Developments at Virginia Tech
The official Tumblr of Virginia Tech's Office of University Development, located at the Gateway Center on the corner of University City Blvd., and Prices Fork Rd., in Blacksburg, Va.
This website is maintained by the Development Communications team headed by Albert Raboteau, Gary Cope, and Chuck George.
Richard T. Crowder, professor of agricultural and applied economics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech, was recently named the C.G. Thornhill Professor of Agricultural Trade by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.
The C.G. Thornhill Professorship was created in 2012 by C. Gordon Thornhill Jr., who earned his bachelor’s degree in animal science from Virginia Tech in 1975.
The endowment is intended to help strengthen the curriculum in agricultural trade and to help prepare students for the challenges of participating in an expanding world agricultural market. Recipients hold the professorship for a period of five years.
Learn more about the new C.G. Thornhill Professor of Agricultural Trade and Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Construction on the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech is nearing completion. The new, state-of-the-art building will play a critical role in Virginia Tech Arts, the university’s strategic commitment to increase the presence and practice of the arts on campus.
Generous support from people like Nicholas and Fay Street of Bristol and William C. “Jack” and Sandra Davis of Blacksburg, for whom the new performance hall within the Center for the Arts is named, and alumnus David Barnes and his wife Jennifer, who felt strongly about supporting the arts, have helped make the new world-class facility a reality.
Click on the photo to learn more about Virginia Tech Arts and to see photos of the construction progress on the Center for the Arts.
(Photo caption: This picture of the exterior of the Center for the Arts by Mike Diersing was created using high-dynamic range (HDR) imaging. See a slideshow of other HDR images from the building at the Center for the Arts’ blog.)
Reco Charity is set to become the first member of his family to graduate from college. He’s already been accepted to Howard University to attend law school, and aspires to become a judge.
Charity has overcome a great deal in his life to get where he is today and he credits Virginia Tech’s Presidential Scholarship Initiative program for helping him achieve his goals.
Click on the photo to learn more about his story, the Presidential Scholarship Initiative, and see a video interview with the soon-to-be Virginia Tech graduate.
Look who stopped by the student calling center last week on reading day!
Even as they prepared for final exams, our student callers were hard at work reaching out to alumni, parents, their fellow students, and friends of Virginia Tech to share with them the importance of investing in higher education.
We’re not sure how many calls the HokieBird was actually able to make because, as any Hokie knows, the HokieBird doesn’t talk.
Thanks for stopping by, HokieBird!
The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech will offer a dynamic range of programming – from timeless classics and family-friendly offerings, to works with deep meaning and global themes, to events with a fresh and sometimes unexpected perspective – for its inaugural 2013-14 season in the new arts center.
Season subscriptions are on sale now for the lineup of 21 performances by international, national and regional touring performing artists and companies.
Virginia Tech recently named the performance hall within its Center for the Arts in honor of two couples – Nicholas and Fay Street of Bristol and William C. “Jack” and Sandra Davis of Blacksburg – in recognition of their philanthropic support of the center’s construction.
Click on the image above to learn more and see the complete 2013-14 schedule.
(Photo Caption: The Center for the Arts 2013-14 season will feature international and national touring artists, including composer Philip Glass, who will open the inaugural season with the Philip Glass Ensemble on Nov. 1, 2013.)
Good luck on final exams, Hokies!
Good day from a snowy Virginia Tech campus! While driving through the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center this morning on the way to work, we took a photo of this sculpture. You’ve probably seen it; it sits directly across from the Virginia Tech Airport. But do you know what it is?
The sculpture, titled “Pallets Move The World,” weighs five tons and is dedicated to those who have had a very important impact through research and development on the wood pallet.
The late E. George Stern, a world-renowned wood construction professor that set international standards for construction, is among those honored by the sculpture.
As the Earle B. Norris Research Professor Emeritus of Wood Construction in Virginia Tech’s Department of Wood Science and Forest Products, Stern became the first director of the Pallet Research Laboratory in 1976.
Stern was fondly called “Mr. Nail” because he spent a lifetime researching, testing, and improving more than a thousand fasteners. He also wrote the dictionary definition for “nail,” as it refers to a fastener used in wood.
Click on the photo to learn more about the sculpture. Click here to read more about Virginia Tech’s Department of Sustainable Bio Materials.
What would you do for a free T-shirt?
Virginia Tech’s Health Education and Awareness Team’s (HEAT) Tobacco-Free Hokies Campaign will give out more than 1,000 “Tobacco-Free Hokie” T-shirts during the 2012-13 school year to Virginia Tech students and middle school students from the surrounding community who pledge to stay tobacco-free.
Annie Loyd, pictured above, is a junior at Virginia Tech and a member of HEAT. She and her fellow HEAT members visit local middle schools and talk with students about the dangers of tobacco products. The students are thoroughly engaged in the hands-on presentations, but it’s the T-shirts that help get their attention.
This public health outreach program is possible, in part, thanks to a grant from Pfizer, whose Vice President of External Medical Communications Stuart Sowder said:
“We at Pfizer are proud to support a wide variety of initiatives aimed at improving people’s health by helping them quit smoking or avoid starting.”
Click on the photo above to learn more about the HEAT program.
Virginia Tech has renamed the headquarters building of its Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) in honor of Hugh and Ethel Kelly in recognition of his pioneering work in telecommunications and her extraordinary philanthropic support.
What is now the Hugh and Ethel Kelly building opened in 2009 and is on Stanger Street.
The institute, which is known by its initials ICTAS, supports and promotes cutting edge research at the intersection of engineering, the sciences (physical, life, and social), and the humanities.
Click on the photo above to learn more about the renaming.
