Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (1892–1896) Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute (1896–1944) Virginia Polytechnic Institute (1944–1970) Campus Size 2,600 acres (11 km2; 4.1 sq mi) Colors Chicago Maroon and Burnt Orange Athletics NCAA Division I, ACC, 21 varsity teams Nickname Hokies Mascot HokieBird Website www.vt.edu Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, popularly known as Virginia Tech (VT), is a land-grant university in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States.[2] Founded in 1872 as an agricultural and mechanical land-grant college, Virginia Tech is a research university with the largest full-time student population in Virginia and one of the few public universities in the United States that maintains a corps of cadets. The main Virginia Tech campus is located in the New River Valley in the valley and ridge physi! ographic region of the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, a few miles from the Jefferson National Forest in Montgomery County . Contents 1 History 2 Academics 3 Rankings 4 Campus 5 Athletics 5.1 Virginia Tech baseball 5.2 Virginia Tech basketball (men's) 5.3 Virginia Tech basketball (women's) 5.4 Virginia Tech football 5.5 Virginia Tech soccer (men's) 5.6 Virginia Tech soccer (women's) 5.7 Virginia Tech softball 5.8 Fight song 6 Corps of Cadets 7 Affiliated institutions 7.1 Domestic affiliations 7.1.1 Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine 7.1.2 School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences 7.1.3 Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine 7.1.4 Virginia Bioinformatics Institute 7.1.5 Virginia Tech Commonwealth Campus Centers 7.2 International Affiliations 7.2.1 Virginia Tech Center for European Studies and Architecture 7.2.2 Virginia Tech Middle East and North Africa Program 7.2.3 Caribbean Center for Education and Resear! ch 7.3 Non educational affiliations 7.3.1 Hotel Roanoke and Co! nference Center 7.3.2 Virginia Tech Foundation 8 Alumni 9 Research computing 10 See also 11 References 12 External links [edit] History Virginia Tech's Burruss Hall. In 1872, the Virginia General Assembly purchased the facilities of Preston and Olin Institute, a small Methodist school in rural Montgomery County with federal funds provided by the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act. The Commonwealth incorporated a new institution on that site, a state-supported land grant military institute called the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College.[3] Under the 1891–1907 presidency of John M. McBryde, the school organized its academic programs into a traditional four-year college. The evolution of the school's programs led to an 1896 name change to Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute. The "Agricultural and Mechanical College" portion of the name was popularly omitted almost immediately, and the name was officially changed to Virginia Polytechni! c Institute in 1944. During those years, there was a short-lived merger with Radford College which at the time was a women's college. In 1923, VPI changed a policy of four-year compulsory participation in the Corps of Cadets to two years. In 1931, VPI began teaching classes at the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary.[4] This program eventually developed into a two-year engineering program after which students could transfer to VPI for their third and fourth year. VPI President T. Marshall Hahn, whose tenure ran from 1962 to 1974,[5] was responsible for many of the successes that have shaped the modern institution of Virginia Tech. His presidential agenda involved transitioning the school into a major research university. To achieve this, the student body was increased by roughly 1,000 additional students per year, new dormitories and academic buildings were constructed, faculty were added (In 1966, for instance, the faculty added over 100 new professors) and! research budgets were increased.[6] During the Hahn Presidency the Uni! versity saw its first Rhodes Scholar in W.W. Lewis, class of 1963.[7] Hahn also ended the affiliation with Radford University, dropped the two-year Corps training requirement for its male students and allowed women to join the Corps. Virginia Tech was the first school in the nation to open its corps of cadets to women. One of Hahn's more controversial missions was only partially achieved. He had visions of renaming the school from VPI to Virginia State University, reflecting the status it had achieved as a full-fledged research university. As part of this move, VPI would have taken over control of the state's other land-grant institution, a historically black college in Ettrick, Virginia, south of Richmond, then called Virginia State College. This plan failed to take root, and as a compromise, VPI added "and State University" to its name in 1970, yielding the current formal name of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In the late 1970s, the shorthand name "V! irginia Tech" was adopted as the proper identification of the university's athletic teams over the acronym "V.P.I." and the media were requested to use "Virginia Tech" in their reporting of sport scores. In the early 1990s, the school authorized the official use of Virginia Tech as equivalent to the full VPI&SU name. Many school documents today use the shorter name, though diplomas and transcripts still spell out the formal name. Similarly, the abbreviation VT is far more common today than VPI or VPI&SU, and appears everywhere, from athletic uniforms, to the university's Internet domain name vt.edu. In 2007, the school and campus received international attention as the site of the Virginia Tech massacre, which was the deadliest peacetime shooting incident by a single gunman in United States history, on or off of a school campus. [edit] Academics Virginia Tech presidents Charles Minor 1872–1880 John Lee Buchanan March 1, 1880–August 12, 1880 Scott Shipp August 12! , 1880–August 25, 1880 John Lee Buchanan May 1881–1882 Thomas Nelso! n Conrad 1882–1886 Lunsford Lindsay Lomax 1886–1891 John McLaren McBryde 1891–1907 Paul Brandon Barringer 1907–1913 Joseph Dupuy Eggleston 1913–1919 Julian Ashby Burruss 1919–1945 John Redd Hutcheson 1945–1947 Walter Stephenson Newman 1947–1962 T. Marshall Hahn 1962–1974 William Edward Lavery 1975–1987 James Douglas McComas 1987–1993 Paul Torgersen 1993–2000 Charles W. Steger 2000–present Virginia Tech offers about 65 bachelor's degree programs through its seven undergraduate academic colleges, 145 master's and doctoral degree programs through the graduate school, and a professional degree from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. In addition, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute, a private, independent school jointly managed by the university and Carilion Health System, opened in fall 2010. The undergraduate academic colleges and schools are as follows: College of Agriculture and Life Scien! ces College of Architecture and Urban Studies College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Pamplin College of Business College of Engineering College of Natural Resources and Environment College of Science Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Admission to study at Virginia Tech has become increasingly selective. For incoming freshman in the fall of 2010, undergraduate applications to the school totaled over 20,000 for a targeted incoming class size of 5,000 students. Among accepted students, the average GPA was 3.96 and SAT was 1250.[8] Admission into many graduate programs is also highly competitive. The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine received over 2,300 applications for an incoming class size of 43.[9] In addition to its academic colleges, Virginia Tech also has a university-wide honors program known as University Honors. University Honors provides accepted honors students eleven different ways to ear! n honors credits towards one of the six honors degree options. A small ! percentage of University Honors students are also invited to live in one of the two honors houses, the Hillcrest Honors Community and the Main Campbell Honors Community. Honors students are required to maintain a 3.5 GPA in order to remain in the program. Virginia Tech also features a unique laboratory with hundreds of computers in nearby off campus leased space which housed a discount store at one time. Opened in 1997, this Math Emporium is used by 8,000 students in large enrollment math course from a variety of majors each semester. 11 Math courses have been redesigned to take advantage of the facility. Results have been improved Math performance in students and reduced costs for staffing and space.[10][11] On January 3, 2007 Virginia Tech along with Carilion Health System announced the creation of a new private medical school and research institute that would be a joint venture between the two organizations. The first medical school class began classes in August 2010, an! d the first wave of scientists were recruited to the research institute in September 2010. The first medical school class has 42 students, making it a very small medical school. The VTC School of Medicine and Research Institute is located in Roanoke next to the Carilion Health System hospital. [edit] Rankings University rankings (overall) USNWR National University[12] 69 In the U.S. News & World Report's 「Best Colleges 2011」, Virginia Tech ranked 69th among national universities and 30th among national public universities.[13] In a more recent report, the Virginia Tech College of Engineering undergraduate program was ranked 13th in the nation (tied with Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison) among all accredited engineering schools that offer