STAUNTON -- The Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin College is sending a record percentage of its graduates in this year's class into the United States armed forces.

Brig. Gen. Michael Bissell, commandant of cadets, says that 14 of the 19 women who graduated from the program Saturday will be commissioned as second lieutenants in the Air Force, Army or Marine Corps.

The program, developed to give women a military equivalent to what men get at Virginia Military Institute before VMI was forced to admit women, typically sends about 40 percent of its graduates into military service.

Eight graduates will join the Army, five will join the Air Force and one will join the Marine Corps, Bissell said. The students will be committed to four years of service as officers and then will have to decide whether to continue their careers in the armed forces, he said.