ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 20, 1996 TAG: 9604230047
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY
Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen announced another way Friday for the university to connect with the community.
A new universitywide advisory council that will include faculty members, Virginia Tech alumni and business professionals will meet for the first time this fall to exchange information about programs within the university's eight colleges, Torgersen said during his Founder's Day speech.
The new council will serve as a "keystone" for the 33 individual advisory boards that already exist in all of Tech's colleges and many of its departments, Torgersen said, by providing communication among them.
These advisory boards, formed during the last decade, consist of alumni and potential employers of Tech graduates who provide feedback on degree programs, curricula and other areas. For example, the College of Architecture and Urban Studies' advisory board helped develop a center in Alexandria, where students could go for a semester and study architecture in the Washington, D.C., area, Torgersen said.
By having a representative from some of these separate advisory boards meet, programs such as this can be shared, he added.
"We'll all go home knowing a lot more about what's going on in the university," Torgersen said.
Each college dean will be asked to appoint at least one representative from each college committee - and possibly some departments - for the council's first meeting in the fall. After that initial meeting, Torgersen said the council will decide how long and often it will meet.
"This is more of a sounding board than an administrative layer," he said.
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