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Virginia Tech

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Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
File:VTSeal.gif
MottoUt Prosim
Latin: "That I May Serve"
TypePublic land-grant university
Established1872
EndowmentUS $447.4 million
PresidentCharles W. Steger
Academic staff
1,304
Students28,470
Undergraduates21,997
Postgraduates6,473
Location
Blacksburg
,
Virginia
,
USA
CampusSuburban, 2,600 acres (10.52 km²)
ColorsBurnt Orange and Chicago Maroon            
NicknameHokies
MascotHokie Bird
Websitewww.vt.edu

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech (also known as VPI), is a public land grant polytechnic university in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. Although it is a comprehensive university with many departments, the agriculture, engineering, architecture, forestry, and veterinary medicine programs are considered to be among its strongest. It is also one of only a few universities in the country with a corps of cadets (full-time military training component) within a larger civilian university (others include Texas A&M University and Norwich University).

In addition to its research and academic programs, Virginia Tech is known for its campus and location in the New River Valley of southwestern Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a part of the Appalachian Mountains. The university's public profile has also been raised significantly in recent years by the success of its football program and the Virginia Tech shootings, the largest spree killing in American history.

History

In 1872, the Virginia General Assembly purchased the facilities of a small Methodist school called the Olin and Preston Institute in rural Montgomery County with federal funds provided by the Morrill Act. The Commonwealth incorporated a new institution on that site, a state-supported land grant military institute called the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College.

Under the 1891-1907 presidency of John M. McBryde, the school reorganized its academic programs into a traditional four-year college setup (including the renaming of the mechanics department to engineering); this led to an 1896 name change to Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute. The "Agricultural and Mechanical College" section of the name was popularly omitted almost immediately, though the name was not officially changed to Virginia Polytechnic Institute until 1944 as part of a short-lived merger with what is now Radford University. VPI achieved full accreditation in 1923, and the requirement of participation in the Corps of Cadets was dropped from four years to two that same year (for men only; women, when they began enrolling in the 1920s, were never required to join).

VT Virginia Tech
presidents
Charles W. StegerPaul Ernest TorgersenJames Douglas McComasWilliam Edward LaveryT. Marshall HahnWalter Stephenson NewmanJohn Redd HutchesonJulian Ashby BurrussJoseph Dupuy EgglestonPaul Brandon BarringerJohn McLaren McBrydeLindsay Lunsford LomaxThomas Nelson ConradJohn Lee BuchananCharles Minor

VPI President T. Marshall Hahn, whose tenure ran from 1962 to 1974, was responsible for many of the changes that shaped the modern institution of Virginia Tech. The merger with Radford was dissolved in 1964, and in 1966, the school dropped the two-year military Corps training requirement for its male students. In 1973, women were allowed to join the Corps; Virginia Tech was the first school in the nation to open its military wing to women. One of Hahn's more controversial missions was only partially achieved. He had visions of renaming the school from VPI to Virginia State University, reflecting the status it had achieved as a full-fledged public education & research university. As part of this move, Virginia Tech would have taken over control of the state's other land-grant institution, a historically black college in Ettrick, Virginia, south of Richmond, then called Virginia State College. This plan failed to take root, and that school eventually became Virginia State University. As a compromise, VPI added "and State University" to its name in 1970, yielding the current formal name of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In the early 1990s, the school quietly authorized the official use of Virginia Tech as equivalent to the full VPI&SU name. Many school documents today use the shorter name, though diplomas and transcripts still spell out the formal name. Similarly, the abbreviation VT is far more common today than VPI or VPI&SU, and appears everywhere, from athletic uniforms, to the university's Internet domain name vt.edu.

Shootings

Main article: Virginia Tech shootings

On April 16, 2007, multiple shootings occurred on campus[1]. According to media reports, at least 32[2] were killed, including the gunman, and at least 25[1] more injured. Shootings took place in an academic hall as well as a residential hall. After the shootings, classes were cancelled, and the campus was locked down by local and campus authorities. Initial reports of the events were confused and contradictory, with different numbers of killed and injured being stated by various news agencies.

Admissions

For the fall 2006 freshman class, Virginia Tech received 19,046 applications and accepted 67%[1] of applicants (about 12,700). 39% of those accepted (approximately 5000 students) chose to enroll. Approximately 21 percent of the freshman class was filled by early decision candidates. Average grades increased, but SAT scores declined slightly. The typical fall 2006 freshman had a high school grade point average of 3.74, with a middle range of 3.38 to 3.95. The average cumulative SAT score was 1201, down two points from the previous year's average of 1203.

[3]

Academics

Main article: Virginia Tech colleges

Virginia Tech offers 60 Bachelor's degree programs and 140 Master's and Doctoral degree programs through the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, the College of Architecture & Urban Studies, the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, the Pamplin College of Business, the College of Engineering, the College of Natural Resources, the College of Science, and the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences offers the only two-year associate's degree program on campus, in agricultural technology. The ten most popular majors for the incoming class of 2005 were University Studies (Undeclared), General Engineering, Business (Undeclared), Biology, Communication, Psychology, Marketing, Political Science, Animal and Poultry Sciences, and Architecture.

Virginia Tech ranked 34th among national public universities and 77th among all national universities. Its College of Engineering undergraduate program was ranked 9th among engineering schools at public universities and 17th in the nation among all accredited engineering schools that offer doctorates. Seven different undergraduate programs in the College of Engineering are ranked in the top 25 among peer programs nationally - the industrial engineering program is ranked 7th; civil engineering, 11th; environmental engineering, 11th; mechanical engineering, 15th; aerospace engineering, 16th; electrical engineering, 20th; and chemical engineering, 23rd. Its Pamplin College of Business undergraduate program is ranked 22nd among the nation's public institutions and 52nd[4] among all undergraduate business programs. (source: U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges 2007", fall 2006)

The architecture and landscape architecture programs in Virginia Tech's College of Architecture and Urban Studies are ranked among the very best in America. In its 2006 report, DesignIntelligence, the only national college ranking survey focused exclusively on design, ranked the undergraduate architecture program 7th nationally and 4th in the East. DesignIntelligence also ranked the university’s undergraduate landscape architecture program 8th in the nation and 2nd in the East.(source: America's Best Architecture and Design Schools 2006)

The university's academic community has coined a word associated with the distribution of old test and study materials, referred to as "koofers".[5] [6]

On January 3, 2007 Virginia Tech along with Carilion Health System announced the creation of a new medical school that will be a joint venture between the two organizations. The first class is scheduled to be admitted in either 2009 or 2010. The new medical school will have approximately 40 students per class, making it a very small medical school. It will be located in Roanoke next to the Carilion Health System hospital.

Campus

Main article: Virginia Tech campus
Burruss Hall, signature building on the Virginia Tech campus.

The Virginia Tech campus is located in Blacksburg, Virginia. The central campus is roughly bordered by Prices Fork Road to the northwest, Plantation Drive to the west, Main Street to the east, and 460-bypass to the south, though it has several thousand acres beyond the central campus. The university has established branch campus centers in Hampton Roads (Virginia Beach), the National Capital Region (Falls Church - Alexandria, Virginia), Richmond, Roanoke, and the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center in Abingdon.

On the Blacksburg campus, the majority of the buildings incorporate Hokie Stone as building material. Hokie Stone is a medley of different colored limestone, often including dolomite. Each block of Hokie Stone is some combination of gray, brown, black, pink, orange, and maroon. The limestone is mined from various quarries in Southwestern Virginia, Tennessee, and Alabama, one of which has been operated by the university since the 1950s. An example of architecture incorporating Hokie Stone is Torgersen Bridge, a relatively new building on Virginia Tech's campus.

Torgersen Bridge, an example of architecture using Hokie Stone.

Virginia Tech also has one of the top dining programs in the country; it is currently ranked #2 by the Princeton Review. It has seven dining centers which included Squires food court (Au Bon Pain & Sbarro), Owens Food Court, Hokie Grill (Chick-fil-A, Pizza Hut, Cinnabon), D2 & DXpress, Shultz & Shultz Express, Deets Place, and the high end West End Market. Virginia Tech also has a catering center, Personal Touch Catering.

Athletics

Main article: Virginia Tech Hokies
File:VT Emblem.gif

Virginia Tech's sports teams are called the Hokies, except for the swim team which uses a variant ("H2Okies", a play on the chemical formula for water). Tech teams participate in the NCAA's Division I in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which the school joined in 2004 after leaving the Big East. Along with all other ACC schools, Tech's football team competes in Division I FBS, the higher of two levels of Division I competition in that sport.

The word "Hokies," which originated from the Old Hokie spirit yell, has come to replace the term "Fighting Gobblers" to refer to the sports team, fans, students, or alumni, although the former is the official usage. The word "Hokies" originated in the 1890s; see Hokies for more information. The school mascot is the Hokie Bird, a turkey-like creature. The teams were originally known as the "Fighting Gobblers," and the turkey motif was retained despite the name change.

The stylized VT (the abbreviation for Virginia Tech) is used primarily by the athletic department as a symbol for Virginia Tech athletic teams. The "athletic VT" symbol is trademarked by the university and appears frequently on licensed merchandise.

During the early years of VPI, a rivalry developed between it and Virginia Military Institute. This rivalry developed into the original "Military Classic of the South," an annual football game between VMI and VPI usually held on Thanksgiving Day in Roanoke, Virginia. That series ended after the 1984 season; VMI had elected to play at the Division I-AA level, now Division I FCS, after the NCAA's 1978 divisional split for football, and the schools' wide disparity in size had led to a similar imbalance in results. Another long-standing rivalry, with the University of Virginia, strengthened concurrently with Tech's growth spurt of the 1960s and 1970s; the Virginia Cavaliers are now the Hokies' primary program-wide athletic rival. The two schools compete in a year-long competition including all varsity sports, for the "Commonwealth Challenge."

Virginia Tech's fight song, Tech Triumph, was written in 1919 and remains in use today. Tech Triumph is played at sporting events by both the Virginia Tech band, The Marching Virginians, and the Corps of Cadets' band, the Highty Tighties. The Old Hokie spirit yell, used since 1896, is familiar to all Virginia Tech fans.

Virginia Tech Football

Main article: Virginia Tech Hokies football

Virginia Tech's football team plays home games in Lane Stadium, considered one of the loudest stadiums in the country and recognized in 2005 by rivals.com as having the best homefield advantage in the country.[7] The team has a long history of a wide variety of traditions that foster increased participation by the fans, the corps of cadets, and the bands.

Head coach Frank Beamer has become one of the winningest currently active head coaches in Division I-A football with 178 wins following the 2005 season. The Hokies currently have the fifth longest bowl streak in the country, having participated in bowl games in each of the last 13 seasons. Since the 1995 season, the Hokies have finished with a top-10 ranking four times, won four conference championships (three Big East and one ACC), and played once for the national championship, losing to Florida State University 46-29 in the 2000 Sugar Bowl. Annually, Virginia Tech plays its traditional rival, the University of Virginia, for the Commonwealth Cup.

Virginia Tech Men's Basketball

Main article: Virginia Tech Hokies men's basketball

Virginia Tech's men's basketball team has seen a resurgence of fan support since the arrival of coach Seth Greenberg in 2003-04 and its entry into the ACC in 2004-05. Prior to Coach Greenberg's arrival in Blacksburg, the Virginia Tech men had not had a winning season since the 1995-1996 season when they received a bid to the NCAA tournament, and the team did not even make the Big East tournament its first three seasons in the conference. Greenberg's squad finally made the Big East tournament in 2003-04, then a year later scored their first postseason berth in nine years when they made the NIT in 2004-05 as a first-year ACC school. In 2006-07, the team finished with a 10-6 record in the ACC and 22-12 record overall, earning its first NCAA tournament berth in 11 years, and reaching the NCAA second round before losing to Southern Illinois.

Virginia Tech Women's Basketball

Virginia Tech's women's basketball team, led by coach Beth Dunkenberger, is a fixture in postseason play, having received a berth to the NCAA tournament each season from 2003 to 2006. Virginia Tech's women have been in postseason play every year since the 1997-98 season, Bonnie Henrickson's first season as the head coach of the Hokies, earning seven NCAA berths and three NIT appearances during that stretch.

Both basketball teams play their home games in Cassell Coliseum.

Virginia Tech Baseball

Virginia Tech's recently retired baseball coach, Chuck Hartman, finished his career as the fourth winningest coach in Division I baseball history with a 1,444-816-8 record, including a 961-591-8 mark in his 28 seasons at Tech. There have been recent reports Hartman has been pursuing Wellesley, MA prodigy Eric Rosenberg, who has refused to comment on the rumor.

Affiliated institutions

The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1978, is a separate institution on the same campus, funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia and the state of Maryland and jointly operated by VT and the University of Maryland. VMRCVM and VT jointly operate an equine center in Leesburg, Virginia, and VMRCVM has a small operation on the University of Maryland's College Park, Maryland campus.

In 2003, a school of osteopathic medicine called the Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) opened in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, an office park adjacent to and owned and operated by the university as a local business incubator. VCOM is incorporated as a private, non-profit institution with no state interest, but it is very closely affiliated with Virginia Tech on an operational level.

In 2002, a biomedical engineering program, called the School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (SBES), was created as a cooperative venture between Virginia Tech and Wake Forest University. SBES offers opportunities to undergraduates and grants M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biomedical engineering.

Virginia Tech has recently developed a relationship with the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond located in Richmond, Virginia. The relationship consists of a joint degree program between the VT College of Science and Richmond Law, which allows a student entering VT to earn both a B.S. from VT and a J.D. from Richmond in a total of six years.

The Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI), a premier public bioinformatics. computational biology, and systems biology research facility, was opened on the Blacksburg campus of Virginia Tech in 2003. It houses nearly two-hundred employees, multiple supercomputing clusters, and several sequencers, including a massively-parallel high-throughput sequencer from 454 Life Sciences. VBI receives millions of dollars of private and public grants yearly for research that runs the gamut from microbiology through human health.

The Virginia Tech Center for European Studies and Architecture (CESA) is Virginia Tech's European campus center and base for operations and support of its programs in the region surrounding Riva San Vitale, a small village in the canton Ticino in southern Switzerland. Housed in the 250 year old Villa Maderni, the Virginia Tech Center for European Studies and Architecture provides a varying degree of academic programs for the undergraduate and graduate students of Virginia Tech. The main offering of the center is its student residence program. In this program, students live in Riva San Vitale and attend classes in the Villa Maderni learning facilities and participate in field trips around Europe that pertain to the current lessons of the program. Other offerings of the center includes summer study abroad programs.

Distinguished alumni

Military

Virginia Tech and its Corps of Cadets have a long tradition of providing service to the military. Seven Medal of Honor recipients are alumni or former cadets at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech has more honorees than any other institution of higher learning with the exception of the United States Military Academy and United States Naval Academy. It is tied with Texas A&M - the only other civilian college which has a Corps of Cadets.

Business, government, and academia

Music

Sports

Baseball

Basketball

Football

Research computing

In 2003, Virginia Tech created a supercomputer which ranked as the 3rd fastest in the world. The system was made from 1100 dual processor Power Macintosh G5s and cost US$5.2 million. The supercomputer, called System X, was disassembled shortly after it was ranked in order for it to be replaced with Apple's rack-based servers which consume both less space and power.[citation needed]

Internet networking research is an important part of Virginia Tech's history. It has participated in Suranet, Internet2, Abilene, the Lambda Rail and other such networks. Virginia Tech also participates in the management of Net.Work.Virginia and the Mid Atlantic Crossroads.

Points of interest

References

  1. ^ a b "Officials: Gunman dead after bloody campus rampage". CNN.com. 2007-04-16.
  2. ^ "Federal Officials: At Least 32 Dead After Virginia Tech University Shooting". FOXnews.com. 2007-04-16.
  3. ^ Information can be verified at http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2006&itemno=406
  4. ^ "Undergrad B-School Rankings: Interactive Table" (HTML). BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2007-01-20.
  5. ^ http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs2604/SummerI_2003/Notes/KooferPolicy.pdf
  6. ^ http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs1704/fall.98/koofers/FinalExamKoofer.pdf
  7. ^ Lane Statium rating by Rivals.com
  8. ^ http://www.theasbc.org/index.php?tg=articles&idx=More&topics=97&article=644
  9. ^ http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2007&itemno=105
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