Corps Contributions: Barbershop
At Virginia Military Institute, there’s a top team providing high-quality services, support, and supplies to keep the Corps of Cadets running smoothly and looking sharp. In this series, Corps Contributions will take a look at VMI Auxiliary Services, and the people that power VMI behind the scenes.
Music is playing in the background as plastic squeaks beneath a man who is sitting in a barber’s chair. A smocked woman places a cape around him and picks up her clippers. With a few glances, she examines his hair and begins to transform his look.
It looks as though you’ve walked into any normal barbershop, with the red, white, and blue emblem on the window outside. Except, this barbershop is located in the basement of barracks at the Virginia Military Institute.
Glenda Dudley is no stranger to a set of shears. She has been doing hair for almost 40 years. She picked up on the trade while her husband was a major in Army Aviation, and eventually was able to cut hair at each base he was stationed at. She’s been the manager of VMI’s barbershop for the past 12 years.
The VMI Barbershop is busy, she said. Typically a barber completes 20 haircuts a day on cadets, but that number can spike. During busier times of the year, such as when cadets return from furlough, they may do 30-40 cuts a day.
The barbershop is one of the first stops for matriculants on the day they arrive on post.
“You’ve come to VMI, you’re going to get the VMI experience by getting a haircut,” she said. “And I think that’s very important for males and females.”
They use an adaptation of the AR 670 haircut regulations from the United States Army. Although they follow these regulations, there is much room for interpretation among cadets.
Some enter the barbershop and request a “high and tight” haircut similar to the Marines. For some male cadets, a haircut may only last for two weeks.
Male rats are required to have a buzzed head throughout the Rat Line. To maintain this, they visit the barbershop every seven days until Breakout. Female cadets, including rats, have their hair cut to the shoulder blade. Dudley says they cut it so when the hair is in a ponytail, it’s not dropping any further than the shoulder. Female cadets after Breakout have more flexibility with how they can wear their hair — even short.
“Their haircut is part of their uniform. So we’re just trying to give them a style cut and keep them within regulations,” she said. “We’re upholding the standard because the haircut is part of that uniform. It just keeps looking sharp … and the haircuts are part of that.”
Female cadets are encouraged to come into the barbershop every two weeks, but not for hair cuts. Instead, Dudley said they offer shampoo and conditioning treatments, which both male and female cadets can utilize. Other services include scalp treatments and eyebrow waxing.
She has a staff of 10, including one esthetician. She’d like to get more people on staff to add to the rotation with the six chairs in the shop.
“This barbershop cannot function the way we do without that team I have. My team is probably the best in my opinion on this side of the Mississippi. They work together for the cadets and for each other,” she said.
Besides her staff, she loves meeting the cadets.
“I love the cadets. You get to meet so many different people from so many different walks of life. We’re learning from them, just getting to know them,” she said.
She said she likes to provide a relaxed environment, especially during that first day for the incoming class. When the rats come in, they’re getting so much thrown at them so fast, she said it’s like getting information through a firehose.
“I think we try to make them just settle down and encourage them that they can do this, that they’ve got this. And that’s what we do throughout the entire Rat Line,” she said. “So when I encourage all of them to keep coming back … you’re paying for it, keep coming back. Sometimes they don’t necessarily need the haircut — maybe just a shampoo and let us just wash a little of the week down the drain.”
