Reform Party candidate Ross Perot made a campaign stop at Virginia Tech during the final weeks of his unsuccessful bid for the U.S. presidency.A brucellosis vaccine developed in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine has been endorsed as the official brucellosis vaccine by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Official approval of the RB51 vaccine means that it will likely replace the existing vaccine as the worldwide standard in protection against brucellosis, a global animal and human health problem that causes millions of dollars in production losses each year.
Brucellosis, a bacterial disorder caused by the Brucella abortus organism, is largely controlled in the United States, yet it remains a significant threat in developing areas of the world. Brucellosis can be caught from eating undercooked meat or dairy products from infected animals or by handling infected tissues. In humans, it causes undulant fever. In animals, it results in the abortion of infected fetuses.
Much of the brucellosis work done in the VMRCVM over the past 10 years has been structured upon a mutant strain of Brucella abortus developed by biomedical sciences professor Dr. Gerhardt Schurig. The mutant strain vaccine is unable to cause disease and can be distinguished serologically from infected animals in vaccinated animals, a feature which enables regulatory agencies to avoid costly over-condemnations and expensive retesting.
The college has conducted almost $1 million worth of research into brucellosis over the past 10 years and has received five major grants from the USDA and other funding agencies.
Reform Party candidate Ross Perot made a campaign stop at Virginia Tech during the final weeks of his unsuccessful bid for the U.S. presidency.
Perot spoke to a crowd of more than 3,000 people in Burruss Auditorium. He also addressed a closed gathering of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets.
Attributing much of his personal success to his military background, Perot told the cadets that the military teaches men and women to be decisive and courageous. Overall, he said, those in the military learn "leadership, leadership, leadership." He added, "All of you are getting wonderful training that will be invaluable to you throughout your life. There is no better training in the world for a successful business career than what you're doing right here."
Perot's visit was sponsored by the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets Center for Leader Development and was part of the Leaders in Action program that brings corporate, industrial, and political leaders to campus.
Two robotic vehicles created by a team of Virginia Tech students received high honors at the recent fourth annual International Autonomous Ground Robotic Vehicle Competition at Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla.
The Computerized Autonomous Land Vehicle with Intelligent Navigation (CALVIN) received first place in design out of 23 entries. It is based on the chassis of a golf cart. Beast of Burden (BOB), an all-terrain vehicle, placed third in design. With only microchips for guidance, both CALVIN and BOB negotiated an obstacle course that included white lines, a sand pit, inclines, and simulated pavement.
The team consists of undergraduate and graduate students from computer science, business, and engineering.
Writer Simone Poirier-Bures of the English department joined six other Virginia Tech faculty writers who read from their works to raise funds for world hunger relief at Virginia Tech's Volume Two Bookstore on Nov. 14.
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According to a recent UCLA study, the attitudes of Virginia Tech freshmen have become more conservative from 1991-1995. The demographics, they say, have remained the same.
The study by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles shows that college freshmen nationwide have grown more socially and economically conservative since 1991. Tech freshmen tend to be more conservative than the national average.
For example, in 1991, 72 percent of Tech freshmen and 72 percent of all freshmen said the wealthy should pay more taxes. In 1995, only 65 percent of Virginia Tech freshmen agreed with that statement, compared with 68 percent nationwide.
Virginia Tech freshmen also tend to be social conservatives. Only 61 percent said that a national health care plan is needed, compared with 68 percent nationwide. Two-thirds said affirmative action in college admittance should be abolished -- 12 percent higher than the national average.
President Paul Torgersen has announced three efforts to boost Virginia Tech's role in economic development. The university has created an external Economic Development Advisory Committee, an internal Economic Development Council, and a full-time economic-development associate to coordinate cross-campus initiatives.
These new groups seek to communicate to those inside and outside of the university the importance of assisting businesses, industries, and communities in using the expertise of Virginia Tech faculty members, students, and programs.
Both the external committee, composed of business leaders from throughout the state, and the internal committee, composed of university leaders, will review current initiatives that support economic development, recommend programs that enhance public and private-sector economic development, and advise the president on ways in which Virginia Tech can be more responsive to economic development needs. The president will chair both groups.
Two Virginia Tech football players were suspended from the team Dec. 17 after being charged with the rape and attempted sodomy of another Virginia Tech student.
"This is a serious charge, and the police would not have arrested them had they not sufficient evidence to support the belief that a crime has occurred," Virginia Tech Athletic Director David Braine said.
Starting fullback Brian Edmonds and reserve wide receiver James Crawford countered the charge by filing a lawsuit accusing their alleged victim of several crimes -- including extortion -- on the night she said she was attacked. Blacksburg police are investigating the incident.
Eight Virginia Tech football players (including Edmonds) and a former football player were indicted Nov. 6 by a grand jury in Blacksburg in connection with the alleged beating of Virginia Tech track star Hilliard Sumner on Aug. 31. Another is charged with an unrelated abduction of a visiting student. Court dates are set for mid-February. Coach Frank Beamer suspended six players for one game and two players for the season. The team consists of 108 players.
"Regardless of the final adjudication, even the appearance of impropriety by Virginia Tech athletes impugns the integrity of the entire program. We will neither condone nor tolerate it," said Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen, following Beamer's action. "Withholding the privilege of representing Virginia Tech in athletic competition is a fair and appropriate response."
Beamer emphasized that the suspensions do not indicate he sees the players as guilty, but that he feels they should be punished for "putting themselves in a position to be charged with violations."
College athletes are role models and should be held to a high moral code, said President Torgersen. "Representing the university in college athletics is a privilege not taken lightly," said Torgersen. "I believe Virginia Tech athletes should exhibit and be held to the highest standards of sportsmanship and moral values."
Beamer has stressed the family theme in his 11 years as Tech's head football coach, emphasizing to his players the importance of representing themselves, their teammates, and the university in an honorable way. His proactive moves in the past three seasons include bringing in an FBI agent and a police chief to present programs on drugs, requiring attendance at a play where the topic was sexual harassment, and mandating special counseling in alcohol education.
Beamer has also encouraged players to enroll in a voluntary program, sponsored by the Division I-A athletic directors, to help athletes progress in the areas of career development, personal development, academics, athletics, and community service.
Clifford Randall, an endowed professor of civil engineering at Virginia Tech, recently received the Mathias Medal from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for his research on Chesapeake Bay pollution.
Since the early 1970s, Randall has conducted much of the leading research on the pollution of the bay by nutrients -- phosphorus and nitrogen -- from wastewater treatment plants and other sources. Randall's work has been instrumental in reducing phosphorus output from treatment plants to the bay by 40 percent.
Randall has been director of the university's Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Program since 1972 and division leader of the university's environmental engineering program since 1979. In 1994, Randall received the Governor's Salute to Excellence from the State of Maryland for his efforts to protect and improve the bay.
A continuing-education program, aimed at helping Tech alumni keep abreast of advances in computer-mediated communications, has received $60,000 from Virginia Tech's Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement (COTA).
In keeping with the goal of COTA to develop new outreach and continuing-education programs, the Lifelong Learning Series of the College of Arts and Sciences is developing refresher and specialty workshops focusing on such things as electronic conferencing tools for small businesses.
The Lifelong Learning Series will be conducted by COTA Fellows who have experience working on the college's cyberschool project. The faculty team will be assisted in the planning of the series by members of the Dean's Roundtable of alumni advisors. The program will be aimed at middle-to-upper-level business executives who are uncomfortable with new digital technologies.
The program will begin with two sessions on "Living Well in the Digital Age," one in May 1997 and one in July, to be offered to 25-50 people each session. The series will begin with basic instruction in the digital culture -- the World Wide Web, e-mail, developing Web pages -- to give participants the navigational skills they need to ask useful questions about what it means to live in a digital culture. The project will use the technology before, during, and after the series to develop learning communities among participants via the Internet in WebChat forums and electronic conferencing sessions.
For more information, contact Len Hatfield at len.hatfield@vt.edu or (540) 231-7797.
Patricia Edwards has announced that she will step down as dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, effective June 30, to return to full-time teaching. Edwards accepted the dean position in 1994 with the stipulation that she would serve for a three-year term only.
Provost Peggy Meszaros has named Charles Steger, vice president for development and university relations, to head a search committee to select a new dean.
The opening of the new Virginia Tech/University of Virginia Northern Virginia Graduate Center in Falls Church in January signals an era of advanced educational opportunities for the university in this fast-growing region just outside of the nation's capital.
The 105,000 sq.-ft., state-of-the-art facility, located adjacent to the West Falls Church Metro Station just off of Interstate 66, is Virginia Tech's first permanent home in Northern Virginia. The four-story structure features classrooms equipped with fiber optic wiring and satellite linkage for educational broadcasts.
Official housewarming activities set for March 15-22 feature a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a formal dinner, speeches by well-known figures, panel discussions, and other activities.
At the same time, Virginia Tech will launch an information technology initiative designed to serve the region's fast-growing technology work force. Under the initiative, the center will add courses and faculty in accounting, information systems, applied physics, civil engineering, computer science and information systems, electrical and computing engineering, and interdisciplinary mathematics.
Virginia Tech has offered continuing education and extension programs in the area for more than 80 years to more than 30,000 students. In 1969, the university first began offering graduate degrees from a Reston farm house and has shared an office building with the University of Virginia since 1981.
Today the center has more than 45 full-time faculty. The facility's 24 graduate-degree offerings include adult learning and human resource development, applied physics, business administration, computer science, education, economics, engineering, interdisciplinary applied mathematics, marriage and family therapy, public administration and policy, science and technology studies.
For further information on the programs offered at the center or on dedication activities, call 703-538-TECH.
In 1994, the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA administered a follow-up survey to those who had completed their freshman survey in 1985. A total of 726 former Tech freshman responded to this follow-up survey, along with other 1985 freshman from around the nation.
When compared to respondents from other public universities, the Tech alumni report they make more money, are more satisfied with their jobs, hold jobs more related to their undergraduate major, were better prepared for their current job, and had better employment prospects.
A greater percentage of the Tech alumni are earning more than $30,000 per year relative to those surveyed from other public universities (62 percent vs. 47 percent). They also tend to be more satisfied with the responsibility, benefits, income, scope of activities, intellectual challenge, and opportunities to be creative in their jobs than their peers from other public universities, but a little less satisfied with the competency of their co-workers and opportunities on the job to help society.
When students at a Blacksburg elementary school need extra help, teachers turn to a group of Virginia Tech students who volunteer through the Adopt-a-School program. About 70 fraternity and sorority members are interacting with these school children through the program, designed to foster personal relationships between the two groups of students.
The volunteers spend an average of three hours a week at Kipps Elementary School, helping with class assignments, drilling individual students in problem areas, and organizing playground activities. But most importantly, says Shawn Handley (history '96), head student coordinator for the program, "We become friends and role models for these kids."
The program was implemented nationwide on 85 college campuses by the National Interfraternity Council in 1983. Two years ago, the Tech program won the Governor's Award. Last year, it won the university's Programming Excellence Award.
The George R. Wallace Foundation has awarded Virginia Tech university libraries a $300,000 grant to enhance special collections, its nationally recognized Civil War collections.
Two-thirds of the grant will be used to create an endowment to repair and preserve historical documents, to maintain special collections, and to make more materials available through the Internet. The remaining $100,000 will be used to purchase Civil War documents and other documents on Virginia's history.
Students at Eastern Elementary/Middle School in Southwest Virginia's Giles County have high-speed access to the Internet, thanks to a joint project of Hughes Aircraft, Virginia Tech, Giles County, and the New Century Council economic development organization.
Known as DirectPC, the system allows an operator to contact the satellite through a Hughes satellite center in New Jersey. The operator can access the Internet and download files directly into a PC. Teachers can then use the files as part of their lesson plans.
According to Ed Whitmore (political science '68), regional coordinator of the New Century Council in Virginia Tech's public service programs, Hughes was originally considering performing the project in a northern Virginia county. Whitmore convinced them to visit Virginia Tech and, he says, the university sold the company on this location.
"Having Tech here was a key component in making this happen," Whitmore says. "You don't often find rural schools within 15 miles of a major university with all of Tech's research capabilities."
Personnel from the university's Communications Network Services division installed the system and instructed teachers in its use. Whitmore says the connection between Virginia Tech and Hughes may expand into other areas, including training for Hughes employees.
Internationally noted management consultant, teacher, and author Stephen Covey has accepted one of Virginia TechÕs first COTA Fellow awards.
Covey accepted the award while at the Hotel Roanoke conducting leadership seminars organized by Wincom Corp. through Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business and the university's Division of Continuing Education and its Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement (COTA).
Last year, Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, endorsed COTA and the conference center during a special COTA kickoff event at Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center. Since then, he has also participated in a COTA-sponsored seminar in Richmond and a teleconference in North Carolina.
Mary, a senior in electrical engineering, is 21 and the chairman of the board of her company. Matt, a junior in mechanical engineering, serves as president. And the rest of the executive officers are also members of the student body at Virginia Tech.
During the fall board meeting, these students and corporate managers are considering the market constraints for their product. The current public policy needs to be amended to allow for maximum profit. How are they going to change the attitudes of Washington politicians? And, most importantly to the stockholders, what are the bottom line considerations for the firm's profits? Mary has requested that all of the department heads attend the board meeting. Bob, a sophomore in materials science, heads the engineering department; the human resources director is Sneha, a junior in industrial engineering; consumer studies is managed by Ruth of the College of Human Resources and Education; and Marcus, a materials science student, leads research and development.
Non-engineering students comprise the remainder of the company's administration. The responsibilities of the training program fall to the business major, Sarah. Marketing concerns are handled by Toby, who is pursuing his finance degree. And, because the company is expanding so rapidly, Nancy, an architecture major, is in charge of the plans for growth.
How did all of these Virginia Tech students land such prestigious positions? At the moment, they are fictitious characters. But the idea represents the latest innovation by engineering educators and their colleagues at Virginia Tech. They are planning the largest interdisciplinary student design project in the country -- the virtual corporation.
Fifteen faculty members are in the process of submitting several proposals to National Science Foundation and other agencies to create a pilot program for the new professional education paradigm. The department heads of electrical, civil, mechanical, engineering science and mechanics, materials science and engineering, and industrial and systems engineering teamed with the computer science department of the College of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Tech, the departments of management and marketing in the Pamplin College of Business, and the department of teaching and learning in the College of Human Resources and Education to create their vision of the student-run virtual corporation.
The virtual corporation will provide Virginia Tech students with a realistic opportunity to experience the marketing, design, production, financial, and management processes of modern corporations. The faculty's goal is to have the virtual engineering corporation represent as closely as possible a real-world, international business. The students will work in teams to discuss large, open-ended, real-world problems.
Leonard Ferrari, professor and head of the Bradley Department of Electrical Engineering, says he anticipates strong support from the government and industrial community in Virginia because he hopes to concentrate the project's efforts on technical areas that are key to the commonwealth's economic development. Five Virginia companies have already committed $10,000 in membership fees to a corporate affiliate program and will serve as advisors to the projects and management.
The project plans for virtual corporations in the areas of transportation, medical information systems, communications infrastructure, and "intelligent" energy efficient buildings. The student participants will develop their skills in such corporate needs as teamwork, design, communication, writing, management, finance, and global awareness.
The first project will be the design of a hospital database and telemedicine system for Montgomery Regional Hospital, operated by Columbia Healthcare Systems, manager of more than 300 hospitals in the nation.
Virginia Tech's engineering and business undergraduate programs were ranked among the nation's top 50 in U.S. News and World Report's annual "Best Colleges" issue.
The magazine also ranked Virginia Tech 46th among universities across the country in the "best values" category.
The Department of Architecture is one of the largest in the country and ranks in the top three in terms of funded research.
Virginia Tech joined a short list of universities that produced both a 1996 Rhodes Scholar and a 1996 Nobel Prize winner among its alumni. The other schools are: Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, and Princeton.
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