For me, the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership is one of those experiences.
When I arrived at Mary Baldwin and became part of VWIL, I knew I was joining something unusual. What I could not fully appreciate then was that I was becoming part of a history that was still being written.
Founded in 1995, the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership was created to develop women as leaders through academics, physical training, discipline, service, military training, and leadership education. Today, VWIL remains the only all-female corps of cadets in the United States.
Caption: The early years of the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership. Photo courtesy of Mary Baldwin University.
But programs like VWIL are not built by institutions alone.
They are built by people.
They are built by the people who believe in an idea before anyone knows whether it will succeed. They are built by the people willing to establish traditions where none existed before. And they are built by the people who invest themselves in the young women who will eventually carry those traditions forward.
One of the most important of those people was Dr. Brenda Bryant.
More Than an Advisor
Dr. Brenda L. Bryant, founding director of the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership. Photo courtesy of Mary Baldwin University
When I think about Dr. Brenda Bryant, I don’t simply remember an administrator or the founding director of VWIL.
I remember a mentor.
I remember a sounding board.
And I remember someone whose presence in my life did not simply end when my time as a cadet ended.
Caption: Dr. Brenda Bryant holding my second-born child during one of our visits to her office. Our relationship continued beyond my years as a VWIL cadet—a reminder that her mentorship often extended far beyond graduation. Photo from my personal collection.
I continued to visit Dr. Bryant after my years as a cadet. One of the photographs I treasure is of her holding my second-born child during one of those visits to her office.
Looking at that photograph now reminds me that the relationships formed through VWIL were never confined to formations, classrooms, or the years we spent at Mary Baldwin. For some of us, those relationships followed us into the next chapters of our lives.
Dr. Bryant was someone you could sit down with when you were facing a difficult question or struggling to figure out what to do next.
She would listen.
She would talk through the situation with you.
She would offer guidance.
But she didn’t necessarily give you the answer.
Instead, she would remind you to use the tools you had collected along the way.
Looking back, I understand how important that lesson was.
She wasn’t trying to create women who would always need someone else to tell them what to do. She was helping us learn how to trust what we had been taught, examine the situation in front of us, and make decisions for ourselves.
That is leadership.
She saw the individual woman underneath the uniform.
She listened.
She challenged us.
She advised us.
And she trusted that we were capable of finding our way.
Leadership was not simply something Dr. Bryant taught.
She practiced it.
She showed up.
The Heart and Soul of VWIL
Dr. Bryant once described the cadets themselves as the “heart and soul of the program.”
Those words still resonate.
Because VWIL has always been more than uniforms, formations, inspections, parades, physical training, and military traditions.
Those things are part of it.
But they are not the whole story.
VWIL Corps of Cadets during the 2015 Change of Command parade. Photo courtesy of Mary Baldwin University.
VWIL is about discovering what happens when you are tired and still have responsibilities.
It is about learning that leadership does not always mean being the loudest person in the room.
It is learning how to lead and how to follow.
It is accountability.
It is service.
It is sisterhood.
And sometimes it is learning to stop, look at everything you have experienced and everything you have been taught, and ask yourself:
What tools do I already have to handle this?
The words Truth, Duty, Honor become more than words when you spend years being challenged to live according to them.
More Than a Uniform
When you are a cadet, it can be difficult to see beyond the immediate experience.
There is always another responsibility.
Another formation.
Another class.
Another challenge.
Another standard you are expected to meet.
But eventually, you graduate.
You take off the uniform.
And life presents challenges that no training manual could have predicted.
There is no advisor standing beside you.
There is no handbook telling you exactly what to do.
There isn’t always an obvious right answer.
Those are the moments when you discover what your education truly gave you.
You reach into that collection of tools you have gathered throughout your life and decide which one the situation requires.
More than two decades after my own time as a cadet, I still carry some of those tools with me.
And I still carry Dr. Bryant’s lesson with me.
Watching the Legacy Continue
Perhaps one of the most meaningful things about VWIL for me today is realizing that its story did not end when my class graduated.
We became part of its foundation.
Other women came behind us.
And then other women came behind them.
Today, I have the extraordinary experience of watching my own daughter walk the same campus and become part of the same Corps of Cadets that helped shape me.
Present-day VWIL Corps of Cadets: The legacy continues. Today’s VWIL Corps of Cadets carries forward a tradition of leadership, service, discipline, and sisterhood. Photo from my personal collection
There is something difficult to put into words about watching the next generation step into a tradition you once carried yourself.
The uniforms change.
The cadets change.
The world changes.
But the responsibility to develop women who understand leadership, service, integrity, courage, and accountability continues.
My daughter is having her own VWIL experience.
She is facing her own challenges.
She is developing her own understanding of leadership.
And she is collecting her own tools along the way.
That is legacy.
nULL Induction Parade 2026- Current VWIL Staff
Remembering Dr. Brenda Bryant
Dr. Bryant died in 2012 after battling breast cancer, but her presence remains intertwined with the story of VWIL.
The Brenda Bryant Memorial 5K Run/Walk gives alumni, cadets, families, friends, and community members an opportunity to come together and honor her life and legacy while supporting the next generation of VWIL cadets through the Brenda Bryant Memorial Scholarship.
We will run.
We will walk.
We will remember.
But more importantly, we will continue.
Because perhaps the greatest tribute we can give someone who dedicated so much of herself to developing leaders is to make sure the work continues long after she is gone.
The Women Who Carry It Forward
VWIL began in 1995.
More than three decades later, the Corps is still here.
Caption: VWIL’s Change of Command parade symbolizes both transition and continuity as one generation of cadet leaders passes responsibility to the next. Photo courtesy of Mary Baldwin University.
Generations of women have marched across Mary Baldwin’s campus.
They have completed Wilderness.
They have endured early mornings.
They have pushed through physical training.
They have learned to lead their peers and to be accountable to one another.
They have served their communities.
They have graduated, commissioned into the military, entered civilian careers, raised families, built organizations, and carried pieces of VWIL into communities around the world.
We are no longer simply cadets standing in formation.
We are alumnae.
We are mothers.
We are military officers and veterans.
We are professionals, educators, public servants, advocates, entrepreneurs, community leaders, and so much more.
And now some of us have the privilege of watching our daughters become cadets themselves.
They did not simply create a four-year college program.
They created something capable of surviving beyond them.
They created a legacy.
Truth. Duty. Honor.
Leaders of VWIL, past and present: (bottom row, l-r) The late Brig. Gen. Michael Bissell served as the first commandant of VWIL, and the late Brenda Bryant served as the first program director. (top row, l-r) Brig. Gen. Terry Djuric is the current commandant of cadets, and Command Sergeant Major Gerald Johnson was the second senior enlisted advisor. Photo courtesy of Mary Baldwin University.
When I think about VWIL now, I don’t think only about what happened during my years at Mary Baldwin.
I think about the women who came before me.
I think about the women who stood beside me.
I think about the women who came after us.
And now, I think about my daughter and the young women standing in formation today.
We are separated by years, experiences, and generations, but we belong to the same story.
Dr. Brenda Bryant helped write the opening chapters of that story.
Those of us who had the privilege of knowing her carry pieces of her with us—in lessons, conversations, moments of encouragement, and in that quiet reminder to use the tools we have collected along the way.
Today’s cadets are now writing their own chapter.
Someday, they will take off their uniforms too.
They will step into careers, families, communities, and lives that will present challenges none of us can predict.
And when those moments come, I hope they remember what generations of VWIL women have learned:
You may not have all the answers.
You may not know exactly what comes next.
But somewhere along the journey, you have been collecting tools.
Trust yourself enough to use them.
That is why preserving VWIL matters.
That is why remembering Dr. Brenda Bryant matters.
And that is why, when we gather for the Brenda Bryant Memorial 5K, we are celebrating far more than a race.
We are honoring a woman.
We are celebrating a Corps.
We are preserving a legacy.
And we are reminding the next generation of VWIL women that the story is now theirs to carry forward.
Truth. Duty. Honor.
