editors note: this story is part of an occasional series about the impact of title ix andrea abat 89 still remembers how she felt the first time she saw the fightin texas aggie band perform it was the fall of 1984 her senior year at houstons memorial high school and she was visiting a friend at texas a&m: i just had one of those cloud-parting dove-descending moments she recalls and from that moment on she was determined to join their ranks the next year abat and two of her classmates became the first women admitted to the band after a 90-year history as an all-male unit going in i had no preconceived notions about breaking barriers or anything like that i just wanted to be part of this amazing band and what they did abat said until i got to the quad in the fall of 1985 i wasnt really aware of what was happening and what a huge change it was going to be for the university ultimately it was one in a long series of changes in the corps of cadets set in motion by the 1972 federal law that sought to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sex in higher education it was added as an update to title vii of the civil rights act of 1964 which applied only to discrimination in employment but even in a post-title ix world there was still plenty of work to be done abat said she will always be grateful to the many courageous women who helped clear her path to the north end of kyle field its wonderful to be somewhere in that chain said abat who went on to serve as an engineer in the us army a special agent for the environmental protection agency and now a director for the carnival corporations incident analysis group and its very gratifying now to look out across a sea of cadets and see plenty of women in positions of leadership changing times women were officially allowed to enroll at texas a&m as full degree-seeking students in 1963 thanks to president james earl rudders decision to integrate the university along racial and gender lines according to former a&m history professor henry dethloffs a centennial history of texas a&m 150 women were enrolled at the college that first fall and their numbers continued to climb in the years that followed: … change was clearly in the air dethloff wrote the corps of cadets however remained all-male despite efforts from a number of interested female students and some parents by the 1970s the prospect of admitting women to a&ms military training programs was still highly controversial but according to aggie historian john a adams 73 it was starting to look like it might be inevitable especially as more women entered the armed forces and began to fill a wider variety of roles in keepers of the sprit adams book on the history of the corps he notes that integration of college rotc programs was fast becoming a high priority for the military with special attention paid to large federally-funded institutions like a&m and the service academies sure enough by 1973 corps commandant col tom parsons was receiving repeated inquiries from the department of the army on the status of women in the corps of cadets adams wrote and of course the passage of title ix the year prior had not escaped the notice of parsons or texas a&m president jack k williams williams as well as the commandant many alumni and many of the cadets in command positions knew that it was only a matter of time before the new federal guidelines were broadened and enforced for all college activities adams wrote with that in mind williams and parsons made a significant decision: texas a&m would become the first major military college in the nation to admit women into its officer training program this was before any women were in any of the service academies or the virginia military institute or the citadel said roxie pranglin 78 who joined a&ms first-ever class of female cadets in the fall of 1974 we were the first corps of cadets-type environment that allowed women to participate and was it done perfectly no but i believe it was done with good intentions the change had come swiftly juniors on corps staff during the previous school year were tasked with preparing a detailed plan for the integration of women they called it the minerva plan after the roman goddess of wisdom justice and war when pranglin and the other women arrived on the quad that first semester they were organized into the all-female company w-1: minervas finest a rocky start the transition into corps life was not a particularly seamless one pranglin said the women of w-1 didnt get uniforms until the following semester and they were not able to live on the quad until the following school year our numbers fluctuated each day people would join up and people would drop out and we lived all over the place so there was a lot of coming and going in those first weeks and months said pranglin who later went on to a 30-year career in higher education everyone was really trying to figure out what to do with us so the rules kind of changed regularly one early point of contention was whether the women should be allowed to whip out a traditional introduction and handshake between cadets pranglin said many male cadets would just leave the women standing with their hands outstretched if they just refused to meet you that was one thing she said when they then proceeded to tell you what they thought of you and how you were ruining the corps of cadets and texas a&m that was another