"Virtual groundbreaking" brings building to life

Some 30 members of the Virginia General Assembly joined university officials and alumni leaders from around the country in Donaldson Brown Auditorium Sept. 13 to watch as the new Advanced Communications and Information Technology Center (ACITC) emerged from the Mall after a bone-jarring explosion.

Attendees with their eyes on the large screen were able to drive down the Mall, go under bridge connecting the ACITC with Newman Library, and fly around the new building for a 360-degree aerial view. Simulations also allowed participants to walk inside the building to tour classrooms and research space.

The "virtual groundbreaking" ceremony was one of the highlights of Virginia Tech's 125th anniversary September 12-13. State Sen. John Chichester (business administration '59) of Fredericksburg presided over the groundbreaking. The $25-million building, Virginia Tech's 150,000-square-foot bridge to the future, will be the center for new forms of teaching and learning. Faculty will study human/computer interactions and teach students in virtual-reality rooms.

Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen was able to secure $12.5 million in funding for the building from the General Assembly, and an additional $12.5 million was raised from private sources.

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Class of 2001 scores highest ever

Tech's entering class has the highest SAT scores in the university's history. Average scores for the Class of 2001 were 15 points higher than those for last year's first-year students.

The average combined SAT score for the Class of 2001 is 1167. The average high school GPA was 3.5 on a 4.0 scale. Applications for admission to Tech this academic year hit an all-time high at 17,200, pushing admissions standards to a new high.

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First-year students required to have computers in 1998

Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen has announced a plan to require all incoming students to own a personal computer beginning in the fall 1998 semester.

"We believe that it is essential that every Virginia Tech graduate be computer literate. It needs to be just like reading and writing -- part of one's very nature," Torgersen says.

Virginia Tech will be one of the first major public universities to require computer ownership of all students. Currently, about 11,000 of the more than 20,000 Virginia Tech undergraduates are required to own computers sometime during their college career. The Pamplin College of Business, the College of Engineering, and the departments of statistics and computer science require ownership upon entering college. The College of Architecture and Urban Studies requires computer ownership by the junior year.

University officials estimate that about 80 percent of students now arrive with computers.

More than 300 Virginia Tech courses have some component of web based or computer based instruction and an increasing number are exclusively web based. Some students are able to continue studies over the summer from their homes.

The university will set platform and software standards. Recommended packages are likely to cost $1,500-$3,000. Students with financial need can include computer costs in financial aid formulas. Personal computers will continue to be available in university computer labs, but these facilities are expected to shift from preparatory training to more specialized applications.

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Tech policy targets unproductive profs

Tenured professors at Virginia Tech whose work is repeatedly judged unsatisfactory will face tough sanctions, including dismissal, or suspension without pay, the board of visitors decided in August. Faculty would be reviewed by a panel of faculty and administrators.

The move completes Tech's post-tenure review policy. Colleges across the country are adopting similar post-tenure reviews to deflect public criticism -- unwarranted, some academicians say -- that the tenure system unfairly guarantees the jobs of professors whether or not they perform adequately. In 1996, the General Assembly made faculty raises at Virginia's public colleges contingent on the state's approval of schools' post-tenure review policies.

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Torgersen to add minority affairs VP

The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors approved on Nov. 10 Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen's decision to name a vice president to deal with minority affairs and campus diversity issues, such as the recruitment of black faculty and students. A national search began immediately.

The decision came a month after a student sent a racist e-mail to members of a campus service fraternity and several weeks after the revelation that an alumnus for whom a building is named may have been a leader in the Ku Klux Klan in the late 19th century.

"It saddens me that there are those who think it is either humorous or acceptable to send a blatantly racist e-mail or to yell obscene names at other students or to engage in blatant cruelty," Torgersen said in a campus forum. "We are not doing enough to combat racism, and we are not doing enough to address the issues that lie at the heart of working and living in a diverse community."

About 4.5 percent of Tech's students are black; only 2 percent of the faculty are black.

Torgersen said a committee is investigating whether former students Claudius Lee and O. M. Stull belonged to the KKK. Lee, who went on to teach electrical engineering at Tech for 50 years before he died in 1962, had a residence hall named in his honor in 1968. He was listed in Tech's 1896 yearbook as the "Father of Terror," founding leader of the campus Klan. Stull, who is credited with penning the "Hoki Hy" yell that led to the school's nickname, is listed in the Bugle as Lee's "Right Hand of Terror."

Some campus historians suggest the Bugle reference could have been a joke. "A very bad joke," said Torgersen, who appointed the investigation committee.

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New Engineering Building opens for business

Residents have moved into the new engineering building, located beside Whittemore Hall. The first occupants were the Center for Intelligent Materials Science and Structures and the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group. The Environmental Engineering Division and much of the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department (ISE) are in the process of moving into the building, which also will house several laboratories and faculty members from the electrical and mechanical engineering departments.

The new building adds 71,260 square feet of much-needed space for research and instruction in the College of Engineering and significantly reduces the college's space deficit, as determined by criteria set by the Virginia State Council for Higher Education. Much of the funding for the building was provided by a higher education bond referendum passed by Virginia voters in 1992.

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Miller named distinguished mycologist

Orson K. Miller Jr., professor of botany and curator of fungi at Virginia Tech, has been named the Distinguished Mycologist of 1997 by the Mycological Society of America.

The award is given annually to an individual whose made outstanding contributions in research and service to the MSA. Miller was described as "the best known figure in American mycology on an international basis." His 1972 book, Mushrooms of North America, has probably done more to promote interest in mushrooms than any other book in American publishing history," according to the society.

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Team's aircraft design wins third place

VenTure, an amphibious sport utility aircraft designed by a team of 30 undergraduates from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering, took third place in the 1997 General Aviation Design Competition. The contest is sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration.

VenTure is designed to land on water and taxi onto land. It can also land on a standard runway through a hydraulic retraction landing system. The VenTure has yet to be built, but the team of aerospace, mechanical, and industrial systems engineering students has tested a model in a wind tunnel.

The students shared a $1,000 cash reward. The team's faculty advisor was James Marchman of the aerospace and ocean engineering department.

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Corporate Research Center building named for Moss '50

Virginia Tech named an office building at the university's Corporate Research Center for Thomas W. Moss Jr. (building construction '50) and 52nd speaker of the House of Delegates on Sept. 13.

The Thomas W. Moss Jr. Research Building honors the long-time supporter of higher education in Virginia. Moss was first elected to the House of Delegates in 1966 from the 88th District in Norfolk. Moss was elected majority leader in 1980 and speaker of the House in 1991.

Moss has served on the board of directors of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association and is a former president of the Tidewater alumni chapter. He is also a member of the Ut Prosim Society, through which the university recognizes major donors. He has endowed a professorship and a leadership scholarship.

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Judaic Studies Program endowed

The Malcolm and Diane Rosenberg Endowed Program in Judaic Studies has been established at Virginia Tech with a gift of $250,000 from the Rosenbergs, who live in Roanoke.

The program becomes one of Virginia's first comprehensive programs dedicated solely to Judaic studies, according to acting director David Barzilai. The program is designed to meet the area's need for an institute of learning and scholarship in the various aspects of Judaic studies. It will allow Virginia Tech students to obtain a substantial familiarity with the Jewish heritage and culture, either as a minor or as elective courses.

For the past three years, Barzilai has taught courses on the Holocaust, on the Jewish heritage and culture, and on the politics and history of Israel. He will continue to sponsor spiritual, cultural, and intellectual events, such as a recent lecture on "Auschwitz: A Survivor's Story" and a performance by the Audubon Quartet and friends of music, poetry, and stories from the concentration camps.

A lecture series in Judaic studies began in September. A student exchange program with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem is scheduled to begin in next summer.

About 700 of Tech's almost 25,000 students identify themselves as Jewish, as do about 100 faculty members.

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CNBC spotlights student investors' success

Wall Street pros have nothing on a group of Virginia Tech student investors. The successes of Tech's Student-managed Endowment for Educational Development (SEED) was featured in a CNBC television story in September.

In 1994, the Virginia Tech Foundation allowed SEED to invest $1 million. The investments proved so successful that the foundation gave the organization another million to manage in 1996. SEED now boasts a portfolio worth $3 million, showing a $1-million gain since the initial investments.

SEED is Tech's No. 1 equity manager, in terms of growth. Membership in the group is competitive, and business majors comprise the majority of students in the investment team.

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Tech offers certified financial planner exam

Virginia Tech undergraduates in housing, interior design, and resource management may now take the certified financial planner (CFP) exam. Tech has become the only undergraduate degree program in Virginia to offer CFP registration and one of only 29 nationwide.

In evaluating Tech's fitness for the designation, the CFP Board of Standards compared the university's program with a model curriculum requiring mastery of 106 financial planning related topics. Among the topics are financial planning process, investment theory and strategies, tax computations, government plans, and the CFP Board's code of ethics and professional responsibility.

Introduced in 1972, the CFP designation has become the most trusted financial planning credential among consumers.

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Current events conversations down

Tech students are talking less about current events, international issues, and class topics than they were three years ago, according to the College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ).

The CSEQ is administered by Tech's academic assessment program every three years to gauge how students spend their time. Many colleges and universities throughout the nation use the questionnaire.

Students indicated that they talk with other students about current events 49 percent of the time (a 14-percent drop), while conversations on international relations comprise 16 percent of their talk time (an 11-percent drop), class topics 42 percent (a 13-percent drop), and social and ethical issues related to science and technology 26 percent of the time (an 11-percent drop).

Student conversations about current events, international relations, and the economy are lower than national norms for other research universities. Two responses were significantly higher, however. Conversations about computers and scientific principles were up to 48 percent (an 11-percent increase) and 43 percent (a 7-percent increase), respectively.

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English class holds Depression-era fish fry

"Hot fish! Good hot fish!" was the cry heard in the parks of cities in the Depression as people tried to make a living selling the fish they'd caught. Now Nikki Giovanni's Harlem Renaissance class at Virginia Tech welcomed students to campus with "the Saturday Night Fish Fry on Thursday Afternoon."

The fish fry was always on Saturday night during the Depression, says Giovanni, who holds the Gloria D. Smith Professorship in Black Studies and is a professor of English. People all over the country would fish all week and fry them up on Saturday nights. Fish sandwiches cost 25 cents, which is what the flounder on white bread cost Tech students on the Drillfield Sept. 25. As a special treat, food operations manager Aldora Green made hoe cakes, a sort of hush puppy, to go with the fish.

The Harlem Renaissance class discusses Depression-era fish fries, and money from the Gloria D. Smith Professorship allowed them to offer the sandwiches at Depression prices.

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Math gets NSF grant to reform mathematics education in schools

The Virginia Tech Department of Mathematics has been awarded a five-year, $744,985 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant on "Systemic Reform of Mathematics 6-12 for Rural Virginia."

Professors Wayne Patty and Harold Mick are the principal investigators, and the public school divisions of Buckingham County, Craig County, Montgomery County, Nottoway County, and the City of Roanoke are the partners with Virginia Tech. The grant provides each of the 174 participating teachers professional development built around nationally developed, modern NSF-funded instructional material that is to replace traditional textbooks.

The project's major objective is to provide all the mathematics teachers with the background and resources to achieve whole-school reform in mathematics through the implementation of a mathematically integrated, standards-based, student-oriented curriculum. Such a curriculum is based on problem solving by the students themselves with the teacher as facilitator. Computers, graphics calculators, and other modern instruments will be an integral part of the problem solving.

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Instructor's novel read on Canada's NPR

Canada's national public radio, CBC Radio, broadcast a dramatic reading of Simone Poirier-Bures's novel Candyman in September. Poirier-Bures teaches English at Virginia Tech. Her novel, set in the 1950s in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is the story of the coming of age of a young woman in a French Acadian family.

Poirier-Bures' fiction and prose have been published in numerous literary journals and in five anthologies; she is also the author of That Shining Place, a memoir.

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Tech boosts K-12 technology literacy

A $250,000 grant from Bell Atlantic Foundation is supporting the K-12 technology initiatives of Tech's Institute for Connecting Science Research to the Classroom.

The institute is a collaboration of projects with the university's seven colleges to apply research to education and to foster awareness of science, technology, and engineering career options among public-school children. It assists teachers in developing technology curricula within Virginia's 135 school districts.

Through the institute, public-school teachers have direct access to Tech research in science, mathematics, and teaching technologies. The institute's web site is located at www.g3.net/institute/.

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