This is ****ing stupid.
Not sure yet. Lots of things going on behind the scenes.BCOBQ98 said:
This change sucks. Ruins outfit culture, fish buddies, wtf does the outfit do for the first two months. Who do we call, let's get this going.
aggiez03 said:This is not how it works.Dawnguard said:
Devils advocate:
This isn't anywhere near as terrible as projected. Essentially, instead of being randomly placed by random, the fish will actually have the ability to chose an outfit and earn their logo. This means that recruiting the unit will be significantly less random, and outfit culture and reputation amongst the corps will have a bigger impact.
My immediate reaction was "this is a big change and is probably terrible". My undeveloped and uninformed thoughts are leading me to think that this might actually solve some major problems the corps is facing (drastic change in lifestyle).
I'd need more information on what the outfit selection process will be. If the fish get to choose in the spring after earning their corps brass, then this pushes outfit culture to the forefront. The military academies have low outfit loyalty because they swap out after sophomore year. I see 3.5 years as being way stronger loyalty - as the recruitment is way longer and the outfit selection is more of a mutual agreement than a random selection.
Every Corps outfit has a recruiting chain and are actively recruiting Spend the Nighters starting in September till the end of the Spring. Each outfit brings in a ton of kids, determines if the kids fit what they are looking for and if the outfit and the kid both like each other, then they can put the kid on their reserved list and the kid can put down that outfit as their first choice.
Some outfits have OVER a HUNDRED kids that want to be in their outfit. Other outfits have to get kids given to them because they are so bad at recruiting.
By the spring there will be no culture of the outfit. This will kill outfit culture. Which I actually think is the goal in all of this.
JB99 said:aggiez03 said:This is not how it works.Dawnguard said:
Devils advocate:
This isn't anywhere near as terrible as projected. Essentially, instead of being randomly placed by random, the fish will actually have the ability to chose an outfit and earn their logo. This means that recruiting the unit will be significantly less random, and outfit culture and reputation amongst the corps will have a bigger impact.
My immediate reaction was "this is a big change and is probably terrible". My undeveloped and uninformed thoughts are leading me to think that this might actually solve some major problems the corps is facing (drastic change in lifestyle).
I'd need more information on what the outfit selection process will be. If the fish get to choose in the spring after earning their corps brass, then this pushes outfit culture to the forefront. The military academies have low outfit loyalty because they swap out after sophomore year. I see 3.5 years as being way stronger loyalty - as the recruitment is way longer and the outfit selection is more of a mutual agreement than a random selection.
Every Corps outfit has a recruiting chain and are actively recruiting Spend the Nighters starting in September till the end of the Spring. Each outfit brings in a ton of kids, determines if the kids fit what they are looking for and if the outfit and the kid both like each other, then they can put the kid on their reserved list and the kid can put down that outfit as their first choice.
Some outfits have OVER a HUNDRED kids that want to be in their outfit. Other outfits have to get kids given to them because they are so bad at recruiting.
By the spring there will be no culture of the outfit. This will kill outfit culture. Which I actually think is the goal in all of this.
With spend the night with the Corp you only learn about 1 outfit. This new model would allow fish to learn about every outfit before choosing one. That's alot different than the current model.
I can only imagine the blowback he's going to get from former Corps members. This is not going to go over well. The one thing you don't do at TAMU is mess with tradition in the Corps.aggiez03 said:
Any CTs on here that are not aware...
New commandant has been rumored to do this, but this came down today...
He is trying to turn A&M into a service academy.
This will effectively kill the Corps.
Corps of Cadets Association and a bunch of high level CTs are working to quell this, but need CTs to call, write, and email and voice their displeasure.
How are politics involved?
They are trying to FORCE EQUITY and get rid of outfit culture.
Wildmen06 said:
is there another source for this other than an Instagram screenshot
No, the DEI thing is not something that is being said outloud, but what they do not want it outfit culture.BluHorseShu said:I can only imagine the blowback he's going to get from former Corps members. This is not going to go over well. The one thing you don't do at TAMU is mess with tradition in the Corps.aggiez03 said:
Any CTs on here that are not aware...
New commandant has been rumored to do this, but this came down today...
He is trying to turn A&M into a service academy.
This will effectively kill the Corps.
Corps of Cadets Association and a bunch of high level CTs are working to quell this, but need CTs to call, write, and email and voice their displeasure.
How are politics involved?
They are trying to FORCE EQUITY and get rid of outfit culture.
Question about the equity part, was that discussed somewhere else in the memo? I might be thinking of it as trying to push DEI type equity and not another form. I ask because I would think any mention of equity and DEI is a big no no right now.
That would be a nightmare.Cromagnum said:
Might be worse in some regards. Learning the upperclassmen in your unit and eventually major unit was bad enough. How many leaders will the fish be expected to keep track of under the new system?
I don't see how this would work at all in the Aggie Band. All the fish train as part of the full unit anyways.
Back in the 70s, your field of study was a major part of assigning a fish into outfits. Science into one outfit. Engineering in another outfit. Premed in another outfit. Of course, the band had everything.Dawnguard said:
Devils advocate:
This isn't anywhere near as terrible as projected. Essentially, instead of being randomly placed by random, the fish will actually have the ability to chose an outfit and earn their logo. This means that recruiting the unit will be significantly less random, and outfit culture and reputation amongst the corps will have a bigger impact.
My immediate reaction was "this is a big change and is probably terrible". My undeveloped and uninformed thoughts are leading me to think that this might actually solve some major problems the corps is facing (drastic change in lifestyle).
I'd need more information on what the outfit selection process will be. If the fish get to choose in the spring after earning their corps brass, then this pushes outfit culture to the forefront. The military academies have low outfit loyalty because they swap out after sophomore year. I see 3.5 years as being way stronger loyalty - as the recruitment is way longer and the outfit selection is more of a mutual agreement than a random selection.
That is perfectly acceptable.eric76 said:Back in the 70s, your field of study was a major part of assigning a fish into outfits. Science into one outfit. Engineering in another outfit. Premed in another outfit. Of course, the band had everything.Dawnguard said:
Devils advocate:
This isn't anywhere near as terrible as projected. Essentially, instead of being randomly placed by random, the fish will actually have the ability to chose an outfit and earn their logo. This means that recruiting the unit will be significantly less random, and outfit culture and reputation amongst the corps will have a bigger impact.
My immediate reaction was "this is a big change and is probably terrible". My undeveloped and uninformed thoughts are leading me to think that this might actually solve some major problems the corps is facing (drastic change in lifestyle).
I'd need more information on what the outfit selection process will be. If the fish get to choose in the spring after earning their corps brass, then this pushes outfit culture to the forefront. The military academies have low outfit loyalty because they swap out after sophomore year. I see 3.5 years as being way stronger loyalty - as the recruitment is way longer and the outfit selection is more of a mutual agreement than a random selection.
That said, you could choose a different outfit if you knew ahead of time. For example, my younger brother was an agriculture major in an engineering outfit.
I've been told that they did away with that structure some years ago, but I have no idea why they would do so. It doesn't make sense. For example, the premed outfit was more concerned with academics and was said to take it easier on their fish.
I was a CT and for all of its shortcomings most of A&M's leadership has bent over backwards to help preserve the Corps and support it through some tough times, including Sharp who was in Squadron 6. There were probably 2-3 times when I was a cadet in the 90s alone when A&M probably had a valid excuse to disband the Corps if they wanted, including the FDT mess.Rapier108 said:
Eliminating the Corps of Cadets has always been a goal.
It is one of the things the leftists in the administration hate the most because they see it as one of the things which makes A&M different from the rest of the universities in the country.
They want A&M to be Berkeley on the Brazos.
And as much as he is disliked, the person everyone should be contacting is John Sharp. Screwing up A&M history/traditions is the one thing he does not like and so far has managed to keep at bay.
Thanks. And I agree. This will FUBAR the corps as people know/knew it.aggiez03 said:No, the DEI thing is not something that is being said outloud, but what they do not want it outfit culture.BluHorseShu said:I can only imagine the blowback he's going to get from former Corps members. This is not going to go over well. The one thing you don't do at TAMU is mess with tradition in the Corps.aggiez03 said:
Any CTs on here that are not aware...
New commandant has been rumored to do this, but this came down today...
He is trying to turn A&M into a service academy.
This will effectively kill the Corps.
Corps of Cadets Association and a bunch of high level CTs are working to quell this, but need CTs to call, write, and email and voice their displeasure.
How are politics involved?
They are trying to FORCE EQUITY and get rid of outfit culture.
Question about the equity part, was that discussed somewhere else in the memo? I might be thinking of it as trying to push DEI type equity and not another form. I ask because I would think any mention of equity and DEI is a big no no right now.
There is lots of disparity between outfits and when you have outstanding outfits that lots of kids want to get into, they cannot put all the kids in that outfit. They get stuck in other outfits, some of which have poor culture.
If they knock out the outfit culture, they can put a kid anywhere and then they will have a unified experience across the Corps.
Sounds great, but then imagine your child having to do 7th grade math in 7th grade when they are capable of pre-Algebra.
It is forced equity.
There was a kid in my son's Air Science class that was arguing with a Bull last semester about how Outfit Culture is EVERYTHING, and the Bull's position was that Outfit Culture was a negative and needed to be eliminated.
This is NOT what Texas A&M Corps experience was EVER about....
Ag CPA said:I was a CT and for all of its shortcomings most of A&M's leadership has bent over backwards to help preserve the Corps and support it through some tough times, including Sharp who was in Squadron 6. There were probably 2-3 times when I was a cadet in the 90s alone when A&M probably had a valid excuse to disband the Corps if they wanted, including the FDT mess.Rapier108 said:
Eliminating the Corps of Cadets has always been a goal.
It is one of the things the leftists in the administration hate the most because they see it as one of the things which makes A&M different from the rest of the universities in the country.
They want A&M to be Berkeley on the Brazos.
And as much as he is disliked, the person everyone should be contacting is John Sharp. Screwing up A&M history/traditions is the one thing he does not like and so far has managed to keep at bay.
I was D&C and as noted by others one of the great benefits of the Corps to me was the outfit friendships and "good bull", especially fish year, but at the end of the day the Corps primarily exists to commission officers along with the Academies. If the Commandant thinks that changes need to be made to stay competitive then I guess I get it, although like most of you I don't like it.
Biased take here, but i am class of '12 CT and ex-military:Maroon Dawn said:
Need a Corps person to explain this better to the rest of us. What is happening and why is it a problem?
The Kraken said:
I'm going to withhold judgment until I hear from the Commandant, who is class of '93. There was lots of bellyaching when Gen Ramirez spearheaded many reforms, but IMO most of them were necessary and positive.
Don't tell me Gator 2 has superior culture. lolaggiez03 said:
There are outstanding outfits that have leaders all over campus. There are the jock outfits who are known to be good at athletics. There is E2 who is known for Reveille. All outfits have a culture that is passed down from class to class and that is bred through the interaction from Seniors to fish.
Why are outfits that were good 10 or 20 years ago, still the best outfits?
Why are bad outfits that were not good 10-20 years ago, still not great outfits?
Outfit culture.
Some outfits recruit and breed outfit culture, while other outfits don't care.
An outfit is setup to train fish in how they should act, fit in, and operate. Some outfits are great at this, some are not.
By removing the fish from the outfits, you are taking the main reason for an outfit to exist away.
A pissheads job is to train fish. No Fish, what are they gonna do?
Why would a pisshead want to go train a group of fish that he will not see the benefit of training?
How are fish gonna learn outfit culture, when they are not a part of an outfit, but in fact separated from the outfit?
Why would Jrs and Srs in the Corps care to stay engaged when they don't know the fish, they don't see the fish, and don't get the benefit of seeing the fish grow.
Get Off My Lawn said:
I say "show me a superior product first."
The service academies drastically underperform when you the caliber of applicants they start with. They get to doorkeep while A&M's corps has little filter, and yet - I'd take the average Aggie officer over the average academy grad any day. This is in large part because they talk about leadership while at A&M immerses kids in it.
Being able to make early mistakes within your unit - where the impact is limited to a couple dozen folks - is part of the strength of this model. You don't get the maturation process without the autonomy. Taking fish away from individual units may be sold as a unifying experience but is clearly an effort to eliminate the privacy & control the training as to insulate bulls from cadets mistakes.
At first blush it smells like a risk averse officer infantilizing the whole organization as a hedge for his personal career and to the detriment of the next generation.
100%Tom Kazansky 2012 said:Biased take here, but i am class of '12 CT and ex-military:Maroon Dawn said:
Need a Corps person to explain this better to the rest of us. What is happening and why is it a problem?
Outfits = different fraternities.
This would be like making the greeks all train the freshman together instead of doing it each their own unique way.
This is dumb as hell and will kill the corps because the best part about the corps is getting to know "your team" and learning how to function in said team.
Each is different and has their own unique flavors, some good and some bad.
This is being done likely because some outfits suck and some are good but that has to do more so with the quality of recruiting.
Also the bulls and others who are woke d bags likely don't like the non-integrated (all-male) outfits because the all-male ones continuously, every year, dominate the awards for grades, athletics, etc. This is simply unexplainable to the woke losers, but being very close with my own non-integrated outfit and many of my buddies moving into integrated outfits--there are just unresolvable issues with integrated outfits and both female and male cadets being held to the same standards.
They are hoping by training them all together they can bridge the gap, but this will inevitably just bring everyone down.
For the record, I was a non-integrated outfit as mentioned but I was also enlisted in the military and a contracted cadet later on. My actual military training was a miserable joke (both in the learning curve and physical/mental rigor)compared to the Corps and my non-integrated outfit.
I think most of us old CTs arent shocked reading this as the bulls and leadership selected have been ruining the corps non-stop for the past 40 years. They select woke dumbasses to fill the role of leading our students on purpose.
. That was what it was all about. Different backgrounds (city/country: black/white/:brown; rich/poor and you have little but each other. Will kill outfits and has been pointed out make upper class men almost irrelevantDevilD77 said:
I can understand why they are thinking this would be a good thing. Like the armed forces, all recruits go through basic training before being assigned to their first unit. However, the bonds of brotherhood between a unit's fish is created in those first few months of the fall semester where it was them against their pissheads! That's when kids of every kind put aside their differences and merge into a united force to survive that first year. Even now, any of my fish buds would drop everything to go and help another one out if needed. I could see having a regimented training program that the units have to follow, but it's the interaction between the fish and their unit upperclassmen that can make or break a fish class.
Yes, and that is apparently a "Bad Thing."bobbranco said:
Will this help with attrition and increase study time?
ThisGet Off My Lawn said:
I say "show me a superior product first."
The service academies drastically underperform when you the caliber of applicants they start with. They get to doorkeep while A&M's corps has little filter, and yet - I'd take the average Aggie officer over the average academy grad any day. This is in large part because they talk about leadership while at A&M immerses kids in it.
Being able to make early mistakes within your unit - where the impact is limited to a couple dozen folks - is part of the strength of this model. You don't get the maturation process without the autonomy. Taking fish away from individual units may be sold as a unifying experience but is clearly an effort to eliminate the privacy & control the training as to insulate bulls from cadets mistakes.
At first blush it smells like a risk averse officer infantilizing the whole organization as a hedge for his personal career and to the detriment of the next generation.