Summer's news events recapped
By Netta S. SmithSpectrum Volume 18 Issue 01 - August 24, 1995
The campus was quiet this summer, with construction and repaving of the road around the Drillfield the main exceptions to the university's day-to-day activities. For those of you who missed out on Spectrum this summer, we offer the following summary of the news.
Construction Disrupts Traffic, Parking
Construction has begun on the new engineering building, which is expected to be completed in two years. The parking areas adjacent to Whittemore Hall, which contain 290 spaces, have been closed.
Other adjustments to the parking patterns also have been made. The south-center parking quadrant in the large commuter lot between Prices Fork Road and Perry Street ("B" Lot) has been changed from a faculty/staff parking area to a commuter-student parking lot.
The southeast parking quadrant in the large commuter lot north of Whittemore has been changed from a commuter-student parking area to a faculty/staff lot.
Eighty-nine additional faculty/staff parking spaces are being added east of Stanger Street below the power house, adjacent to the parking lot already in that area.
A total of 66 faculty/staff spaces were lost due to the construction. At the end of the two-year construction phase, 115 faculty/staff spaces will be returned to service.
No loss of commuter-student parking spaces is planned at this time.
Traffic around the Drillfield was disrupted for several weeks earlier this month while the road was repaved. Plans announced earlier to change parking patterns around the Drillfield were not implemented, and the ares was returned to its original state after paving.
Improvement of drainage and paving between Randolph Hall and the Norris/Holden complex also was completed earlier this month.
Scholarships Attract Large Freshman Class
The university has implemented three new scholarship programs to increase out-of-state enrollment and to attract more high-caliber students to Virginia Tech.
As of August, 4,767 of the 11,540 students offered admission to the university had accepted. That's nearly 600 more than the average freshman class of 4,200. Even more notable, 1,273 of those who have accepted admission offers are out-of-state students, who pay a higher portion of the cost of their Virginia Tech education than do in-state students.
The new scholarship programs are designed for 400 outstanding out-of-state students and range from $2,000 to $3,100. An Emerging Leader Scholarship Program targets ROTC members who already receive federal scholarships that cover tuition and fees.
The Corps has enrolled its largest incoming freshman class in several years, with 239 new cadets.
Research Support Increases
Sponsored research at Virginia Tech increased 9.4 percent in the last fiscal year--from $84.4 million to $92.7 million.
Funding from industrial sponsors is up 16 percent, and federal funds are up 10 percent. More than 3,500 research projects are currently under way at the university.
Last year, sponsored research paid for $3.5 million in new equipment used by the entire university. Research programs also support curriculum development, instruction, and outreach.
Research at Virginia Tech ranges from projects focusing on cancer cures or crop-pest elimination to systems designed to evaluate the efficiency of energy systems or to investigate the dynamics of forest ecosystems.
In addition to sponsored funding received by university faculty members, the Waste Policy Institute, a not-for-profit corporation affiliated with Virginia Tech, was awarded a six-year, $49-million contract by the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
Vet Med, CALS Collaborate
Students interested in pursuing a career in food-animal veterinary medicine can earn a B.S. from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a D.V.M. degree from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in a combined seven-year joint degree program.
Students complete prerequisites for the VMRCVM during their first two years of undergraduate school, then apply for admission to the Veterinary College. Once admitted, they complete the course content of the first year of the veterinary-medicine program as the third and fourth year of their bachelor of science in agriculture program. Subject to continued satisfactory performance, they are then guaranteed admission to the Veterinary College as second-year veterinary students.
Up to five veterinary class slots per year s have been earmarked for the new program. Students enrolling in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences during fall 1995 are eligible to apply for admission to the program.
Engineering Grad Programs Tops
The graduate programs of seven out of 10 departments in the Virginia Tech College of Engineering were ranked among the top 25 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report in its survey of graduate schools in a survey conducted last year.
The industrial and manufacturing engineering program at Tech was ranked tenth nationwide, followed by agricultural engineering at twelfth; environmental engineering, ranked 13th; aerospace and ocean engineering, ranked 14th; civil engineering, ranked 19th; mechanical engineering, ranked 22nd; and electrical engineering, ranked 23rd.