A non-profit publication of the Office of the University Relations of Virginia Tech,
including The Conductor, a special section of the Spectrum printed 4 times a year

ACHIEVERS
Senior Vice President and Provost Peggy S. Meszaros recently received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. The award is the highest honor given by the AAFCS. It was presented at the association's annual meeting in June.
J. Thomas Brown, associate dean of students; Joyce Rolen, fiscal technician senior of the Student Organization Accounting Office in University Unions and Student Activities; Lisa Boothe, recruiting assistant in Career Services; and Darlene Grega, director of the Cranwell International Center, recently received the Division of Student Affairs Vice Presidential Distinguished Service Awards for 1997-98.
The Division of Continuing Education received the prestigious "1998 Innovations in Continuing Education Award" from the University Continuing Education Association at the association's annual conference earlier this year. The award was received for the "Northern Virginia Initiative on Continuing Education," completed by Linda G. Leffel, Shannon Gwaltney, Mark Schaefermeyer, and Jyl Smithson-Riehl.
Edward Spencer and Thomas Duetsch, Residential and Dining Programs, presented "Riding the World Wide Web into the 21st Century: Is Your Program Sinking or Swimming?" at the recent annual conference of the Southeastern Association of Housing Officers in Savannah, Georgia. The presentation received the "Best of the Conference" award and as a result, was presented at the annual conference of the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International in July.
Jenny Golding, Venture Out coordinator for University Unions and Student Activities, recently had an article titled "Elk in the New River Valley" published in the May/June issue of New River Outdoors.
Virginia Tech's Wellness Environment for Living and Learning (WELL) program was selected to be included in a report by a national task force on the learning benefits of collaboration between academic and student affairs commissioned by the American Association of Higher Education, the American College Personnel Association, and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. The WELL is a substance-free living environment designed to promote and support the overall wellness of its residents. Lynne Sponaugle, assistant director of residence education; and Edward Spencer, assistant vice president for student affairs and director of residential and dining programs, attended a national conference where the results of the task force were presented.
Earving L. Blythe, vice president for information systems and Anne H. Moore, manager of information-technology initiatives, recently presented a luncheon address titled "Distanceless Education: Mapping the Technology Terrain" at the SCHEV Distance Learning Conference.
Ron Daniel, Dianna Benton, Greg Kroll, and John Husser, recently attended and presented at a conference at Wake Forest University. Ten universities participated in the conference titled "Computers for All: A Best Practices Conference." Topics included benefits of a computer requirement, financing technology, integrating technology into the curriculum, faculty development, hardware/software preferences, network infrastructure, and student perspectives.
Richard E. Sorensen, dean of the Pamplin College of Business, reported on tourism recommendations from the Commission on the Future of Southwest Virginia at the Ninth District Tourism Summit held on September 8. The conference, at the Virginia Highlands Community College in Abingdon, was sponsored by Congressman Rick Boucher in cooperation with the Virginia Tourism Corporation and Virginia's Southwest Blue Ridge Highlands Inc. Sorensen was appointed by Boucher in 1995 to chair the commission's tourism subcommittee. Sorensen is also the founding president and director of Virginia's Southwest Blue Ridge Highlands Inc., a regional tourism-promotion organization that represents the 9th District and Patrick County.
Management science and information-technology faculty members have been appointed to offices in national and regional professional associations: Terry Rakes--1998 president of the Decision Sciences Institute; Lance Matheson--program chair, 1999 Southeast Decision Sciences Institute Meeting, Savannah, Ga.; Roberta Russell Tillar--program chair, 1999 Production and Operations Management Society Meeting, Charleston, S.C.; and Cliff Ragsdale--1998 secretary, Southeast Decision Sciences Institute.
Ruth Smith, associate professor of marketing, gave a presentation, "Internet-Based Instruction in a Principles of Marketing Course," that was judged to be one of the three best talks at the Technological Innovations in Business Education Conference in Charlottesville this spring. The judges were representatives from Price Waterhouse and faculty members at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce. Lance Matheson, associate professor of management science and information technology, and David Tegarden, assistant professor of accounting and information systems, gave a joint presentation on "Technological Enhancements to Instruction in Business" at the same conference.
Garth Wilkes, the Fred W. Bull professor of chemical engineering, and Ph.D. student Christopher Robertson have been selected to receive the Netzsch Instruments Frank Giblin Memorial Award in Polymer Analysis. The $1,000 fellowship was awarded for a paper they presented during the Society of Plastics Engineers Annual Technology Conference (SPE ANTEC) '98. The paper was judged best at the conference. The award, sponsored by Netzsch Instruments, will be presented during SPE ANTEC '99 in New York City.
Mechanical engineering professor Wing Ng has been invited to serve as technical program chair for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Turbo Expo 1999 Conference, the premier gas turbine engine conference in the world. During Turbo Expo 1998 in Stockholm, Sweden, more than 600 technical papers were presented to 6,000 participants. The 1999 conference will be held in Indianapolis.