Virginia Tech
This article may be affected by the following current event: 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. Information in this article may change rapidly as the event progresses. Initial news reports may be unreliable. The last updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. |
File:VTSeal.gif | |
Motto | Ut Prosim Latin: "That I May Serve" |
---|---|
Type | Public land-grant university |
Established | 1872 |
Endowment | US $447.4 million |
President | Charles W. Steger |
Academic staff | 1,304 |
Students | 28,470 |
Undergraduates | 21,997 |
Postgraduates | 6,473 |
Location | , , |
Campus | Suburban, 2,600 acres (10.52 km²) |
Colors | Burnt Orange and Chicago Maroon |
Nickname | Hokies |
Mascot | Hokie Bird |
Website | www.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, veterinary medicine, and business 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.
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 |
---|---|
![]() |
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
On April 16, 2007, multiple shootings occurred on campus[1]. According to media reports, at least 21 people have been confirmed dead, including the gunman, and dozens more injured.[2] Shootings took place in an academic hall as well as a residential hall. Classes were canceled for the day, and the campus was locked down by local and campus authorities.
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.
Academics
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
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/VT_Burruss_Hall.jpg/240px-VT_Burruss_Hall.jpg)
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.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/TorgersenBridge.jpg/200px-TorgersenBridge.jpg)
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
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-A in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which the school joined in 2004 after leaving the Big East.
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 after the NCAA's 1982 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 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
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
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.
- Lt. Col. Julien E. Gaujot, Class of 1893 (only enrolled in 1889-1890), Awarded the Medal of Honor for actions on the Mexican Border in 1914, the only soldier ever awarded the Medal for actions of a peacekeeping nature. The brother of Antoine Gaujot
- Col Antoine A.M. Gaujot, Class of 1900 (only enrolled in 1896-1897), Awarded the Medal of Honor for actions as an Army Corporal at the Battle of San Mateo during the Philippine-American War
- Sgt Earle D. Gregory, Class of 1923, Awarded the Medal of Honor for actions as an Army Sergeant during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in World War I
- Sgt Herbert J. Thomas, Class of 1944, member of Virginia Tech's Athletic Hall of Fame, Awarded the Medal of Honor for action on Bougainville Island in World War II
- 1st Lt Jimmie W. Monteith, Class of 1944, Awarded the Medal of Honor for actions as an Army lieutenant at D-Day during World War II
- 2nd Lt Robert E. Femoyer, Class of 1944, Eagle Scout Awarded the Medal of Honor for actions as an Army Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress navigator on a bombing mission over Germany
- 1st Lt Richard Thomas Shea, Class of 1948, Awarded the Medal of Honor for actions as an Army First Lieutenant at the Battle of Pork Chop Hill during the Korean War
- Major Lloyd Williams, Class of 1907, Williams has been attributed with one of the more famous quotes of World War I: "Retreat? Hell! We just got here!"
- Lieutenant General Lewis A. Pick, USA, Class of 1914
- Lieutenant General Wallace H. Robinson, USMC, Class of 1940
- Lieutenant General John H. Elder, Jr., USA, Class of 1941
- Lieutenant General Joseph G. Wilson, USAF, Class of 1942
- Lieutenant General Howard H. Cooksey, USA, Class of 1943
- Lieutenant General Walter D. Druen, Jr., USAF, Class of 1951, Commander of Allied Air Forces Southern Europe and deputy commander in chief, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Southern Area
- Lieutenant General Robert L. Moore, USA, Class of 1952, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Missile Command
- General Thomas C. Richards, Four Star General, Class of 1956, Deputy Commander in Chief of US European Command
- Lieutenant General Joseph R. Inge, USA, Class of 1969, Deputy Commander, United States Northern Command, and Vice Commander, U.S. Element, North American Aerospace Defense Command
- Lieutenant General William G. Boykin, USA, Class of 1971, Assistant Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence
- General Lance L. Smith, USAF, Class of 1969, Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command/North Atlantic Treaty Organization Supreme Allied Commander Transformation
- Rear Admiral Jody Breckenridge, USCG, Commander Eleventh Coast Guard District (2006-)
Business, government, and academia
- Donaldson Brown, Class of 1902, financial executive and corporate director with both DuPont and General Motors
- Robert B. Pamplin, Sr., Class of 1933, CEO of Georgia Pacific Corp.
- Clifton C. Garvin, Class of 1943 (BS) and 1947 (MS), Chairman and CEO of Exxon Corp.
- Clifford A. Cutchins III, Class of 1944, Chairman and CEO of Sovran Bank
- Chris Kraft, Class of 1944, NASA architect of Mission Control and the first flight director
- Thomas L. Phillips, Class of 1947, Chairman and CEO of Raytheon Corp.
- Robert Coleman Richardson, Class of 1958 (BS) and 1960 (MS), physicist at Cornell University, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996 for the discovery of superfluidity in He-3
- Homer Hickam, Class of 1964, NASA employee and author of the memoir Rocket Boys, which was the basis for the film October Sky
- Roger K. Crouch, Class of 1968 (MS) and 1971 (PhD), NASA astronaut
- James K. Asselstine, Class of 1970, Commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during Three Mile Island incident
- Richard Baker, game designer
- William Lewis, Rhodes Scholar, Founding Director of McKinsey Global Institute
- Mark Embree, Class of 1996, Rhodes Scholar, currently Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Rice University
- Denis G. Clem, Class of 1973, Chief Information Officer for the Office of the Secretary of Defense[8]
- George Nolen, Class of 1978, President and CEO of Siemens Corp.
- Charles J. Camarda, Class of 1983 (Ph.D) — Astronaut on board the space shuttle Discovery for the STS-114 mission
- Jim Buckmaster, CEO of craigslist.org
- Steve DeBenedittis, Herndon, Virginia Town Mayor (2006-present)
- Chet Culver, current Governor of Iowa and former Iowa Secretary of State (1999-2007)
- Jess Cliffe, Game Designer and co-creator of Counter-Strike, the popular online videogame.
- David L. Calhoun, CEO and Chairman of the Board, VNU
- Lawrence L. Koontz, Jr., Justice, Supreme Court of Virginia
- Sharyn McCrumb, Author
- Hoda Kotb, Class of 1986 - Television news anchor and correspondent for NBC
- Doug Curling, President and COO, ChoicePoint
- Guillermo Ramon Miranda, former Assistant of the General Manager of Empresa Nacional Portuaria (Honduras National Port Authority).
- Tony McNulty, Minister for Police and Security in the UK government.[9]
Music
- Charlie Byrd, American jazz guitarist
- Founding members of Ska-Rock band Fighting Gravity
Sports
Baseball
- Johnny Oates, catcher and later the manager for the Baltimore Orioles, as well as manager of the Texas Rangers.
- Franklin Stubbs, first baseman, LA Dodgers
- Wyatt Toregas, catcher, Cleveland Indians
- Jonathan Musialowski, pitcher, Atlantic City Surf
- Joe Saunders, pitcher, Anaheim Angels
Basketball
- Vernell "Bimbo" Coles, member of the United States 1988 Olympic Basketball team; played in the National Basketball Association, ending his career with the Miami Heat
- Dell Curry, NBA shooting guard
Football
- Frank Beamer, Class of 1969, football coach at Virginia Tech
- Bruce Smith, defensive linesman for the Buffalo Bills and the Washington Redskins, All-American and first overall pick at the 1985 NFL Draft
- Michael Vick, quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, first overall pick at the 2001 NFL Draft
- Don Strock, quarterback for Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns; later a college head coach
- Carroll Dale, wide receiver, All-American, played for Vince Lombardi-era Green Bay Packers
- Antonio Freeman, wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers played in Super Bowl XXXI, Super Bowl XXXII, and 1998 Pro Bowl
- DeAngelo Hall, defensive back for the Atlanta Falcons, 8th overall pick at the 2004 NFL Draft
- Kevin Jones, running back for the Detroit Lions, 30th overall pick at the 2004 NFL Draft
- Darryl Tapp, defensive end for the Seattle Seahawks, 63rd overall pick at the 2006 NFL Draft
- John Engelberger, defensive end for the Denver Broncos.
- Shayne Graham, placekicker for the Cincinnati Bengals.
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
- ^ "One reportedly dead in Virginia Tech shooting". CNN.com. 2007-04-16.
- ^ "Chief: Gunman kills at least 21 at Virginia Tech". CNN.com. 2007-04-16.
- ^ Information can be verified at http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2006&itemno=406
- ^ "Undergrad B-School Rankings: Interactive Table" (HTML). BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2007-01-20.
- ^ http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs2604/SummerI_2003/Notes/KooferPolicy.pdf
- ^ http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs1704/fall.98/koofers/FinalExamKoofer.pdf
- ^ Lane Statium rating by Rivals.com
- ^ http://www.theasbc.org/index.php?tg=articles&idx=More&topics=97&article=644
- ^ http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2007&itemno=105
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Virginia Tech was ranked 77th in US News and World Report's Top National Universities and tied for 34th among all US public institutions.
- In 2004 and 2005, The Times ranked Virginia Tech as one of the top 200 universities in the world.
- In 2006, Virginia Tech was ranked 2nd by "The Princeton Review" for "Best Campus Food."
- Main university site
- Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets
- Official VT athletics site
- Virginia Tech Alumni Association
- Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine
- Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine
- Virginia Bioinformatics Institute
- Virginia Tech - Advanced Research Computing
- Terascale Computing Facility (home of System X)
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences
- Metropolitan Institute
- eCorridors - Enhancing communities with the speed of light
- Collegiate Times (independent student newspaper)
- Student Programs (information for students)
- Planet Blacksburg