Holly Richardson, Mike Krackow, Jack Johnson, Chad Joyce and James Coale Department of Physical Education, Virginia Military Institute Teaching through Leading: The Virginia Military Rat Challenge Program

Introduction VMI - state supported school Citizen Soldier and ROTC Graduate individuals with strong leadership skills Over 200 leadership opportunities

Leadership Opportunities Regimental Athletics Peer Counseling Band and Glee Search and Rescue Pre Professional programs

The Rat Challenge Program Experiential-Ten weeks Physical, mental, emotional Supportive and positive Reflective of the Regimental Esprit de corps

Rat Challenge existing in an Adversarial System

Objectives  Determine value and worth of the program compared to other leadership programs  Determine the extent participation contributed to development of leadership skills

Methods Post program evaluation – Qualitative-open ended questions – Quantitative-Likert type of questions Convenient sampling 57/80 (71%) Cadre

Results-Effectiveness How do you rank the effectiveness of the cadre role as a means of developing leadership skills?  More effective 32.8%  Most effective 58.6%

Results-Value Given the educational mission of the Institute, how valuable for the cadre is the Rat Challenge experience?  Very valuable 34.5%  Extremely valuable 62.1%

Results: Ability, Skills, & Unity Percentage of responses that were a ‘great deal’ or quite a lot’ – Leadership ability91.2% – Decision making skills87.7% – Communication skills 91.2% – Develop unity of spirit94.7%

Cadre Comments ‘More PT (physical training)’ ‘More privileges’ ‘Better than even my Reg. staff position for leadership development.’ ‘Taught me I should prepare before instructing’ ‘It helped me understand what I wanted my leadership style to be.’

Conclusion Valuable Effective

Discussion-Why? How? Based on theory and practice Supervised Environment

Questions