graduation, but it is a component of the grade in required physical education courses. Last year, one senior who had done poorly in his P.E. classes and was ineligible to graduate because of it, found that the only way he could get his grades up to snuff was to pass the fitness test. He didn't, and he didn't graduate, but he can take the test as often as he likes over the next 10 years.     Green said the running part of the test has been harder than the pullups, but she is almost fast enough to clear that hurdle.     "I'm not a feminist at all," Green said. Her mission is to preserve the VMI fitness test by proving women are up to the task. And she's cheering for the 26 female rats that remain at VMI.     "I don't want to see them fail. I want to see VMI turn out these great women," she said. "I think if I was a young woman 18 years old now, I would want it; I would want that challenge for myself." W&L continues rat prank probe     The perpetrator of the dead lab rat prank that threatened to sour VMI's first moments of coeducation is still at large, but officials at neighboring Washington and Lee University say their investigation isn't over.     "We're continuing to talk to students in kind of an informal way and hope that as the term goes on some new information will come out," said W&L spokesman Brian Shaw.     On Aug. 20, the morning the first coed freshman class at VMI was to enter the ratline, members of the press corps arriving on the VMI campus early were greeted by a pile of dead, white laboratory rats on the parade ground, next to a towel with the words "Save the Males" painted on it.     The incident was quickly linked to some W&L students.     It's unclear what might happen to the perpetrator when caught, anyway. The prank might be a student conduct violation, Shaw said. "I don't think it really falls under an honor system violation, unless we find out it was a W&L student who has lied about it."     Misdemeanor criminal charges also are possible, but the police or VMI would have to initiate those, and Shaw said neither party seems inclined to.