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Virginia Tech has transitioned once again in its presidency, with Timothy D. Sands assuming the office on June 1. In the university's 142-year history, such a transition has been remarkably infrequent. The shortest transition (possibly on record at any university) was when the third president was named in 1880, but changed his mind before taking office and therefore was never counted officially among our 16 presidents. The longest-serving president, Julian Burruss, led the university two-and-a-half decades. That long of a tenure was rare among institutions, even in the first half of the 20th century.
History records that each president, particularly those since the early 1960s, has inspired continued growth of university programs, degree offerings, the physical campus, satellite campuses, research, outreach, competitive athletics, and national rankings. According to most rankings and metrics today, Virginia Tech is regarded among the nation's leading universities in a higher-education community of about 4,000 institutions.
Sands follows modern presidents T. Marshall Hahn Jr., William E. Lavery, James D. McComas, Paul E. Torgersen, and Charles W. Steger. When President Hahn assumed the presidency in 1962, there were barely 6,400 students. His first day in office came nearly 100 years to the day Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-Grant Act, which charted the course for a new type of institution centered on expanding curriculums to serve a growing industrial and agricultural national economy. Virginia Tech was among the early institutions established and seeded by these federal matching funds. In 1962, there were just shy of 30,000 living alumni who welcomed their new president.
Sands took office nearly 152 years after the Morrill Act. And oh, how the landscape has been changed by his predecessors, their administrations, and the faculty. He inherits an enrollment exceeding 31,000, five times more than at the beginning of the Hahn presidency. Expanding enrollments over the past 50 years have yielded an alumni base that has grown by more than 200,000 to the current total of about 238,000.
A proud Hokie Nation welcomes the university's 16th president and pledges to help him and the university in many ways. As the old saying goes, there is strength in numbers (of alumni). That strength will manifest itself through service to the university and the world beyond, through student recruitment, through mentoring and hiring graduates, through financial support, through athletic fan support, and through advocacy at the state and national levels. Virginia Tech alumni are enthusiastic about and engaged in these and many other ways to advance the university. We welcome Tim Sands and his wife, Laura, as the university's new first family. They are thrilled to be Hokies.
Dave Hunt, Communications Director
Summer 2014
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In his first week in office, Tim Sands explored campus with his wife, Laura, greeted guests at a welcome reception, and shared a lighter moment with Board of Visitors member Cordel Faulk '98.
During the annual Big Event on April 5, more than 8,000 students, alumni, and volunteers completed nearly 1,000 community service projects. Each year, alumni serve communities across the country while students serve the New River Valley, resulting in a partnership that embodies the Ut Prosim (That I May Serve) motto and extends service in the name of Virginia Tech.
The Big Event began in 2002 as a student-run community service effort that has since grown into the second-largest event of its kind in the nation. Each spring, thousands of students, assisted by faculty and staff, come together to complete projects throughout the area, serving residents regardless of socioeconomic status.
In April 2012, the Charlotte Alumni Chapter, at the prompting of one of its volunteers, Nathan Lavinka (communication, marketing management '11), mirrored the Big Event. As a student, Lavinka was co-director of the campus event. He suggested involving alumni in his chapter area, and volunteers conducted three service projects around Charlotte. In 2013, the Alumni Association challenged more chapters to join the Big Event; several chapters responded by performing service projects from Seattle to New England.
In 2015, the Big Event will be held on Saturday, April 4. Alumni should make plans early to join this special opportunity to serve their local communities. Along with April 16 Remembrance events, the month has become focused on performing service as alumni, students, faculty, and staff live out the Hokie Nation's motto.
Alumni from many chapters—including (clockwise from upper left) Seattle, Houston, the New River Valley, and Western Maryland—participated in April service activities. Photos are courtesy of the chapters.
Each April, the campus sponsors the Run in Remembrance, a Saturday morning 3.2-mile run/walk for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members honoring April 16 victims. The run this year, which took place on April 12, welcomed more than 8,500 participants, several thousand of whom formed a giant "VT" on the Drillfield prior to the run.
Alumni Association Board of Directors President Matthew M. Winston Jr. (marketing '90) and board Vice President A. Carole Pratt (biological sciences '72) were recently re-elected to one-year terms. Winston resides in Athens, Georgia, and serves as assistant to the president of the University of Georgia. Pratt, a retired dentist and a policy advisor with the Virginia Department of Health, resides in Dublin, Virginia. Also elected to the board's executive committee were Kendley J. Davenport (public affairs, management '84), Lisa Carter Ellison (finance '86), and Mark S. Lawrence (management '80).
Newly elected board members include Gordon "Gordy" Bryan (theatre arts '82), Thomas H. Hughes (architecture '80), Michael T. Kender (chemical engineering '83), Adeel S. Khan (accounting and information systems '09), Nathan T. Lavinka (communication, marketing management '11), Jacob A. Lutz (finance '78), and Justin A. Yalung (finance '05). Incumbents elected to a second term were Morgan E. Blackwood (industrial systems engineering '02), Marvin J. Boyd (management science, management '00), and Karen E. Torgersen (elementary education '78, M.B.A. '86).
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