A Living Legacy

One family's history at NU

Part 3

Editor's note: This is the third of a three-part series looking at the impact of Norwich University on one family.

By Scott Craven
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Continuing a family tradition to attend Norwich University was not difficult for the men of the Murphy and Kelley families.

But when women in the family started attending Norwich-owned Vermont College and considering becoming members of the Corps of Cadets at the mostly-male NU campus, the dynamics of family participation in the legacy began to change.

One of those women was Elizabeth Murphy, 1982.

Sharing a similar experience to her sister-in-law, JoAnn Murphy Kelley, and the hardships of being a female at Norwich, Elizabeth remembers what a different time it was on the NU campus in the early 1980s.

According to Elizabeth, who said she went by "Lisa Quigley" while she was at Norwich, was one of the few women with a Biology major and who also received a minor in chemistry and psychology.

A member of Who's Who, she was also a varsity athlete playing field hockey all four years she was there.

When she wasn't playing a sport, Elizabeth said she would referee the softball games to earn a little spending money and was also a member of the Big Brother & Big Sister society.

Elizabeth said Big Brothers & Big Sisters was a group of students who worked with underprivileged kids in the surrounding area.

"It was really one of my most rewarding experiences," she said. "I adopted a little sister from Northfield, and she would come to the school and hang out with us, or we would go get pizza or something like that," she recalled. "I remember one time she had to sell Girl Scout cookies, so I took her through the dorms, and we sold 450 boxes."

Elizabeth also helped out with the dances and formal events that the school held, and enjoyed rappelling and skiing over on Payne Mountain.

"I got quite good on the bunny slope," she admitted.

The corps was accepting women at this time, but Elizabeth chose to be a civilian student all four years.

"I respect the military, but it's just not the place for me," she said. "It was fun to be a part of that atmosphere, though, and not have any obligations to the military."

According to Elizabeth, there wasn't much interaction between the civilians and the cadets, but when there was, everybody respected each other and got along. "I was mostly close with just my group of friends," she said.

There were about 40 women her freshman year, and only about 12 of them who remained her senior year.

"We were very close. I'd say it was almost like a sorority. There's about seven of us that still come to the reunions and even have annual get togethers."

One of the biggest changes Elizabeth notices in the school is the mess hall.

"We used to have to get there before the cadets did, and dinner was served to us at the table family style," she said. "We didn't have the salad bars and other selections [they] have now. We ate whatever was put on our plate."

Her husband David has fonder memories of the mess hall, remembering the food being much better quality.

"We used to say that half our tuition went to our bellies. Every Tuesday would be New York steak strip day, and we rarely had the chef's mystery meat or anything like that," he said. "In fact, we could even bring our deer meat, those of us that hunted, and the chef would cut it up and freeze it for us until we went home."

According to Elizabeth, she was the last class of civilian women to live on the Upper Parade ground. "I lived on top floor of Gerard Hall when I was a senior, but all the other girls either had apartments off campus or lived across the street in the building that's now the infirmary," she said.

Another change Elizabeth mentioned was that men and women are allowed in each other's rooms, now.

"When I went there, there was a guard room in each dorm, and they would call whomever you had to see and tell them to come down," she said. "That made studying difficult for me, because I was the only female in most of my classes."

Elizabeth and David met at the regimental ball their senior year and married shortly after leaving Norwich in October 1983.

She said that after leaving Norwich, she worked as a Medical Technologist for 10 years, and then went to the University of New Haven to get her Master's degree in Forensics. She said she also worked in Hawaii while her husband was stationed there, but is now living in Woodstock, Conn., staying home to take care of her husband and three children.

The oldest, Caroline, is a freshman attending prep school and is a very pre-eminent hockey player.

Molly, 11, is also a skilled athlete and plays hockey as well as soccer. And Christopher, 7, is into karate and hockey.

While Lisa and David both enjoyed their experience at Norwich, they seemed to hint that it wasn't the place for their kids.

"It's certainly their choice, but military schools only make up a handful of the nation's schools, and we just want them to be prepared for all their choices," said David. "You have to really want something like Norwich to go there."

While Christopher and Molly are too young to know, yet, where they want to go to college, Caroline is already being pursued by many of the Ivy League schools and hopes to play hockey at one of them.

Elizabeth's husband, David, also went to Norwich and graduated in the Class of 1982. Unlike the other family members, he was only there for three years. Before coming to Norwich, he attended one year of school at Southern Methodist University in Texas. At the time, he had no military aspirations, but had an interest in going to law school, and he knew about Norwich only through his older sister, JoAnn. Because David was a transfer student, he was one of the "six week wonders," as they called it back then.

According to David, he only went through rookdom until about October, which was enough for him, but his rook buddies who were freshmen had to continue until February.

"It worked out, though, because my two roommates were transfer students, too, so we didn't have to switch rooms or anything," he said. "We weren't allowed to hold a direct leadership position, but we had all the privileges of an upperclassman."

David was living on the top floor of Alumni at the time and was in Mike Company, for which he became a runner that year after he was recognized. "We still ate with our company and things like that, but the cadre recommended that we didn't get too involved and just did our own thing."

Junior year David became a platoon sergeant for Kilo Company and a platoon leader for the Military Police Company his senior year.

"At the time, there was a rank board which decided who got the positions of major and above," he said. "It was weighted more towards your academic standing than your leadership success, which at the time I didn't think was a fair system, because the people who got rank had good grades but weren't necessarily good leaders."

Despite that, though, David is very impressed with the way Norwich works compared to the other military schools.

"The big difference between Norwich and West Point is that at West Point you have Army non-commissioned officers who tell you what to do, but at Norwich it's run entirely by the students," he explained. "I think Norwich is much more of a real world kind of school. It allows its students to run things and step out of the box at certain times, which I think often produces more emergent leaders."

Not sure whether or not he wanted to commission after he graduated, David tried different things each year.

"I joined the reserves my sophomore year and also went to jump school, but didn't know until about my junior year that I wanted to go into the Army," he said.

One of the other interesting things that Norwich offered then was a summer program at Fort Bening, Ga., which qualified soldiers to get their Ranger tab as a cadet. David was the first cadet from Norwich to complete this course and get his Ranger tab within four years.

"The program took the place of going to advance camp, but it was only offered to 50 students nationwide," David explained. "Norwich had five slots that year, but I was the only one selected from my class to go."

After leaving Norwich, David was assigned to the 25th infantry division, where he was a platoon leader. After that, he went through the Special Forces qualification course in 1988, and stayed in a Special Forces unit until 1996. Since then he has not been permanently assigned to a Special Forces assignment, but could be called in if they needed someone with his qualifications. His current job is the State of Rhode Island's military liaison to the state emergency and management agency office.

The most recent member of the family to attend Norwich, Meegan Kelley received an Army ROTC scholarship and knew she had the option of going to West Point, where her father works, but chose to come to Norwich, instead.

"It was my choice," she said. "My parents have made that clear for a very long time. It was just one of those feelings. I came to Norwich twice as a prospect, and I just knew that it was the place for me."

Joking about the matter, Meegan said she grew up next door to the head of admissions at West Point. "He would try and get me to go there whenever I saw him, but you just get a feeling when a school's right for you, and Norwich felt right for me," she said.

Following in her father's footsteps, Meegan is studying to be a civil engineer with an environmental concentration. Also carrying around a part of her father with her, Meegan said she wore her dad's white name tag throughout rookdom, which he gave to her from his freshman year at Norwich almost 30 years ago.

This is Meegan's second year in band company, and she plays the baritone saxophone which she has been playing since the fifth grade. Despite the playful jokes from her father, Meegan said she's glad she's in band company, because she doesn't want to give up playing an instrument.

According to the family, Meegan is the first daughter of a regimental commander to go to Norwich. After asking Meegan if she had any plans of being regimental commander she refused to comment, but gave us a little insight.

"It's still a long ways away," she said. "Right now I don't know whether or not I'd be able to handle it academically. I definitely want to stay with engineering, and I'm not sure if I'm willing to give up all that sleep, either."

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