Va Tech
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).
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. 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 late 1970s, the shorthand name "Virginia Tech" was adopted as the proper identification of the university's athletic teams over the acronym "V.P.I." and the media was instructed to use "Virginia Tech" in their reporting of sport scores.
In the early 1990s, the school 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.
history and the deadliest mass shooting of any kind by a single gunman in U.S. history.
Academics
Virginia Tech offers 80 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. Virginia Tech's endowment is known as the Virginia Tech Foundation, and as of 2007 total assets, gifts, and funds equal $524.7 million USD.
Seven different undergraduate programs in the College of Engineering are ranked in the top 20 among peer programs nationally - the industrial engineering program is ranked 6th; engineering science and mechanics, 8th; civil engineering, 11th; environmental engineering, 14th; mechanical engineering, 13th; aerospace engineering, 14th; and electrical engineering, 17th. Its Pamplin College of Business undergraduate program is ranked 24th among the nation's public institutions and 41st overall. 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 2008 report, DesignIntelligence (the only national college ranking survey focused exclusively on design) ranked the undergraduate architecture and urban/regional studies program 1st nationally among both public and private universities. The graduate architecture program ranked 5th in the nation and 1st among public universities. In its 2007 report, DesignIntelligence ranked the university’s undergraduate and graduate interior design programs 7th and 5th respectively.
Programs in the College of Natural Resources consistently rank among the top of their type in the nation.
The college's wildlife program is ranked first by its peers, and the fisheries program is ranked second. 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.
The Virginia Tech Stability Wind Tunnel, directed by Aerospace and Ocean Engineering Professor William Devenport, is the largest university-owned anechoic wind tunnel in the United States.
Rankings
U.S. News & World Report's “America's Best Colleges 2008” (fall 2007)
Virginia Tech ranked 29th among national public universities.
The Virginia Tech College of Engineering undergraduate program was ranked 14th in the nation (tied with Johns Hopkins and Northwestern) among all accredited engineering schools that offer doctorates. undergraduate programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International.
Virginia Tech was also recognized as having one of the top 14 cooperative education and internship programs in the nation.
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. The university has established branch campuses in Hampton Roads (Virginia Beach), the National Capital Region (Northern Virginia Graduate Center Falls Church and Urban Affairs & Planning Program (Masters and Ph.D.
In the center of campus lies the Drillfield, which is a large oval field running Northeast to Southwest, encircled by a one way street known as Drillfield Drive. An underground river underneath the drillfield makes the land unsuitable for building, protecting it as an open space on campus.
On the northwestern side of the Drillfield lies the majority of the academic and administrative buildings, including Burruss and McBryde halls. On the southeastern side of the Drillfield lies the majority of the residential buildings, including the residence halls, dining halls, and War Memorial Gym.
Newman Library is located on the eastern side of campus and connects to Torgersen Bridge, which spans the main road into campus, Alumni Mall. In fact, it is now official university policy that all new buildings must incorporate the stone into their design.
Hokie Stone is generally gray, shaded by hues of brown and pink. For example, all buildings in the Upper Quad, which includes Lane and Shultz Halls, are constructed of red brick.
Also, a number of academic buildings were not constructed using Hokie Stone, as they were built before the institution of the rule mandating its use in all new university buildings.
In 2007, Virginia Tech was ranked #1 by the The Princeton Review under the category of "Best Campus Food". 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, Deet's Place, and the high end West End Market. 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 Hokie Bird is a turkey-like creature whose form has evolved from the original school mascot of the Fighting Gobbler. The term originated from the Old Hokie spirit yell, in which there was no particular meaning indicated for the word.
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. The Old Hokie spirit yell, written in 1896 and used to this day, is familiar to many Virginia Tech fans.
In the 2006-07 season, Greenberg's Hokies 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 basketball (women's)
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. While, at a capacity of 66,233, it is relatively small in comparison to many other Division I-A stadiums, it is still considered to be one of the loudest stadiums in the country.
The Corps of Cadets has existed from the founding the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1872 and enrollment in the program was mandatory until 1964, when Virginia Tech first began allowing students to follow a strictly civilian track. Cadets live together in dormitories, march to meals in formation, wear a distinctive uniform on campus, and receive an intensive military and leadership educational experience similar to that available at the United States military academies.
Williams School of Law
Virginia Tech has recently developed a relationship with the T.C. 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.
Virginia Bioinformatics Institute
The Virginia Bioinformatics Institute' (VBI) is a premier bioinformatics, computational biology, and systems biology research facility that opened on the Blacksburg campus of Virginia Tech in 2000.
By using bioinformatics, which combines transdisciplinary approaches to information technology and biology, researchers at VBI interpret and apply vast amounts of biological data generated from basic research to some of today’s key challenges in the biomedical, environmental and agricultural sciences. The institute develops genomic, proteomic and bioinformatic tools that can be applied to the study of infectious diseases as well as the discovery of new vaccine, drug and diagnostic targets.
Virginia Tech Center for European Studies and Architecture
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.
The remainder of the board is composed members who are elected by vote of the boards existing members.
Subsidiaries of the Virginia Tech Foundation include Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, the Hotel Roanoke, the National Public Radio affiliate WVTF Roanoke FM 89.1, the Center for European Studies and Architecture, and the Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech.
Research computing
In 2003, Virginia Tech created a supercomputer which ranked as the 3rd fastest in the world.