U.S. News & World Report's “America's Best Colleges 2008” (fall 2007)
Virginia Tech ranks in the top 20 public colleges and universities nationally among colleges that offer a first-class educational experience at a bargain price, according to Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine.
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 2007 report, DesignIntelligence, the only national college ranking survey focused exclusively on design, ranked the undergraduate architecture program fourth nationally and first among public universities. DesignIntelligence also ranked the university’s undergraduate interior design program seventh in the nation.
U.S. News & World Report's “America's Best Graduate Schools 2007”
In the Financial Times rankings of the world's top 100 graduate business schools, Pamplin's M.B.A. program was 63rd overall and 43rd among U.S. universities. The program ranked second among U.S. schools in the "aims achieved by M.B.A. alumni" category and sixth in "value for money."
DesignIntelligence ranked Tech’s graduate architecture program 10th in the nation and its graduate interior design program fifth.
With more than 21,500 undergraduate students, about 6,000 graduate students, and more than 2,600 faculty members and researchers, Virginia Tech offers more degree programs and awards more diplomas than any other university in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Virginia Tech's fully computerized library contains more than 2.2 million volumes, an array of specialized collections, and numerous electronic databases, such as Dow Jones News/Retrieval Service, Corporate and Industry Research Reports, Computer Select, Compact Disclosure, InfoTrac, Nexis Lexis, and Computstat PC Plus.
Virginia Tech consistently ranks among the top 15 schools in the nation in number of patents received.
Virginia Tech is one of only three public universities in the United States to support both a military and a non-military student lifestyle (the others are Texas A&M and North Georgia College and State University). Membership in the corps of cadets was mandatory for all able-bodied males until 1964, when it became optional. The Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets became the country's first college co-ed military corps when it began admitting women in 1973, preceding even the service academies.
All campus facilities, including residence halls, are connected by fiber-optic cable, providing voice, data, and video communications and high-speed, direct Internet connection. In 2004-05, Tech began offering wireless Internet connections in more than 75 different buildings, including academic buildings, student centers, dining facilities, and even the south end zone of Lane Stadium. Tech is also the visionary leader of the internationally recognized Blacksburg Electronic Village project, instituted in the early 1990s and connecting the town and campus with the world.
In 2004, Virginia Tech's 120-acre Corporate Research Center (CRC) was named one of three national finalists for the Excellence in Technology-led Economic Development Award granted by the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The Center for Digital Government named Blacksburg the sixth most technologically advanced town in the nation among urban areas with a population of 30,000 to 74,999. The Blacksburg Electronic Village, which Virginia Tech helped create in the early 1990s, was one of the first projects in the nation to make Internet available to a whole community.
In fiscal year 2007, Virginia Tech reported total research and development expenditures of more than $366.9 million.
Each year, the university receives significant external support from an ever-expanding base of sponsors for research, instruction, Extension, and outreach projects. In fiscal year 2006, the university received 2,122 awards to conduct research.
Tech has more than 100 centers and institutes, including university and college-based interdisciplinary programs and laboratories, for addressing complex, multifaceted research problems. Three university-level institutes have been created to focus and facilitate advances in scholarship: the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, the Institute for Biomedical and Public Health Systems, and the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment.
Areas of achievement and on-going attention include computational science and engineering, advanced materials, wireless telecommunication, transportation, housing, geographic information systems, human and animal health, the environment, and energy – including power electronics, biofuels, fuel cells, and solar-powered building structures. The Deans' Task Force on Energy (www.research.vt.edu/energy/) is coordinating and promoting a year-long series of events to increase awareness of the university's resources in the area of energy innovation.
The Macromolecules and Interfaces Institute (www.MII.vt.edu) encompasses the multidisciplinary materials research and education enterprise. The highly productive and successful polymer science and engineering collaboration, which was begun in 1978, has been awarded $17 million in the past three years, including a fuel cell materials program funded by federal (National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Office of Naval Research, and NASA) and industry sources. Virginia Tech offers two interdisciplinary graduate degree programs - in macromolecular science and infrastructure engineering and in macromolecular interfaces with life sciences.
Established in 2000 as a Commonwealth of Virginia shared resource, the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech has undertaken research centered on understanding the "disease triangle" of host-pathogen-environment interactions. VBI researchers are working to cure many human, crop, and animal diseases; create high-yield, insect- and disease-resistant crops; and provide bioinformatics information and tools to support further discoveries. In collaboration with researchers in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine and the Virginia Tech Department of Computer Science, VBI was awarded a five-year, $10.3 million contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to establish a national Bioinformatics Resource Center.
Long before Virginia Tech burst into the limelight in 2003 for building the third-fastest supercomputer in the world in a matter of months, the university had a history of computational science and engineering research. More than 50 researchers have been responsible for approximately $23 million in external funding over the past three years. The university upgraded the Virginia Tech Advanced Research Computing (VTARC) facility and added SGI capacity in 2005 and 2006, enhancing visualization capacity and moving toward petascale computing. While such facilities are tools for researchers across the university, Virginia Tech is establishing leadership in computational life sciences, computational nanoscience and engineering, and multidisciplinary design optimization. Connecting the VTARC via the National Lambda Rail (a national fiber-optic backbone with more than 15,000 miles of fiber footprint linking research universities and laboratories with supercomputing, storage, and visualization capabilities) will establish Virginia Tech as a leader in high-performance grid computing.
Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties Inc. (VTIP) was established as a nonprofit corporation in 1985 to support the research mission of the university by protecting and licensing intellectual properties that result from research performed by Virginia Tech faculty members, staff, and students. During calendar year 2005, 17 patents were awarded to VTIP and 20 new licenses were signed.
The National Science Foundation ranked Virginia Tech 14th in the nation in agricultural research.
The vector-borne disease research group is looking for innovative ways to control insects that spread human and animal diseases. Researchers are developing an affordable insecticide that targets the mosquito species that transmits malaria.
Researchers in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and its partners have been awarded more than $3.3 million to help improve the quality of local waterways and the Chesapeake Bay. Projects include looking at new technologies and processes for feed management, innovative ways to manage manure and poultry litter, and market-based incentives to improve water quality through collaborative partnerships.
Researchers in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering are working to solve two of the most important challenges associated with the cost-efficient production of ethanol from lignocellulose, such as corn stover and switch grass: the breakdown of cell-wall components and the generation of high-yield hydrogen from plant sugars. Overcoming these challenges and finding ways to utilize the entire plant, while leaving the kernels as food, will facilitate the production of ethanol from less costly, more abundant feedstock.
The college received an $890,000 grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission to create an Innovation Center for Biotechnology-based Economic Development. The center will be part of the Institute for Sustainable Renewable Resources at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville, Va.
Several research groups are looking into the genetic basis of disease resistance and susceptibility in plants. This research will provide new fundamental insights into plant-pathogen "arms races" that can be translated into novel strategies for the cost-effective, environmentally sustainable control of crop diseases.
Faculty in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise are studying people with apple- and pear-shaped body types to learn more about how different types of obesity influence cardiovascular physiology and overall health.
With more than one out of eight children considered overweight, childhood obesity is a national epidemic. The risk factors associated with diseases linked to overweight and obese adults can be tracked from childhood. Consequently, faculty members in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise have been leading research projects to understand the problem and to design efforts to do something about it.
The Virginia High Pressure Processing Laboratory in the Department of Food Science and Technology has the largest university-based high hydrostatic pressure unit available for research in the Americas.
The Microbial Source Tracking program has attracted national interest because of its proven effectiveness in using antibiotic-resistance analysis and bacteria libraries to statistically determine if fecal bacteria found in impaired waters originate from wildlife, domestic animals, pets, or humans.
Researchers are working to genetically engineer soybeans, a major source of feed for swine, poultry, and other animals, to make more of the plant's naturally occurring phosphorus usable by the animals.
Katharine Knowlton, associate professor of dairy science, was one of two researchers to be named a National American Dairy Science Association Foundation Scholar. Knowlton's research focuses on maintaining an economically viable dairy industry while reducing its impact on water quality by exploring ways to reduce the phosphorus content of land-applied manure.
Y.H. Percival Zhang, assistant professor of biological systems engineering, received the Oak Ridge Associated Universities’ Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award for his work on automotive energy and environmental issues. The award supports his work to understand and make the best use of the enzymes that work together to break down tough plant material into soluble compounds that are ultimately converted into biofuel and other products.
Mike Akers, the Horace E. and Elizabeth F. Alphin Professor of Dairy Science and department head of dairy science, was named a Fellow of the national American Dairy Science Association (ADSA).
Shelly Nickols-Richardson, associate professor of human nutrition, foods, and exercise, was honored with the Early Career Excellence in Teaching Award by the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Mary Leigh Wolfe, associate professor and assistant head for teaching in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering, is the first woman to gain Fellow status in the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. In addition to coordinating undergraduate degree program activities, Wolfe teaches courses on non-point source pollution modeling and control, watershed management, and nutrient management.
Saied Mostaghimi, the Horace E. and Elizabeth F. Alphin Professor of Agriculture and Life Sciences and head of the Department of Biological Systems Engineering, was named a Fellow in the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers.
January Haile of Athens, Tenn., a Ph.D. student in biochemistry, was selected by Oak Ridge Associated Universities to attend a meeting of Nobel laureates in Lindau, Germany. Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics, and physiology/medicine have met annually in Lindau since 1951 to have open and informal discussions with students and young researchers.
Dominic M. Tucker, Ph.D. candidate in crop and soil environmental sciences, was selected as a Gerald O. Mott Meritorious Award recipient by the Crop Science Society of America.
Virginia Tech's Soil Judging Team captured second place overall at the 2006 American National Soil Judging Championship. Virginia Tech was a national champion in 2005.
Virginia Tech’s Dairy Challenge Team won a platinum second place in the North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge. This was the fifth consecutive year that Virginia Tech has placed either first or second.
The Dairy Club of Virginia Tech was named 2006 Outstanding Chapter at the American Dairy Science Association national conference. This was the 14th time since 1980 that the Virginia Tech club has received the award, more than any other participating university club.
The College of Architecture and Urban Studies (CAUS), which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2004, is home to one of the five largest architecture programs in the United States. The college, unique in its range of undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees dedicated to the visual and built environment, is among the few schools in the nation offering a Ph.D. in architecture and design.
Three CAUS programs achieved top national rankings from The Almanac of Architecture & Design in conjunction with DesignIntelligence and Council House Research. The undergraduate program in architecture ranked seventh in North America (up from 10th in 2004) among 117 National Architectural Accrediting Board-accredited programs. It ranked fifth in skill assessment rankings focused on construction methods. The interior design graduate program ranked ninth in the nation. Landscape architecture’s bachelor’s program ranked eighth (up from 14th in 2004). Graduate urban planning ranked seventh among planning schools in the only ranking of such programs and ranked 10th in faculty publications in a 2004 study. In the U.S. News & World Report rankings of public affairs, the Center for Public Administration and Policy's graduate public administration program ranked 12th and the overall public affairs program ranked 26th.
The School of Architecture + Design won a National Council of Architectural Registration Boards Honorable Mention for the Creative Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy for its role in creating a solar house for the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2005.
The Virginia Tech solar house in the Solar Decathlon was ranked first in the architecture, dwelling, daylight, and electric light judging and was cited by the judges as being a level above all those on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Innovations developed for the Solar Decathlon project were applied to a house in Blacksburg for the hit ABC television show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
Department of Landscape Architecture faculty member Ben Johnson won the Shared Outreach Award and Patrick Miller won the Distinguished Service Award from the Virginia Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Professor John Rohr won the Herbert Simon Award from the American Political Science Association for the book Civil Servants and Their Constitutions.
Architecture professor Mario Cortes received the 2006 Gabriel Prize, a $17,500 grant for the study of classical architecture and landscape in France. Prize winners embark on a three-month itinerary of their own devising.
The Slot House, a residential infill renovation designed by Assistant Professor of Architecture Margarita McGrath, won one of 14 awards in the 2006 Building Brooklyn Competition. McGrath shares this honor with Scott Oliver, her partner in noroof architects. The annual Building Brooklyn Awards recognize recently completed construction projects that have had a positive impact on the borough’s economy and quality of life.
In this year’s annual DesignIntelligence survey, Associate Professor of Industrial Design Ed Dorsa was among a select group cited as the most admired industrial design educators for 2006.
Associate Professor of Interior Design Brad Whitney won the Member’s Choice Award for Best Paper Presentation at the International Interior Design Educator’s Conference. His paper was titled, “Immersion of the Senses: Installation and the Interior [toward a deeper understanding].”
Bjorn Stuedte, a graduate student from the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center won the AIA Virginia Society Prize. This was the third consecutive year that a student from CAUS has won the prize.
Bharati Karmarkar, an architecture graduate student, was named one of the top 15 architecture students in the nation by Design Workshop Inc.
Peter Sistrom, a fifth-year student in the undergraduate program, won one of four awards of distinction in the annual Virginia Society Prize competition, sponsored by the Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects.
Jessica Zimmerman, a third-year student in Professor Greg Tew’s interior design studio, won the $6,000 first prize in the Robert Bruce Thompson Annual Student Light Fixture Design Competition.
Industrial Design student Elizabeth Kinkel won an honor of distinction in the North American Acoustical Society of America Awards.
Students in the Department of Art and Art History swept the regional student ADDY Awards. The ADDYs recognize and reward creative excellence in the art of advertising.
The College of Engineering is establishing a strong foundation of new opportunities for interdisciplinary research. The Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) now has two buildings under construction and approval for a third from the state. Roop Mahajan, an internationally recognized scholar with a 27-year record of research excellence at Bell Labs and the University of Colorado, has been appointed the institute’s director. In fiscal year 2005, ICTAS investments generated sponsored research grants totaling almost $14 million.
The college also is developing innovative programs of study. One example is the new Myers-Lawson School of Construction, a collaboration of the College of Engineering and the College of Architecture and Urban Studies. The school has received formal approval from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, positioning Virginia Tech to become the premiere construction education institution in the nation.
Both the educational and research programs of the college consistently earn national recognition. “America's Best Colleges 2007” survey released by U.S. News & World Report ranked the College of Engineering's undergraduate program 17th in the nation among all accredited engineering schools that offer doctorates, and eighth among those at public universities. In its most recently released survey of total engineering research expenditures at universities and colleges (based on data collected from fiscal year 2004), the National Science Foundation ranked Virginia Tech engineering 13th in the nation.
The College of Engineering faculty is growing in size, accomplishment, and diversity. A national survey released by the American Society for Engineering Education in August 2006 ranked the college eighth in the number of full-time teaching faculty, third for the number of tenured/tenure track women faculty, ninth for the number of African-American faculty, sixth for the number of Asian-American faculty, and fifth for the number of Hispanic faculty. Seventy-three faculty members — more than 20 percent of the total faculty — have been hired during the past three years.
Members of the engineering faculty frequently are cited for the excellence of their work. For his research in the emerging field of electronic textiles, Tom Martin, an associate professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was honored at the White House as a recipient of a 2006 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest national honor for researchers in the early stages of their careers.
Linsey Marr of the Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Scott Huxtable and Pavlos Vlahos of mechanical engineering received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program awards, which are NSF’s most prestigious grants for junior faculty considered likely to become academic leaders of the future.
Tom Murray of CEE received a 2006 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Murray was one of 15 recipients of the award, which is the commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia’s public colleges and universities.
Engineering students continue to serve as excellent examples of Virginia Tech’s quality of education. With the Chevrolet Equinox SUV that they re-engineered into an ethanol-powered vehicle, the Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team took the top national honors during the second-year competition of Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility, held at the General Motors Mesa Desert Proving Grounds in Arizona. Challenge X encourages engineering students to help develop advanced propulsion technology for the next generation of energy-efficient, low-emissions vehicles.
For the third year in a row, the Virginia Tech Autonomous Vehicle Team swept the international Intelligent Ground Vehicles Competition, winning best and second-best overall and placing first in the three top event categories during the 2006 competition. The team of mechanical engineering students also was awarded $15,000 in prize money.
Sherri Cook, a sophomore in CEE and a University Honors Program student, was one of only 80 students chosen nationally to receive a Morris K. Udall Undergraduate Scholarship for the 2006-07 academic year.
The College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences has five Alumni Distinguished Professors (ADPs), more than any other college at Virginia Tech. ADPs are recognized for exceptional accomplishments in undergraduate teaching, creative scholarship, and professional activities.
Neighbors Growing Together (NGT), which consists of the adult day services program and the Child Development Center for Learning and Research, is the country's only university-based shared site intergenerational care program. NGT has won national, regional, and university awards for its leadership, best practices, and outreach.
In this age of globalization, the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures started a unique professional development opportunity for its employees. Non-credit introductory conversational language courses were offered to faculty and staff of Virginia Tech. In the fall, introductory courses were offered in Italian and Spanish. As the response was “magnifico,” beginning classes were repeated in the spring, and intermediate sections were added, along with beginning Mandarin Chinese.
The career and technical education graduate program is ranked sixth among vocational and technical specialties according to U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Graduate Schools 2007” survey. The program has placed among the top five programs a number of times and has been a top-10 selection for the past 12 years.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded $1.75 million to Virginia Tech’s Institute for Cultural Policy and Practice to fund the ongoing work of the Orchestra Forum. The forum, established in 1999, supports the organizational change efforts of 13 of the nation’s most artistically vital and forward-thinking symphony orchestras.
Three scholars in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences – Carol Burger, director of the Science and Gender Equity program; Elizabeth Creamer, associate professor in the School of Education; and Peggy S. Meszaros, director of the Center for Information Technology Impacts on Children, Youth, and Families – have determined five factors that influence girls’ informational technology (IT) career choices. Backed with more than $882,000 in funding by the National Science Foundation, the project “Women in Information Technology: Pivotal Transitions from School to Careers” evaluated the impact of family, peers, school, and community on girls’ perceptions of IT careers.
Researchers Karen Roberto and Tammy Henderson, both faculty members from Virginia Tech’s Center for Gerontology, received an NSF grant to identify factors that influence how aging families function as they struggle to regain a sense of normalcy after Hurricane Katrina.
Rosa, written by Virginia Tech’s Nikki Giovanni, rocketed to number three on the New York Times Children’s Book List. Rosa tells the story of Rosa Parks, a black seamstress from Montgomery, Ala., who refused to surrender her seat on a bus to a white man.
Faculty members in English, music, and theatre arts collaborated on Eurydice, a play written by Thomas Gardner, performed by Patty Raun, and accompanied by cellist Allen Weinstein. The play made its international debut in Scotland.
Paul Sorrentino, a professor of English at Virginia Tech for 27 years and a pre-eminent scholar on Stephen Crane, was recognized with a 2006 State Council of Higher Education for Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award.
History Professor A. Roger Ekirch's book, At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, garnered rave international reviews and was a featured selection on amazon.com. Based on 20 years of detailed archival research, the book explores the mysterious history of night and is a compelling study of the darker side of human history.
Tim Leaton earned the top prize in the widely acclaimed Film Your Issue (FYI) competition – an eight-week paid internship at Disney Studios in Los Angeles. Leaton’s one-minute film, Orphans in Africa, won the nationwide contest, an initiative to encourage young Americans, age 18 to 26, to engage in social issues and add their voices to the public dialogue.
Greg Sagstetter, a University Honors student pursuing dual degrees in philosophy and political science with a minor in Africana studies, was named to USA Today's All-USA College Academic Second Team. Sagstetter was selected from a field of more than 600 students nominated by colleges and universities throughout the United States.
Three graduate students were selected for the 2006 national AARP Scholars Program. Libbey Bowen, Nancy Brossoie, and Erica Husser each received a $10,000 scholarship. Tech students earned more of these awards than any other university nationally.
The National Science Foundation ranked the $68.7 million natural resource research program of the College of Natural Resources’ and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences ninth in the nation.
Programs in the College of Natural Resources consistently rank among the top of their type in the nation. The college's wildlife program has been ranked first by its peers, and the fisheries program has been ranked second. In a recently published study of the research impact of North American forestry programs, the Journal of Forestry ranked Virginia Tech's programs second on the perceptions-based composite score and third on the citations- and publications-based index.
With a national reputation for its freshwater mussel and horseshoe crab centers, Virginia Tech's Aquaculture Center is considered one of the nation's finest university-based recirculation facilities in fish conservation aquaculture. The federal government has designated the Horseshoe Crab Center as its research headquarters for the horseshoe crab, and likewise for the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Center, which is providing a role model for natural resource agencies across America to propagate mussels.
With Virginia Tech's Institute for Distance and Distributed Learning, the college is providing the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service a Natural Resources Distance Learning Consortium to help continually train forest service employees.
On September 22, 2006, the college dedicated its cross-disciplinary research center with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The 28,000-square-foot Latham Hall enables natural resources researchers to expand into such areas as ecotoxicology, genetic modification of plants and trees, carbon sequestration, and tree nutrition.
Fisheries and Wildlife Professor Dick Neves and Fisheries and Wildlife Professor and former Department Head Don Orth, were co-awarded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Regional Director’s Conservation Award.
Neves and associate fisheries and wildlife professor and Virginia Cooperative Unit assistant unit leader Paul Angermeier have been contributing mussel and fish survey data to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Natural Heritage Program for conservation of the state’s biological resources. NatureServe, a non-profit conservation organization, named Virginia’s Natural Heritage Program the best of 75 similar programs worldwide.
The deck and balcony research and subsequent safety recommendations of wood science and forest products faculty members Joe Loferski and Frank Woeste have led directly to changes in the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code.
Associate Dean for Outreach Jim Johnson received the Technology Transfer Award and Assistant Professor of Forestry Mike Mortimer received the Young Forester Leadership Award, both from the Society of American Foresters.
Associate Professor of Fisheries and Wildlife Steve McMullin is vice president of the Southern Division of the American Fisheries Society.
Through his involvement with the Center for Innovation in Construction Safety and Health, Dan Hindman, assistant professor of wood science and forest products, played an important role in the safe building of a Blacksburg house featured on the primtetime ABC series “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
Wildlife science student Jason Swenson, advised by Assistant Professor Marcella Kelly, traveled to remote locations in Tanzania to set up state-of-the-art global positioning systems to aid research on wild chimpanzees. He was featured on National Geographic’s “Wild Chronicles” TV program.
The student chapter of the Society of American Foresters received the society’s Student Chapter of the Year Award.
The newly formed Urban Forestry and Arboriculture Student Society placed fourth in their first Annual PLANET Competition.
The Virginia Tech Chapter of the American Fisheries Society has won the Southern Division Best Chapter Award four times.
The Pamplin College of Business undergraduate program is ranked 37th among the nation's undergraduate business programs and 22nd among public institutions. Pamplin's overall ranking places it in the top 10 percent of the approximately 418 U.S. undergraduate programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International.
The M.B.A. program was ranked 58th worldwide in the Financial Times 2005 business school rankings of 127 full-time programs in the United States, Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Among U.S. business schools, the college ranked 36th overall and in the top 10 for alumni career progress, percentage salary increase alumni received, and value for money.
Five Pamplin majors — accounting and information systems, business information technology, finance, marketing, and management — are routinely in the top 10 majors at Virginia Tech sought by recruiters visiting campus.
The Forest Industries Center, a collaboration between the Pamplin College and the College of Natural Resources, is one of only 26 Sloan Foundation industry centers in the country.
Richard E. Sorensen, dean of the Pamplin College of Business, is past chair of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International, the premier accrediting agency for bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs in business administration and accounting. He is chair of the AACSB’s nominating and accreditation coordinating committees and board champion for its doctoral education task force. Sorensen is also chair of the board and chair of the nominating committee of the board of directors of the Global Foundation for Management Education.
C. Bryan Cloyd, the John E. Peterson Jr. Professor of Accounting and Information Systems, is a co-recipient of the 2006 American Taxation Association Teaching Innovation Award. The award, sponsored by the Deloitte Foundation, is designed to encourage tax professors to develop new teaching methods that stimulate students’ critical thinking skills.
Richard E. Wokutch, the R.B. Pamplin Professor of Management and management department head, has been awarded the Sumner Marcus Award for Outstanding Service by the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management. The award, named after the founder of the division, is its highest honor, given for career achievement.
G. Rodney Thompson, a finance professor, has been awarded the university’s 2006 Alumni Award for Excellence in International Education.
Management Associate Professor Mary Connerley and student Stacie V. Hylton of Springfield, Va., have been selected to participate in the nationwide GM Sullivan Fellowship Program.
France Belanger, associate professor of accounting and information systems, has been awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Chair. The distinguished chairs are considered among the most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Scholar Program.
Management Associate Professor Larry French and Hospitality and Tourism Management Professor Mahmood Khan have received Fulbright Scholar Awards to teach and do research abroad. French's research focuses on child labor in developing areas and Khan's expertise is in hospitality franchising, food service, and operational management and consumer preferences in hotels and restaurants. Five of the university’s 14 Fulbright Award recipients since 2000 are Pamplin faculty.
A research team led by faculty members from the Pamplin College of Business received a National Science Foundation grant of $617,000 to study the recruitment and retention of African Americans in information technology-related graduate studies and jobs.
Pamplin College of Business students manage about $8 million of the university's endowment through separate stock and bond investment portfolios of $4 million each. The stock investing project, called SEED (Student-managed Endowment for Educational Development), is believed to be the nation's largest student-run portfolio that is managed entirely as an extracurricular activity, not as part of a course. The fixed-income portfolio, a new project, is managed by a group called BASIS (Bond and Securities Investing by Students). Virginia Tech is the only Virginia school and one of only five universities in the country with a student-run, fixed-income securities fund.
The college began a unique joint degree program with the University of Richmond Law School that enables students to obtain a bachelor of science and a law degree with an emphasis in intellectual property law in as little as six years.
The Department of Geosciences has been consistently ranked among the best geosciences programs in the nation for the past 20 years.
The Ph.D. program in clinical psychology in the Department of Psychology is a member of the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science Programs, comprised of the top 40 research-oriented programs in the United States and Canada.
The College of Science has a Nobel-prize-winning alumnus: Robert C. Richardson (B.S. physics ’58; M.S. physics ’60).
Duncan Porter, professor of biology, received Virginia’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Science in 2006.
John Cairns, biology emeritus, is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and James McGrath, chemistry, is a member of the equally prestigious National Academy of Engineering.
University Distinguished Professor Robert Bodnar and Michael Hochella, both professors of geosciences, were elected Fellows of the American Geophysical Union in 2006.
The college has two faculty members who have received the internationally acclaimed Alexander von Humboldt Research Award: Michael Hochella Jr. of geosciences and Royce Zia of physics.
Four faculty members from the college have been named Virginia Outstanding Scientists since the year 2000: Neal Castagnoli, chemistry, 2000; David Kingston, chemistry, 2002; John Tyson, biology, 2004; Michael Hochella Jr., geosciences, 2005.
One-third of the faculty members in geosciences have won one or more international medals for excellence in science, and four members have had minerals named in their honor.
Brian Skinner, physics major, was awarded the national Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship in 2006.
Virginia Tech’s only two Rhodes Scholars hail from disciplines within the College of Science: William Lewis (physics ’63) and Mark Embree (mathematics, computer science ’96).
VMRCVM’s Blacksburg-based Veterinary Teaching Hospital provides high-quality primary care and referral services for about 8,000 companion animals and 32,000 agricultural animals per year. The Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg treats about 3,000 patients a year, including almost 900 emergency cases requiring immediate life-saving care.
The Veterinary Teaching Hospital has recently installed a $500,000 digital radiography system that enables veterinary radiologists to produce extremely high-quality, easily manipulated digital radiographs that can be transmitted over wireless networks.
The Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center was the second equine hospital in the nation to install a standing MRI unit for horses, a machine that enables clinicians to create extremely detailed images of a patient’s leg while minimally stressing the animal.
The VMRCVM’s veterinary medical informatics program is a national leader in an emerging scientific discipline that uses modern information technology to improve the management of medical data. Units include the Veterinary Medical Informatics Laboratories, the Drug Information Laboratory, and the Veterinary Terminology Services Laboratory.
VMRCVM’s Laboratory for Neuorotoxicity Studies is one of the nation’s leading organophosphate research centers. Organophosphates, a class of compounds commonly used in fertilizers and pesticides, may have long-term neurotoxic effects and stress apparently may increase these effects. Laboratory directors Dr. Marion Ehrich and Bernard Jortner have received major funding from the United States Army to examine the behavioral, biochemical, and pathological effects of these agents.
The college’s Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases is a major university research center where 12 full-time faculty, 14 research technicians, and almost 30 graduate students use modern molecular biotechnology and immunological techniques to probe the infectious, immunological, and biochemical aspects of the diseases that affect people and animals.
Dr. X.J. Meng, a medical doctor and virologist studying the molecular mechanism of viral replication and pathogenesis in the Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases, has developed a new vaccine for PCV-2 virus, a major threat to the global swine industry.
Two faculty members from VMRCVM were presented 2006 national Professor of the Year Awards during the annual meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association in Honolulu. Dr. Kevin Pelzer, an associate professor in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, was named the veterinary profession’s best teacher in the clinical sciences category, and Dr. Marion Ehrich, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, earned top honors as the best teacher in the biomedical sciences.
One major factor affecting cancerous tumor growth is the ability of these tumors to stimulate the development of new blood vessels and their growth that provide the nutrients for continuous growth. To understand these oncogenic processes better, Dr. William Huckle is studying the control of growth factor receptors using mouse models of solid tumor growth and metastasis, and estrogen-induced uterine hyperplasia in mice, a model of normal angiogenesis in the adult.
Human asthma is a disease of growing importance in the United States and throughout the world. Horses develop a disease that is very similar to asthma called recurrent airway obstruction (RAO), or heaves. Dr. Virginia Buechner-Maxwell studies RAO-affected horses to develop a better understanding of airway disease in both horses and humans.
Brucellosis is an infectious disease that causes spontaneous abortion in animals and undulant fever in humans. Working in the VMRCVM’s Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Disease, VMRCVM Dean Gerhardt Schurig and fellow researchers developed a new highly effective recombinant brucellosis vaccine, RB-51. The vaccine has quickly established itself as the global standard of protection. Because brucellosis is believed to be a biological warfare threat, the U.S. Army has contracted with the research team to develop a human vaccine for the disorder as well.
Working in laboratories located at VMRCVM’s College Park, Md., campus, Dr. Daniel Perez is considered one of the nation’s leading experts in avian influenza H5N1, which many fear may eventually cause a global pandemic of human disease. Perez is principal investigator on a $5 million USDA grant focused on AI H5N1, the largest USDA grant ever awarded to study a single disease.
Funded by the United States Army, Dr. Thomas Inzana is working on the development of a vaccine and rapid, field-compatible diagnostic test for tularemia, a highly pathogenic infectious disease considered a Category A bioterrorism agent by the United States government.
The Office of International Affairs is responsible for multinational outreach. International collaborative programs are increasing, up 50 percent from 2004-05 to 2005-06. This office oversees $34 million in innovative projects in 37 developing countries funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This was a record one-day funding award from USAID.
The office also oversees the university’s Center for European Studies and Architecture in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland, and its programs in Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic. Establishing regional centers in South America, Africa, and China is a current priority.
The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) in Danville is Virginia Tech’s showcase project for bringing the benefits of university knowledge to an economically depressed area in order to develop a new economic base. From fiscal year 2001 through fiscal year 2006, the IALR attracted more than $58 million in funding. Such organizations as the Southern Growth Policies Board, the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration, and the U.S. Economic Development Administration have honored IALR or made it a finalist for major national awards.
In September 2006, IALR received a Governor's Technology Award in the "Innovation in Higher Education" category that recognizes the innovative use of technology to support the unique missions of Virginia's colleges and universities.
The Virginia Tech Office of Economic Development (OED) is working with several communities around Virginia to model distributed research programs that will echo the IALR plan. The programs will be based at regional centers and will be geared to the needs of each region.
OED helped counties in far Southwest Virginia obtain funding for an innovative entrepreneurship program for middle school students with the long-term goal of encouraging youth to stay in their home counties and start businesses to stimulate economic development and stem the youth brain-drain.
The Service-Learning Center forged a partnership with Refugee and Immigration Services to open an English language learning center at Maple Grove Apartments in Roanoke, which was home to 82 Somali Bantu refugees. The Pilot Street Partnership, which officially opened its doors in February 2006, provides adult ESL classes, after-school homework help, a teen ESL class, and child care during the adult classes.
The Virginia Tech Outreach Program to Schools is an umbrella partnership with Montgomery County schools in which students serve as mentors, technology consultants, resident experts for gifted students, and special subject tutors.
Virginia Tech’s Upward Bound/Talent Search programs have an astounding success rate. For Upward Bound, more than 94 percent of graduating seniors enroll in college. One alumnus won a national award for distinguished achievement by a former Upward Bound enrollee. Another won a regional award. Upward Bound annually serves 90-115 students from 23 high schools. Talent Search annually serves 750-800 students from 31 middle and high schools.
Outreach delivers more than 450 programs each year to 30,000-50,000 people. Many of these programs are conferences, short courses, workshops, and seminars that take place at the university’s first-class facilities: The Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center and The Inn at Virginia Tech & Skelton Conference Center.
The university has nine theme housing programs (learning communities), where about 28 percent of on-campus students reside.
The Graduate Life Center at Donaldson Brown is unique in offering graduate housing, a graduate-oriented academic and student center space, a snack bar/coffee shop, offices for graduate student organizations, and the administrative offices of the Graduate School all in one facility.
The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) is the largest university-level research center at Virginia Tech. It features seven transportation safety research groups: the Center for Automotive Safety Research, Center for Truck and Bus Safety, Center for Sustainable Mobility, Center for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure, Center for Technology Development, Transportation Fellows Group, and the National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence (STSCE).
The institute employs 225 research faculty, staff, and students working on more than 90 projects and is the largest supporter of both undergraduate and graduate students at the university.
VTTI conducted an evaluation of the hours-of-service (HOS) regulations for long-haul truck drivers. The results of this study were used by FMSCA in their re-evaluation and eventual re-issue of the HOS regulations
Researchers recently conducted the 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study, a crash causation study specifically examining driver inattention. It was the first study of its kind conducted in a naturalistic setting documenting actual driving behavior and resulted in approximately 43,000 hours of data collected and over 2 million miles driven.
Jon Antin, leader of the Light Vehicle and Safety Group, was elected as an officer in the Surface Transportation Technical Group of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Myra Blanco, research scientist and leader of the Safety and Human Factors Engineering Group, was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Hall of Fame.
Gerardo Flintsch, director of the Center for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure, is vice-chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers Committee on Highway Pavements.
Virginia Tech University Libraries has more than 2.2 million volumes and is a member of the prestigious Association of Research Libraries, which has 123 members in the U.S. and Canada. Membership is by invitation only.
The library provides access to more than 50,000 online books and nearly 20,000 online journals, magazines, and newspapers. It also provides access to more than 200 online databases, including LexisNexis, InfoTrac, and Web of Science, and full-text e-journal packages from such noted publishers as Elsevier, Blackwell Synergy, Springer, and Wiley.
Librarians teach more than 600 library instruction sessions each year to classes throughout the university. Library staff members answer nearly 25,000 reference and research questions from the Virginia Tech community each year in person, on the phone, and online through a chat reference service.
The Digital Library and Archives has digitized significant amounts of local material to enable online access to these resources. Nearly 9,000 Virginia Tech theses and dissertations since 1997 are online, as are 40,000 images from archival collections and most issues of the Bugle, Tech’s yearbook.
The Special Collections department has built extensive archival research collections in such areas as the American Civil War, Appalachia, and aerospace exploration, and it also maintains the University Archive, the historical record of Virginia Tech.
Harry Kriz, directory of interlibrary loan, received the American Library Association’s Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished Interlibrary Loan (ILL) award in 2005, which recognizes a librarian for outstanding professional achievement, leadership, and contributions to ILL.