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2012–2013 Issue

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Our world-changing land-grant heritageAs you read about Virginia Tech’s impact on the lives of citizens of Virginia and the world, I invite you to join us in celebrating the 150-year anniversary of the visionary legislation of Sen. Justin Morrill that created the opportunity for the founding of Virginia Tech (Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical Institute) in 1872 as part of a network of land-grant universities in every state. Morrill’s big idea, championed by Abraham Lincoln, was to create a system of land-grant universities dedicated to improving the lives of people through more accessible higher education and applying basic research to the needs of society for increased food production and economic development. This legislation ignited an American

“Educational Revolution.”

In Outreach and International Affairs we take Virginia Tech’s land-grant mission seriously, and this magazine reflects our division’s pointed mission statement:

“to share the best of Virginia Tech by working side by side with communities throughout the world.” You’ll enjoy meeting some of those doing the sharing: Katy Powell (page 9), giving voice to displaced peoples in Sri Lanka; graduate students helping towns in southern Virginia infuse their rail trails with economic heft (page 18); volunteers throughout the commonwealth offering labor without which Extension services would wither (page 10).

Jean Elliott’s story on Sister Petronella (page 8) shows how the university can add value in surprising ways. The Franciscan-order nun came to the Blacksburg cam-pus to receive two weeks of training before returning to Zambia with her forward-thinking garden project.

Research is also central to the land-grant mission. You’ll find research outlined in “Virginia Tech’s big Arlington footprint” (page 6). The university’s new building layout and design discourages silos. That means researchers from different disci-plines talk with each other, whether they’re involved in national security or gene expression.

In our contest to determine the cover photo, we loved the joy and energy and movement expressed in the colorful dancer captured in Brazil by Jana Davis Pearl, a 2005 alum (she holds a bachelor’s degree in urban planning). She now lives in Sao Paulo. In her photography, she works “to expose the latent raw emotion and individuality that lies in every freeze of the frame,” she writes.

The stories of Virginia Tech’s faculty and students in Outreach NOW provide rich testimony to the infinite power of the promise of the Morrill Act. My hope is that you are able to see that the core missions of the land-grant university, envisioned 150 years ago, have matured and are thriving at Virginia Tech as our faculty and

students reach out and engage new chal-lenges to advance the common good in our interconnected world.

Interim Vice President for Outreach and International Affairs

Editor Andrea Brunais

Art Director Tiffany Pruden

Graphic DesignersRobin Dowdy, Sarah Vernon ’13

Copy Editor Richard Lovegrove

Contributing Writers

PhotographersAndrea Brunais, Jean Elliott, Dave Elmore, Kayla Hastrup, John McCormick, Sue Ott Rowlands, Lesley Pendleton, Katy Powell, Merle Shepard, Jim Stroup, Kelcey Thurman, Anne Wernikoff

Publishers Jerry Niles Vice President Outreach and International Affairs

Larry Hincker Associate Vice President University Relations

Publications Director Melissa Richards

Financial Director Jane Swan

Website Manager Holly Carroll

Editorial Board

Outreach NOW is an annual publication of Outreach and International Affairs and is produced by University Relations, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061.

Periodical postage paid at Blacksburg, Va. Copyright © 2012Postmaster: If undeliverable, please send form 3579 to Outreach and International Affairs, 702 University City Boulevard, Blacksburg, VA 24060. Do not return publication.Address changes and circulation inquiries should be mailed to Liz Crumbley, 702 University City Boulevard, Blacksburg, VA 24060.Editorial inquiries, permission to reproduce any material, letters to the editor, and other comments should be mailed to Editor, Outreach Now, 702 University City Boulevard, Blacksburg, VA 24060 or sent by email to andreab1@vt.edu.

www.outreach.vt.eduVirginia Tech does not discriminate against employees, students, or applicants for admission or employment on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, national origin, religion, or political affiliation. Anyone having questions concerning discrimination should contact the Office for Equity and Access.

Whitney JohnsonHeidi Anne MesmerBarbara MicaleMiriam RichMelissa SmithKelcey ThurmanDenise Young

Andrea BrunaisDana CruikshankLiz CrumbleyYen DinhJean ElliottLori GreinerChris HorneKayla Hastrup

Outreach NOW 2012

Dave NutterPatrick O’BrienMiriam RichSusan ShortLois StephensJulie Walters-Steele

Don Back Andrea BrunaisScott FarmerChris HorneGary Kirk

OUTREACH

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2creating next-gen scientists and engineersvirginia tech’s commitment to SteM is mind-bogglingly comprehensive.

5cool jobs, warm-hearted workersconstruction tradespeople and others nail people skills.

6 ramping up in arlingtonvirginia tech’s new building anchors alumni-rich greater d.c. area.

8Planting seed with Sister Petronellavisionary nun delivers babies and makes gardens grow.

9displacement narrativesKaty Powell studies ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

10extension’s army of volunteers Master Gardeners and others keep vital projects alive.

12vISta workers fan outvt engage employs a clever strategy to make things happen in the New river valley.

14 where are they now?Former upward Bound kids have some surprising jobs.

18tales of rail trailsGrad students carry out economic-development studies.

19roanoke’s virginia tech ties university helps jumpstart city’s progress.

22 Short takesFour stories from the virginia tech community show impact on people’s lives.

24Photo contest finalistsour cover contest netted some awesome runners-up.

25Student photosStudents document their travels around the globe.

26 News & NumbersQuail rescue and more

30commonwealth campus centersNews from abingdon, critz, hampton roads, richmond, and roanoke.

32contactsoutreach and International affairs

On the cover: Jana Davis Pearl (urban planning ’05) took this photograph at Carnival in Rio de Janeiro in 2011. Jana, now a landscape architect and photographer in Sao Paulo, Brazil, says, “Playing witness to this unforgettable Brazilian celebration is something everyone should enjoy at least once!”

Use your mobile device to visit www.outreach.vt.edu/now

c o n t e n t s

COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND LIFE SCIENCES AND VIRGINIA COOPERATIVE EXTENSION

• Through its 4-H youth leadership develop-ment program, Virginia Cooperative Exten-

sion offers Virginia’s youth a number of learning opportunities, including such subjects as animal and plant sciences, earth and space science, nanoscience, robotics, GPS, digital media, and engineering.

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

• In Chemical Engineering Reactions, hands-on chemistry demonstrations intended to interest students in chemistry and chemical

engineering are conducted in a wet chemistry lab in Hancock Hall for students ages 12-17.

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND HUMAN SCIENCES

• The Virtual Jamestown Archive is a digital research, teaching, and learning project that explores the legacies of the Jamestown settlement and “the Virginia experiment.”

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS

• The MCPS/VT FIRST Robotics collaborative involves three high school teachers, approximately 25 high school students, the School of Education, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The project focuses on developing engineering skills and aptitudes through relevant applications.

As the commonwealth’s leading research university, Virginia Tech consistently provides the discovery, learning, and engagement

activities vital to its land-grant role. No surprise, then, that the university whose tagline is “Invent the Future” leads

outreach in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education with the aim of

creating an educated citizenry and tomorrow’s leaders.

The STEM commitment stretches across the university and all levels of education. Below is a short list of Tech’s many STEM

efforts:

Rooted

in

Denise Young, assistant editor of Virginia Tech Magazine, compiled this list.

Outreach NOW 2o u t r e a c hNOW More content, including video,

at www.outreach.vt.edu/now

COLLEGE OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

• Project Learning Tree is engineered to help educators weave the environment into their everyday lesson plans. All activities are field-tested by teachers, reviewed by experts, and correlated to the Virginia Standards of Learning.

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE

• The Da Vinci living-learning community offers an interactive learning environment designed to help biological and life sciences students succeed in first-year science courses. This community is part of a larger community called inVenTs, which will in-clude two freshman engineering communities and two science communities. A similar community called Curie is open to students majoring in the physical and quantitative sciences.

FRALIN LIFE SCIENCE INSTITUTE

• The Caging the Blob: Studying Slime Mold Behavior kit enables students to get a firsthand glimpse of the intelligent behavior and survival tactics of living organisms — in this case, slime mold. Participants build a maze with logos and pour oats contain-ing slime mold in one section of the maze, allowing the mold to completely colonize. Then, the oat flakes are taken from the mold and placed on the other side of the maze. Students observe the path that the mold takes to reach the flake.

GRADUATE SCHOOL

• Karen DePauw, vice president and dean for graduate education, received a grant from the Division of Human Resources of the National Science Foun-dation. The grant will help DePauw and her colleagues develop a model for preparing future faculty from underrepresented groups for doctoral degrees in STEM disciplines. DePauw and her colleagues from the Virginia Council of Graduate Schools have established the Virginia Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate to facilitate development of a statewide network.

INSTITUTE FOR CREATIVITY, ARTS, AND TECHNOLOGY

• Created to examine the intersection of art and technology and the role of creativ-ity in innovation, the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology serves up a number of STEM-related projects. Take, for example, a recent endeavor in which the IDEAStudio partnered with the SEEDS Blacksburg Nature Center for a teachers’ workshop. Participants explored how to combine science education with the arts and creativity and developed lesson materials for their classrooms.

VIRGINIA BIOINFORMATICS INSTITUTE (VBI)

• In September 2011, VBI faculty hosted a free educator workshop called “C2S2: Climate Change,” based on the ANDRILL (ANtarctic geologi-

cal DRILLing research project) funded through a partnership with VBI, 4-H, ANDRILL and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Virginia Tech helps science museum reinvent itself

The Science Museum of Western Virginia must live a few more months in temporary quarters at the Tanglewood Mall before returning to downtown Roanoke, but that hasn’t stopped the museum from moving forward with its Virginia Tech partner-ship. The 40-year-old museum’s board mem-bers approached Virginia Tech to help with a plan to become more aggres-sive about promoting science literacy.

“The museum’s staff and Virginia Tech faculty and students are col-laborating to reinvent the museum as a living laboratory for informal science education,” says Sam English, the board’s chair. “Programs and events that stimulate curiosity and encour-age exploration” are key, he says. “By partnering with Virginia Tech, the museum hopes to inspire future generations to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The partnership has been wonderful so far.”

Virginia Tech helps fund the museum’s execu-tive director position.

“We were able to at-tract a higher caliber of applicants because of the university-museum partnership,” English says. Jim Rollings, a vet-eran of Heifer Village in Arkansas and the NASA Langley Visitor Center, was hired in late 2011.

— Andrea Brunais

Outreach NOW 3

continued on page 4For a more comprehensive list of STEM-related programs at Virginia Tech, visit the online version of this article.

The commonwealth’s secretary of education is now among the thousands who have experienced the ef-fective learning techniques aboard the STEM Mobile Learning Lab. The STEM Lab is an outreach tool for the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville.

The lab rolled into Richmond in February during the General Assembly session. Cabinet members, legisla-tors, and their staffs were able to experience the teach-ing resources first hand. Education Secretary Laura Fornash was impressed.

“It was great to see the STEM Mobile Learning Lab while it was in Richmond during the legislative session. The lab is a vital outreach tool to bring exciting science-based curriculum through hands-on experiments and exhibits to students in Southside Virginia,” she says.

Established two years ago, the lab, with its distinctive outside wrapping, visits schools and shows up at pub-

lic events. The equipment aboard illustrates the effec-tiveness of renewable and sustainable energy sources and other concepts related to science, technology, en-gineering, and math. Visitors learn by experimenting with solar power, wind power, and robotics. Fornash used a hand crank to power two different light bulbs — one an old-style incandescent, the other a newer CFL bulb — and saw how the CFL bulb required less en-ergy. The lab also carries high-resolution microscopes and can be used as a mobile computer lab with wi-fi access to both PC and Mac laptops.

Since spring 2010, educators have employed the lab to deliver more than 300 educational programs to more than 13,000 visitors. “Students and teachers in the re-gion are fortunate to have the lab in the region to help augment classroom instruction,” Fornash says. In Jan-uary, President Barack Obama’s chief science advisor, John Holdren, toured the lab.

— Chris Horne

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Virginia’s top educator explores institute’s rolling classroom

Donna Augustine – a passion for STEM

There are those who are passionate about their work, and then there’s Donna Augus-tine. Augustine is the director of the Youth Science Cooperative Outreach Agreement, a multiyear U.S. Army Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) outreach initiative headquartered at Virginia Tech. The child of two high school math teachers, Augustine’s passion for math and science started early and stayed with her during her undergraduate years at M.I.T. and through her early years as a doctoral student in Virginia Tech’s science and technology studies program. As she pursued her degree, she found her calling — helping young people, especially those from underrepresented groups, become interested in STEM. For her dissertation, she is examining the broken STEM pipeline at the point of precollegiate access programs. Professionally, she served as director of the Science & Technology Entry Program for five years at Monroe Community College (MCC) in Rochester, N.Y., and was the interim coordinator for the Center for Service Learning at MCC. She frequently refers to her current role as her “dream opportunity” to continue to spread the word about STEM. Under the five-year, $60 million grant, Augustine will be leading the U.S. Army’s assessment efforts for its STEM outreach programs across the country.

— Dana Cruikshank

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By Andrea Brunais

‘Wow! It is important to open myself up and smile a little bit and create an engagement with another human being’ — and they’ve never even thought of that before!”

When a participant asks, “Is it pos-sible to be too disgustingly positive?” Darnell suggests that rather than turn into Mary Poppins overnight, “Dial it up just a little.”

“Harnessing Innovation” is the name of the conference, and Darnell is quick to make the connection: “We are so afraid of making mistakes in this industry and taking risks that we have lost our ability to innovate.”

After cheering on participants doing variations of “the wave” across the room, Darnell tells the group, “As adults we are so afraid to look silly. Kids are not afraid of that, and they are innovative and creative.”

The conference grew from the CRE-ATES grant (Construction, Retrofit-

The U.S. Department of Labor un-derwrites training for workers in the green construction industry to meet anticipated demands for skilled labor. The conference provided training and brought stakeholders together.

Why it Matters

Green building is all about nailing shut and sealing tight and lighting right and retrofitting. Green build-ing is also about “soft skills” that can inspire likeability and trust.

Friendly relationships are key to influencing consumers to adopt green products and processes, says author and consultant Brent Darnell, a veteran of the construction industry.

“It’s about changing the minds and the hearts of the people you’re trying to sell all this new innovation to.”

That’s why he spent a morning leading group exercises in firm handshakes, warm tones of voice, and open body language.

“It’s not our best thing, as an industry,” Darnell says of emotional intelligence. He finds the audience of architects, engineers, and construction workers receptive at a two-day, industry-focused conference in Roanoke. Afterward, he says, “When they learn that, it’s like,

Participant Stephen Reese chats with speaker Brent Darnell. (far right) Patrick O’Brien with participant Amazetta Anderson during soft skills training. When Darnell asks for feedback, she says, “It’s a little strange. I wasn’t expecting to immediately start studying myself.”

When All You Have Is a Hammer,

Shake Hands

ting, and Energy-Efficient Assessment Training and Employment Systems), which pays for job training. Grant partners include the Virginia Tech Office of Economic Development, the Christiansburg-based nonprofit Com-munity Housing Partners, and the region’s local workforce development boards and community colleges.

Faculty member Andrew McCoy, who teaches in the Myers-Lawson School of Construction, was instrumental in planning the conference. At first he worried whether soft-skills training would fly. But the gamble paid off.

“When you tell people in the architec-ture, engineering, and construction industries, ‘Hey, we want you to come and talk about emotions and emo-tional skills,’ you wonder if they really want to show up — and they did,” he says. “It was really lively.”

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A crowd of more than 60 people from the greater Wash-ington, D.C., science and technology community

gathered in February at the Virginia Tech Research Cen-ter — Arlington for the inaugural lecture of the Leaders in Science and Technology Seminar Series. At the same time, more than 250 miles away in Blacksburg, graduate students and faculty also assembled to watch the live broadcast.

The speaker was internationally known Ben Shneiderman, founding director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory.

Virginia Tech’sArlington footprint By Andrea Brunais and Barbara Micale

“The popularity of the new seminar series symbolizes what we’re trying to accomplish here,” says Don Leo, vice presi-dent and executive director for National Capital Region Operations. “Arlington’s proximity to legislators, the National Science Foundation, other leading federal research agencies, and foreign embassies is helping Virginia Tech reach out to the community and create collaborations.”

Ten Virginia Tech institutes and centers share space in the seven-story, LEED-certified green building that opened in

BIG

Photos by Jim Stroup

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June 2011, creating what Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger describes, metaphorically, as a “nucleus for discov-ery.”

Offices are arranged so that researchers mingle, whether they’re working for the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute or the College of Science. “The center is unique in that we didn’t assign space around silos,” Leo says. This type of open atmosphere is designed to command recognition in the greater Washington, D.C., area. “We want to engage in ways that highlight the research strengths of our faculty and graduate students.”

The Hume Center is a case in point. Part of the College of Engineering, with support from the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, it focuses on developing future leaders for the U.S. federal government. Charles Clancy, director, says, “Our goal is to lead the country in holistically developing the elite science and technology human capital for the intelligence community.” Faculty and students will address the national security community’s critical needs.

The Hume Center will work with L-3 Communications, which moved more than 50 people to the Arlington center. Both parties will benefit from the collaboration. Virginia Tech students can look forward to L-3 internships and faculty to endowed fellowships. Virginia Tech and L-3 will also jointly apply for grants and carry out research.

Arlington-based research gives Virginia Tech’s graduate students the opportunity to work with such professors as Clancy and Yue “Joseph” Wang, the Grant A. Dove Profes-sor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Computational Bioinformatics and Bio-imaging Laboratory.

Wang describes the sort of research students might tackle: “Our research has evolved from comprehensive characteriza-

tion of gene and protein expression patterns to the compu-tational theory of systems biology and to advanced imaging and image analysis. We are striving for scientific discoveries while pursuing engineering innovations for the molecular analysis of human diseases.”

Virginia Tech research in the greater Washington, D.C., area extends beyond Arlington to centers in Falls Church and Alexandria. Water research is conducted in Manassas and equine research in Leesburg and Middleburg.

The strategic location of the 144,000-square-foot Arlington center makes it attractive to many nearby organizations. Demand is already high for the second-floor conference area known as the VT Executive Briefing Center — Arlington. Continuing and Professional Education, a unit of Outreach and International Affairs, manages the meeting space.

In addition to the Leaders in Science and Technology Seminar Series, the center has hosted various groups, including the univer-sity’s board of visitors, British Embassy repre-sentatives, an interna-tional meeting of the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manu-

facturing, and alumni business groups, such as VT-IDEA (Intelligence and Defense Executive Alumni).

“My goal is to have the center reflect the strengths of research throughout the region and have it connected to all of Virginia Tech, regardless of where a particular building, faculty, or student is physically located,” Leo says.

A view of the Arlington conference rooms with National Capital Region Operations Vice President and Executive Director Don Leo

“Our goal is to lead the country in holistically developing the elite science and technology human capital for the intelligence community.”

– Charles Clancey

Photos by Jim Stroup

Virginia Tech research institutes and centers with a major presence in Arlington:

• Advanced Research Institute• Arlington Innovation Center: Health Research • Center for Geospatial Information Technology• Center for Technology, Security, and Policy• Computational Bioinformatics and Bio-imaging

Laboratory

• Institute for Science, Culture, and Environment• Hume Center• Institute for Critical Technology and Applied

Science• Virginia Bioinformatics Institute • Virginia Tech Applied Research Corporation

By Jean Elliott

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One garden straddled a hillside, hand-cultivated by a pair of beaming HIV-positive women. At another village, children gleefully greeted the Sister, hiked beside her and proudly showed off their own patch along the banks of a river, aptly placed adjacent to the volunteers’ plot.

Abraham is 5 months old and his mother is HIV positive. In Zambia, mothers traditionally nurse their babies for two years, which means Abraham’s mother faces a daunting decision. If she stops breastfeeding, she risks being ostracized because her fellow villagers will realize her medical condition. If she continues to breastfeed, she risks the life of her child. Excruciating choice.

The Fellows, including Sister Petronella, all participated in two weeks of training at Virginia Tech to learn about best practices in public health. That was followed by an immer-sion experience alongside an American colleague in a com-munity health setting. The Fellows then developed their own action plans.

Of the 14 projects undertaken in 2011, the lives of some 138,380 Zambians and 6,800 Malawians were touched, according to Redican and Kelly. Perhaps even more grati-fying than the numbers, Sister Petronella’s gardens appear to be sustainable.

Cherub-cheeked Sister Petronella Mwila coos softly to babies and delivers about 56 of them each month at St. Kalemba Mission Hospital, the hub of 10 remote villages in northwest Zambia not far from the Congo border.

The Franciscan-order nun is the keeper of secrets. As a nurse, she knows who tests HIV-positive. As coordinator of volunteers, she makes sure the aforementioned participate in caregiving throughout the thatched-hut communities, assuring them of status and, in a stroke of genius, a better diet.

Thanks to a grant administered by Virginia Tech and a small stipend of $300, Sister Petronella developed a proposal to improve the nutrition of her clients in these impoverished areas where a bowl of corn porridge is consid-ered a good meal for the day. With the help of her network of volunteers, she deftly set her idea into motion. Her plan? Seeds.

Maize is a common crop in much of southern Africa. Large gardens are not.

In each of the 10 outposts, however, women and children (mostly orphans) cleared land, weaved elaborate stick fences, and dug furrows by hand. Water was carried from rivers and bore holes.

The seeds flourished in gardens on hilly land dotted with fire-ant mounds and marshy meadows.

Gardeners reaped cabbage, tomatoes, eggplants, and beets. Some even managed cash crops with sales underwriting school supplies and basic needs. One particularly enterpris-ing village parlayed initial seed money into a thrifty cassava and greens business. That, in turn, launched a venture into animal husbandry with the purchase of two piglets and two goats, which multiplied during five months, becoming a healthy herd of 14.

Sister Petronella was one of 28 people from Zambia and Malawi named a Global Health Fellow with grant sponsor-ship from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educa-tion and Cultural Affairs. Virginia Tech’s Patricia Kelly, professor in the School of Education, and Kerry Redican, professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, collaborated on the project.

Photos by Jean Elliott

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with undergrads and graduate students (as well as faculty from other disciplines) and studying displacement and identity in a post-conflict environment, her specialty. She started out in the field by studying families in the moun-tains of Virginia who were displaced by the creation of the Shenandoah National Park. She does ethnographic and oral history research, taking a multidimensional approach to looking at the social aspects of displacement and identity.

In Sri Lanka, ethnic conflict between the Tamil and the Sinhalese has created displacement. Minority Tamils left neighborhoods of the capital city of Colombo, where fight-ing was intense, for safer parts of the country. Many fled to the north and east.

Young Sri Lankans who have lived through this conflict have been great resources for Powell. She interviewed sev-eral at the Sri Palee Campus of the University of Colombo, where theater professor Ann Kilkelly conducted a theater workshop. Kilkelly had everyone line up and sculpt each other’s bodies to represent a particular issue in their society.

“One of the students moved my hands and head into par-ticular positions so that my body represented the concept of peace,” Powell says.

“She meticulously moved my fingers so that they had just the right curve to them to mimic those of a goddess of peace. I was quite moved by her diligence in getting the fingers right. As I stood in the line of sculpted bodies, I was overwhelmed at the students’ enthusiasm in participating in

[Kilkelly’s] workshop and this particular student’s commitment to making my body reflect exactly the con-cept and emotion she desired. That was my first day in Sri Lanka, and that day I knew I wanted to work with the students again.”

By Miriam Rich

The tropical island nation of Sri Lanka is a place of contra-dictions. It is the Buddhist country with the longest con-tinuous history of Buddhism as well as the seat of a large service organization devoted to promoting peace. And yet it is also a country with a history of searing conflict between two rival ethnic groups.

So the South Asian nation is a compelling place for Katy Powell, associate professor of English at Virginia Tech,

whose expertise is in studying displacement narratives, to conduct research.

Powell first went to Sri Lanka in summer 2011 as part of a team of Virginia Tech professors who are looking at ways to collaborate with Sri Lankan universities and

organizations.

What Powell found was a serendipitous conver-gence of interests from her life. She was working

(above) Katy Powell studies displacement of people, and finds time to visit with elephants, in Sri Lanka. (below) University of Colombo students attend Powell’s workshop, Private Memories, Public Impact: A Workshop in Life Histories in Sri Lanka in June 2012: Gayani Jayasekera, Ruwini Kodippilia, Ruth Surenthiraraj, Arasi Viekneaswaran, and Nirmani Jayaweera.

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Linda King knows that it takes a village — a village of volunteers, that is. King, a 4-H youth agent in Prince William County, relies on more than 640 volunteers

to help her reach upward of 38,000 children with Exten-sion’s 4-H youth programming.

Adria Bordas manages more than 400 Master Gardener volunteers in Fairfax County. Some of her programs are run totally by volunteers.

Volunteers serve as 4-H club leaders, give gardening advice, provide cooking demonstrations, assist with after-school programs, and teach financial literacy. Volunteers are essen-tial to Virginia Cooperative Extension’s mission of helping people put scientific knowledge to work to improve their lives.

One reason Bordas can rely on volunteers to assist with pro-gramming is the extensive train-ing Extension provides.

Initially, Master Gardener vol-unteers must complete 50 hours of training and contribute 50 volunteer hours before they earn the title. Annually, they must

complete eight hours of continu-ing education and work 20 volun-

teer hours.

“They have a thirst for knowledge. They go out of their way to seek more

education,” Bordas says. “The volunteers feel like the classes we provide for them are

something that they would not get any-where else.”

Master Gardener George Graine, of Falls Church, Va., has spent more than 25 years

seeking and sharing knowledge. “It gives me a great sense of enjoyment helping others as well as learning skills and knowledge for my own benefit,” Graine says. He volunteers at plant clinics (where people bring their plants for diag-nosis) and helps identify topics and speakers to develop advanced Master Gardener training.

Master Gardener and six-year volunteer Elaine Homstad values Extension’s emphasis on research-based informa-tion. “We show people how to find information that they can rely on. Being associated with Virginia Tech and having research-based information available is important to the union of Master Gardeners and Extension.”

The successful Master Gardener volunteer model now ap-plies to other Extension programs covering such topics as

‘They are the face of the community’

By Lori Greiner

Master Food volunteers undergo 30 hours of training over the

course of four weeks. They learn about basic nutrition, meal planning, cooking techniques, food safety, and how to work with diverse audiences.

finances and health and the newest offering: the Master Food Volunteer Program.

The resurgence of home canning and food preservation, plus the need to promote healthy lifestyles, provides the opportu-nity to train volunteers to help agents with programs on nutri-tion, food safety, cooking, and physical activity.

“These folks have a real interest in helping others,” says Me-lissa Chase, state coordinator for the Master Food Volunteer Program. “They enjoy sharing knowledge and seeing the change in behavior. It motivates the volunteers when they can see the impact of their hard work.”

For others it’s about giving back.

Sandy Arnold, a fourth-generation 4-Her, knows firsthand what a difference volunteers can make on a child’s life. “4-H really formed my life and was a huge influence,” Arnold says. “For me as a kid, I remember focusing on a project outside of school. It was a very afford-able way to get involved in a horse project. I got so much out of it. So many adults inspired me.”

Arnold is now the horse project leader for the Nokesville 4-H Club, where she is inspiring a new generation. While teaching kids about horses, she also helps them build good character and leadership skills.

The 4-H members incorporate a community service activity into every club meeting. Through projects like creating Christmas cards for a local homeless shelter and assembling care packages for the homebound, 4-Hers learn about their community and the needs of others. “I want to teach my kids about giving, and 4-H is an avenue to teach those skills,” Arnold says.

“Our volunteers are incredibly good at their jobs, whether it is fundraising, educating, or simply caring,” King says. “They are the face of the community.”

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How Extension’s volunteers make a differenceVirginia Cooperative Extension serves all 95 counties and 12 independent cities in Virginia with varying levels of program-ming support. “Volunteers are the back-bone of these activities,” says Director Ed Jones. “We could not conduct many of our programs without them.”

King, the agent in Prince William County, offers 4-H in 80 schools and supports more than 30 clubs and camps. “If 4-H relied solely on paid staff, we’d reach only 1 percent of the number of children with our Extension programs.”

In Fairfax County, Bordas says, “Volun-teers really build capacity within our pro-grams.”

Over the years, Extension has had to weather some severe revenue cuts of its own. In the past six years, its budget declined by more than $10 million. Exten-sion was facing additional budget cuts in 2010 when its volunteers and supporters let the Virginia General Assembly know that enough was enough.

Jones credits Extension’s volunteers for their support and advocacy to help get some of the funding restored to hire addi-tional agents in the field. “Volunteers can communicate to additional stakeholders and funders that we cannot reach with our staff.”

Master Gardener Elaine Homstad says the value of volunteerism in a depressed economy can’t be overlooked. “We can’t depend on government to provide every-thing. So often it is the volunteer organiza-tions that fill in the gap. The public-private partnership makes the whole community thrive.”

“These folks have a real interest in helping others.”

– Melissa Chase

In addition to providing gardening advice and educational programming, many Master Gardener volunteers help maintain the public gardens within their communities.

Part of an Honors Residential College work team, Erica Bennett decorates windows at the Narrows Head Start Center on VT Engage’s MLK Day of Service.

Building strong community partnerships and increasing civic-engagement opportunities for students are two important missions for VT Engage: The Community Learning Collabora-tive (formerly the Center for Student Engage-ment and Community Partnerships). The work at VT Engage has brought something new to the university: AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) workers. Here is a look at three organizations that have benefitted from the work of VT Engage’s VISTA members.

The many interestsof VT Engage By Kayla Hastrup

Making life brighter for Head Start toddlers

On a Saturday morning in January, Virginia Tech students arrived at Head Starts across the New River Val-ley to brighten the walls and windows of the centers. VT Engage’s annual event, MLK Daycare Facelift, exposes hundreds of students to the need for programs like Head Start that serve low-income families in the New River Val-ley. The annual one-day service project inspired VT En-gage to develop a long-term commitment between Head Start and Virginia Tech’s Honors Residential College.

Creating a university-Head Start alliance, the VT Engage staff sought a rich community learning experience that reflected the program’s core values of service, personal growth, and intellectual development. Working with rural Head Start centers promised benefits to both community and college students, whose ongoing relationship with the Head Start children has deepened their awareness of culture and poverty.

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Inevitably, the Virginia Tech students wonder if their efforts can make a difference in the Head Start centers. Do the stu-dents’ visits open the children to new possibilities? A parent confirms this. Her child had wanted to be a superhero when he grew up, she says. Now he wants to be a teacher.

Because the Honors Residential College model has worked so successfully, VT Engage’s VISTA members are now working to connect campus clubs and organizations with the Head Start centers.

R e ad a l o u d ,

Jim Kline, a retired shop teacher from Floyd HighSchool, is a bike kitchen volunteer.

Alexis Bressler, left (maroon shirt, green vest) is the VISTA worker assigned to work on school and community gardening projects with Plenty!

Eat, play, mulch

For many residents in Floyd County, a typi-cal Wednesday lunch is not fresh, local, or free. Since the creation of the PlentyGood! Free Lunch project, a new program from the hunger relief agency Plenty!, the community comes together for conversation and a lively feast.

Plenty! serves Floyd County by distributing food, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, to com-munity members in need. With the help of VT Engage, the organization has been able to create a website, coordinate a community garden, and start school gardens at two elementary schools.

“The school gardens help children know where their food comes from and teaches them how to grow food,” says group co-founder Karen Day.

“They also provide opportunities for the children to taste veggies so they will want to eat more.”

The community garden also serves an educational purpose as well as helping would-be gardeners who need land, tools, advice, or seeds and seedlings. “We believe these growing projects help people to reduce hunger by growing their own food,” Day says.

On Wednesdays, community members leave the lunch with full bellies and local, potted herbs to grow at home.

Freewheeling volunteers set up bike kitchen

For the 19 percent of the population living below the pov-erty line in the New River Valley, transportation can be a challenge. The NRV Bike Kitchen may provide solutions.

The bike kitchen — a project of VT Engage, the New River Valley Bicycle Association, and Christiansburg — operates out of the town’s recreation center.

Much like a soup kitchen, the bike kitchen offers free or reduced-price bicycles. For $25, qualified recipients will be given a refurbished bike, a helmet, a headlight, a taillight, and a bike lock. People can also receive the items free by volunteering.

Bike kitchens are catching on around the country because they promote self-sufficiency while providing green trans-portation. Although the NRV Bike Kitchen is still getting off the ground, volunteers work out of tents at weekly “fix fests” to restore donated bikes.

Contributions from community partners and individuals are expected to underwrite the bike kitchen. Current needs: more volunteers and money.

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by Denise Young

Even high school students whose parents attended col-lege can find the higher-education process overwhelming. There are campus visits, admissions essays, financial-aid applications, and award letters — not to mention learning what to expect once arriving, from living with a room-mate to choosing a major to navigating campus.To keep such problems from seeming insurmountable, Upward Bound and Tal-ent Search acts as an experienced guide.

Many first-generation college students simply can’t picture themselves in the uni-versity environment, says Latanya Walker, who recently left the Upward Bound program for another job at Virginia Tech after 13 years. “My mom had gone to college, so the vocabulary in my house was college, college, college. That doesn’t necessarily happen in a home where the parents don’t have experience in college. Even if they want their child to go, they might not know how to get them there. Some parents support their students, but they might not know how to support their efforts at going to college.”

Upward Bound/Talent Search Director Kimberly Andrews agrees. “These pro-grams help make students more well-rounded — to succeed not only at the in-stitution they’re going to, but in the world, because they’ve seen something more than their hometown.” Visits to the theater or opera, tours of college campuses, and six-week camps that expose students to the college environment — even courses on financial literacy — heighten the odds that students will arrive on campus eager and ready to succeed.

There’s no shortage of success stories to prove that the efforts of center staff are paying off, making a big difference in countless lives. Turn the page for stories of three Upward Bound participants now in the midst of amazing careers made possible, in part, by their experiences in the program.

One studied law. One loves HR woRk.

One pursued the news biz. all three credit the same impetus:

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A nontraditional pathChristina Brogdon knows firsthand how difficult life as a first-generation college student can be. When Brogdon, hailing from a small town, arrived on the Virginia Tech campus as an incoming freshman in summer 1988, her father dropped her off with $20 in her pocket. Brogdon wasn’t prepared. “I didn’t know you had to buy your own books,” she recalls. “I don’t know how in the world we thought I’d survive with $20!”

For Brogdon, college life was rocky, and she eventually left. But the encouragement she received — and continued to receive over the years — from the Upward Bound team helped her return to school. During her time out of school, she worked in retail. After she became interested in human resource management, her career took flight. And at age 30, she was well on her way to a job in a corporate office, but she felt unfulfilled without that college degree. “Not having it was a thorn in my side,” she says. She returned to Virginia Tech in 2004, finishing her bachelor’s degree, then completing an M.B.A. Today, she works as the director of human resources for Bluefield State College and plans to pursue a doctorate.

“The Upward Bound program is a big part of why I am where I am,” Brogdon says. “It helped motivate me to finish college.”

Brogdon wasn’t the only one in her family to benefit from Upward Bound. “The program actually helped whole fami-lies,” she says, referring to her siblings. “Out of the seven of us, five of us were in the program. I’d like to think part of the reason the last two didn’t need it was because Upward Bound helped the first five of us. They didn’t have the chal-lenges we did because we were able to help them. I’d like to think the program had a lot to do with that.”

Christina Brogdon

Helping small businesses thriveIt was a long journey from Lebanon to Pearisburg, Va., where Rob Masri grew up in an apartment over the family restaurant. He learned work ethic and customer service from his father; all four Masri children worked in the res-taurant, vacuuming floors, busing tables, or taking orders.

“When my father first opened that restaurant in Pearisburg, he had a family meeting and said, ‘Every customer who walks in needs to be treated like part of our family.’ That restaurant lasted for 29 years. His mindset was that, if the same 40 or 50 families didn’t come back every week, the restaurant wouldn’t have made it. Those passionate, loyal customers, getting to know those people and bringing them back, is the key to business success.”

Masri would take his father’s words to heart. After earning a law degree from the University of Virginia, Masri practiced law and worked for a tech company, eventually working at the university’s law school. In 2009, he founded Cardagin, a Charlottesville, Va.-based business designed to help small business owners understand their frequent customers and reward their loyalty through smartphone technology.

He met Tom Wilson, former Upward Bound and Talent Search director, when Wilson visited Masri’s high school.

“When you’re young and your parents don’t have college experience themselves, the only thing you can turn to is other people who’ve gone to college or what you’ve seen on television,” Masri says. “Being there for six weeks in the summers, that was life-changing. You saw how college students live, learn that sort of independence that you can only learn from personal experience.”

Of the help he received, Masri says, “You carry that grati-tude with you throughout your life regardless of where your professional career goes.”

Rob Masri

“It helped motivate me to finish college.”

“Being there for six weeks in the summers, that was life-changing.”

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From the sidelines to the newsroomFor Greg Carter, one of the more important parts of his Up-ward Bound experience was the introductions to people who would inspire him to succeed academically and professionally.

He fondly recalls his first meeting with former Upward Bound Director Tom Wilson. “He was one of the first people outside of my family who really showed a strong interest in me doing well in school, and he had just met me,” Carter says. “I came from a low-income, single-parent household, the oldest of three. I had thoughts of playing ball but didn’t think I was good enough to get a scholarship. He was the first to sit me down and make me think I had options, and the program allowed me to see that even further.”

Through Upward Bound, Carter met his mentor, Walter Lundy, then a sports writer for the Preston Journal. Lundy

— now a grants management specialist in the District of Columbia — would take Carter to games, watching the Hokies play in places such as Washington, D.C., even going to Atlantic City to see Bimbo Coles play a one-on-one game in Trump Plaza. “He remembered that there was someone who reached out to him and took him under their wing and exposed him to life outside of his town, and he did that for me,” Carter says of his mentor.

Those experiences helped Carter find his career path. Today, he is content manager and evening news anchor for WVVA in Bluefield, W.Va.

During Carter’s high school years, Upward Bound, includ-ing trips to college campuses and a spring trip to the nation’s capital, made all the difference. “I spent three summers on campus, and it just launched me into another world. I wrote an article several years ago saying, ‘My life began with Upward Bound. It really took off at that moment.’”

Greg Carter

“My life began with Upward

Bound. It really took off at that

moment.”

“These programs

help make students

more well-rounded — to succeed not

only at the institution

they’re going to, but in

the world, because

they’ve seen something

more than their

hometown.”Upward Bound/Talent Search

Director Kimberly Andrews

When marketing a region’s recreational assets, economic

developers love to talk about trails. But can the economic worth of the trails be proven and, more important, improved? Students taking a key graduate course — the Economic Development Studio @ Virginia Tech

— were handed that task by their professor, John Provo, director of the Office of Economic Development.

Trails advocates wish to make con-vincing arguments to potential funders, says Link Elmore of the Virginia Creeper Trail Club, one of the studio’s two clients. (The other is the New River Trail State Park.) The message: “We have an asset that needs to be taken care of and that their financial support will really make a difference in our community.”

Nine graduate students, most of them majoring in regional and urban planning, undertook the study. Sarah Lyon-Hill described their initial trepidation: “We had no idea about the topic or even how to conduct an economic impact study on a trail. However, we learned quickly that we were no longer in a classroom setting. We were given a problem, and now we had to figure it out.”

Southwest Virginia’s Trails Put Students On Success Track

By Andrea Brunais and Kelcey Thurman

For students specializing in economic develop-ment, the studio acts as a training ground, helping them to gain real-world experience. In the course of preparing their report, the students traveled to Damascus and Galax in Southwest Virginia to talk with community members, business owners, and trail users. The region is dotted with bike shops and tourist-related businesses inspired by the trails.

The trails, now devoted to hikers and bikers, were once railroad lines. The Virginia Creeper is 34 miles long, running from Whitetop through Damascus to Abingdon. The New River Trail State Park is significantly larger: 765 acres or 57 miles. It starts in Galax and runs north through Carroll, Grayson, Pulaski, and Wythe counties.

After much collaboration, some struggling and much hard work, the studio team came up with recommendations centered on community partner-ships, marketing, and capitalizing on existing local resources. The report included specifics, such as recommending that trail officials and advocates promote youth involvement by creating environ-mental-education activities that would attract young families and employ young people or recent college graduates.

“We loved working with this class,” Elmore said. “These are highly motivated grad students. They did a great job.”

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(top) Hikers on the trail(bottom) Master’s students Swetha Kumar and Melissa Zilke in class

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Roanoke, Va., was once a thriving center of commerce, transportation, and culture. A few decades ago, the city began to fade, and eventually sections of the downtown struggled with crime problems and were virtually deserted.

“Roanoke had been cursed with a lack of economic growth for years,” says W. Robert Herbert, city manager in the 1990s and now a Virginia Tech Fellow with the Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement. “The city was working hard to maintain population and tax base.”

Some people may be surprised to learn that an “invisible hand” of sorts helped write the revitalization of Roanoke’s downtown during the past 20 years. Leaders from the city and the university joined to halt the decline and, more importantly, inspire some smart new projects to generate economic growth.

The result can be seen in downtown’s people-friendly busi-ness areas. A short walk across the railroad tracks takes one to the Roanoke Higher Education Center, where Virginia

Tech offers graduate degrees and professional-development courses. The establishment of the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center created jobs and prompted a flood of tax revenues into city coffers. Student- and community-led projects have lifted levels of literacy.

Some background: Roanoke is without a major research university, while Virginia Tech is a situated on a thriving Blacksburg campus without a major airport and with lim-ited commercial or retail services. A city-university marriage seemed inevitable. An opening occurred in 1989 when Norfolk Southern closed its landmark, century-old hotel.

Roanoke Mayor David A. Bowers told the magazine Vir-ginia Town & City: “We faced the prospect of the Hotel Roanoke being bulldozed. That would be like Richmond losing the Capitol or Norfolk losing the bay.”

Fortunately it never came to that. The railroad turned the hotel, known as “The Grand Old Lady,” over to Virginia Tech’s foundation. The foundation carried out a $28 million

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Working to Better a Blighted DowntownBy Andrea Brunais

renovation of the historic structure. The city, for its part, built the conference center, adding 63,000 square feet of meeting space. A joint fundraising effort raised $50 mil-lion and galvanized the community, including people who dropped money into collection boxes downtown. A grand reopening took place in 1995.

Some 300 jobs were created with annual payroll expen-ditures of $8 million; annual supplies and equipment purchases total $7 million, not to mention tens of millions of dollars generated in tax revenues paid to city and state. Nor did spending wane after the reopening; in the past 15 years or so, approximately $19 million has been reinvested in the hotel. Its restoration is also credited with protecting a historic African-American neighborhood.

Virginia Tech committed to more than just Tudor-style bricks and mortar. Programming is also central. Organized in 1994 and based in the hotel, the Center for Organiza-tional and Technological Advancement offers executive

training focused on the environment, K-12 school leadership, and healthcare. From 2004 to 2012, the

center generated $45.5 million in gross sales at the hotel, according to Herbert.

Following the hotel gift, in 1997 Norfolk Southern donated its former headquarters building to the Roanoke Foundation for Downtown Inc. The building would

become the Roanoke Higher Education Center, the second anchor of downtown revitalization efforts.

“These two significant projects involved many collaborators and millions of dollars, marking the start of an engagement strategy that will forever couple Roanoke and Virginia Tech,” says John Dooley, who recently retired as vice presi-dent of Outreach and International Affairs to become CEO of the Virginia Tech Foundation. “Partnering with Roanoke has benefitted Virginia Tech in many ways, including the opportunity to reaffirm our understanding of and commit-ment to what it means to be a great land-grant university in the 21st century.”

Then-Gov. George F. Allen included $9 million for the higher education center in Virginia’s 1997 budget; con-struction was completed in 2000. “Virginia Tech was a leader among the 16 institutions that came together to establish the Roanoke Higher Education Center,” says Thomas L. McKeon, the center’s executive director. “Hav-ing Virginia Tech step up as an early partner was very influ-ential in bringing other institutions into the center, and its participation, leadership, and influence have remained key factors in the ongoing success.”

Another ongoing success is the Coalition for Refugee Resettlement. Each week during the school year, as many as 70 Virginia Tech students travel from Blacksburg to Roanoke to tutor refugees’ children and help their parents with

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(above left to right) The Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center.

Engineering student Banks Persinger, left, with Mona Ardoun, from the Nuba Mountains

region of Sudan, and her daughter Omnia Idris.

Ribbon-cutting at Carilion in May 2011. A child looks longingly through glass-

front at the museum’s temporary headquarters.

(left) Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research

Institute

citizenship preparation. The program came about through a collaboration of the university, the Roanoke Housing Authority, and the Catholic Church’s Refugee and Immi-gration Services. In 2011, two Virginia Tech students who have since graduated — Brittany Gianetti of Oneida, N.Y., and Katherine Lodge of Centreville, Va. — won awards, including the Governor’s Volunteerism and Community Service Award, for their work with the coalition.

Unrelated to the resettlement project but also benefitting a refugee group, VT Earthworks’ Growers Academy, held at the Virginia Tech Roanoke Center, has trained a group of Roanoke’s Somali Bantu. Like other participants signing up for the eight-week course, the Somali Bantu learned not only about soil types and planting practices but also about business planning. After training, the refugees felt confident enough to start their own business, naming it Juba Farm. They have leased a small plot of land at Virginia Tech’s Catawba Sustainability Center, about 20 minutes from Roanoke, where they’ve planted vegetables and flowers to grow for sale.

The Science Museum of Western Virginia is also a project generating excitement over outreach programs made pos-sible when the museum joined forces with Virginia Tech in 2011. The museum’s free Saturday programs connect Virginia Tech undergraduate and graduate students with underserved children. This gives the museum a way to reinvent itself to become a regional hub for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education and gives Virginia Tech students valuable experience. Currently situ-ated in Tanglewood Mall, the 32-year-old museum expects to move back to its downtown digs when Center in the Square renovations are complete.

No examination of the Virginia Tech-Roanoke partnership is complete without mentioning the Virginia Tech Carilion

School of Medicine and Research Institute. Just as the award-winning complex housing two institutions transformed the city’s skyline in 2010, the institutions themselves are bringing innovation to the region. Former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, visiting the school and research institute, celebrated their

“very palpable effect on the Roanoke regional economy.” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., also visiting, noted the

“exciting transformative research.” The institute, with more than $11 million in its annual research portfolio, has al-ready assembled 19 research teams and employs more than 125 people.

The connotation of “town and gown” is not necessarily peaches and cream. Often employed to accent differences, the term’s adversarial nature dates at least to medieval times, when students who gathered in university towns spoke not the local dialect but Latin. According to Wikipedia, crediting The Catholic Encyclopedia, the popes themselves intervened to protect scholars against encroachments by local civil authorities. None of that, of course, pertains to the rewarding relationship that has developed between the city and Virginia Tech who, with the help of the railroad, began the revitalization of Roanoke.

As Herbert describes it, “The fact that Virginia Tech was willing to invest its intellectual and financial assets allowed Roanoke to become more vibrant. University and city working together in a business partnership created a synergy that was greater than the two entities working separately to effect change.”

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“Partnering with Roanoke has benefitted Virginia Tech in many ways, including the oppor-tunity to reaffirm our understanding of and commitment to what it means to be a great land-grant university in the 21st century.”– John Dooley, former vice president of Outreach and International Affairs

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Fighting the bad guys in the insect worldLike a modern-day superhero, virginia

tech researcher Muni Muniappan trav-

els the world fighting bad guys. only in

his case, the bad guys are not human

beings. they are insects.

on one trip to southern India in 2008,

Muniappan discovered the papaya

mealybug infesting papaya in an

orchard at tamil Nadu agricultural

university. Papaya is a huge crop in

southern India; its demise would mean

not just a loss of income for the farm-

ers who cultivate it, but a loss of liveli-

hood as well.

Publicity about the discovery led to

farmer requests for help. Muniappan

steered government officials toward

an antidote — in this case, using the

biological control method of releasing

a special kind of parasitic wasp — and

within five months, thousands of farm-

ers were again able to profitably grow

papaya.

the uSaId-funded program that Muni-

appan directs and that allows him to

research these pests is the Integrated

Pest Management collaborative

research Support Program. Managed

by virginia tech’s office of International

research, education, and development,

the effort has brought in $50 million in

sponsored funding. the program devel-

ops successful pest-control techniques

overseas that could aid when these

invasive pests show up on american

shores.

the program’s work is paying off.

according to agricultural economist

and fellow tech researcher George

Norton, “this one intervention alone —

the release of a parasitoid to control

Short Takes The mission of Outreach and International Affairs is to share the best of VirginiaTech by working side by side with communities throughout the world.

the papaya mealybug in India — has

resulted in such huge benefits that it

pays for the entire research support

program over its lifetime.”

Muniappan is currently working to raise

awareness about another pest: the

cycad scale. he recently discovered

this pest in Indonesia attacking several

endemic species of cycads, ornamental

plants that date back to the Jurassic

era. while the economic loss to the

ornamental plant industry would be

significant, losing an endemic species

would be tragic. “when the endemic

species are gone, they are gone from

the earth,” Muniappan says.

‘Farm fresh’ cooking demosaside from local eggs and freshly

picked peaches and tomatoes, people

have a new reason to pay the Blacks-

burg Farmers Market a visit: local food

prepared onsite. a collaboration of stu-

dents, community members, and two

college of architecture and urban Stud-

ies faculty members led to creation

of a mobile kitchen. the kitchen is set

to be the center of the “chef roulette”

program in which local culinary artists

demonstrate world-class fare.

Ferguson (a local kitchen, bath, and

lighting store) donated a wolf Stove,

and the program became an immedi-

ate hit. But a problem emerged, one

that required a creative solution. “the

stove is 600 pounds, so it’s not very

moveable,” says faculty member

Muni Muniappan examines giant whitefly damage to a chayote leaf in Bogor, Indonesia.

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Continued on page 24

elizabeth Gilboy, director of the com-

munity design assistance center. “we

came up with the idea to make it into a

mobile chef’s kitchen.” Besides being

a farmers market novelty, the kitchen

could also be used to demonstrate

nutritional meal preparation in the

region’s low-income areas.

with a budget of $5,000 and a team

of student builders, andrew Mccoy, as-

sistant professor of building construc-

tion, retrofitted the chassis of an old

rv as the base for the trailer. working

with a small budget meant relying on

donated materials and more than a dol-

lop of creativity. For example, a commu-

nity member donated old fence posts,

which students planed and sanded to

form the trailer’s exterior.

For their collaboration, Gilboy and Mc-

coy received the 2011 alumni award

for outreach excellence.

Caring, one green wristband at a timethoughts of “changing the world” may

bring politicians or united Nations

ambassadors to mind. Less often

pictured may be someone taking

a simple action that could set off a

chain reaction of kindness, like smiling

at a stranger. Sophia teie, a fifth-year

virginia tech student from washington,

d.c., studying psychology and sociology,

believes in this possibility.

teie is a member of actively caring for

People (ac4P), a nonprofit organization

that began in fall 2008 at virginia tech.

the organization distributes green

wristbands, some of which have circu-

lated the globe, as rewards for random

acts of kindness. with its growth, ac4P

has developed anti-bullying programs

that have been implemented in middle

schools in Blacksburg and shared at

summits across the nation. when

asked what motivates her, teie replies,

“Knowing that what we do works.”

currently, 50,000 numbered wrist-

bands are in circulation, including

No. 240, which an appalachian State

university student received after help-

ing a man who had crashed his dirt bike

through a glass window. the man, who

required 200 stitches, credited his help-

ers with saving him from death.

teie says, “Something that I have

learned as a Latina and as a woman is

that we all have different values, and

that needs to be respected.” But she

also learned a greater lesson through

ac4P: People from different back-

grounds all share the value of caring for

people.

“this foundation has been the catalyst

for people all around the world to act

on this value,” she says. “the small

things that people do every day are

important.”

Educating new foresters in Nepal

“Some of my friends died in that

helicopter crash,” says tom hammett,

professor of sustainability, innovation,

and design in the college of Natural

resources and environment, referring

to a 2006 tragedy that killed 24 conser-

vation experts in the himalayas.

a year later, virginia tech partnered

with Yale university and Principia

college to establish a Memorial center

of excellence to commemorate the

contribution of the conservationists at

Nepal’s Institute of Forestry. hammett’s

personal stake in the project, along

with a decade’s worth of experience in

Nepal, made him the ideal collaborator

to work toward the new center’s goal:

(left) Sophia Teie talks about her pay-it-forward experiences.(right) Gilboy and McCoy with the kitchen model.

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cover

PHOTOfinalists

Outreach NOW 2012 cover photo contest finalists: Ecuador, Annah Latane (top); Jellyfish Denver Aquarium, Jana Davis Pearl (right); “Cultural Integration,” Nancy Pruitt (bottom left); New Zealand, Kyle Wolf (bottom right); Fruit stand, Sam Linkous (back cover)

strengthening the institute’s resources

to educate future generations of forestry

professionals.

“My role as partnership director is to get

people involved with the institute,” ham-

mett says. he has held workshops on

green businesses, professional network-

ing, and proposal writing; helped improve

the library’s holdings; and accompanied

virginia tech faculty from across disci-

plines to work with their counterparts at

the institute.

For a natural resource conservationist

like hammett, Nepal makes a fascinating

study. “You go from 200 feet to 8,000 feet

very quickly, from tropical and subtropical

conditions to almost an alpine environ-

ment,” he says. “You see people with

different issues up and down that slope.”

Nepal’s next generation of forestry profes-

sionals, institute trained, will work in a

sometimes politically tumultuous environ-

ment.

“what has kept me going back are the

people,” hammett says. “they are very

friendly, very open, and very hospitable.

working with the villagers, with their local

products, is very captivating for me.”

Tom Hammett, right, and Charlie Koo, senior program associate at the project’s funding organization, Higher Education for Development, plant trees on the institute’s grounds.

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PHOTOcontestTop photos entered in the annual Education Abroad photo contest:

1 | Faculty/Staff Winner: “This little fella wants to be a Hokie, too!” – taken on Cuverville Island, Antarctica (64°41’S, 62°38’W) by Lori Blanc, biological sciences research scientist at Virginia Tech and director of the Hokies Abroad study abroad programs in Antartica, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. 2 | Hokies Abroad Finalist: Untitled – taken in Cannes by Ahad Ali Subzwari, junior, economics, College of Science. 3 | People/Culture Finalist: “Moni! Hello from the ‘Heart of Africa’” – taken in Malawi by Kelsey Muffler, junior, psychology, College of Science.4 | People/Culture Finalist: Untitled – taken in Chile by Mika Maloney. 5 | Urban Landscape Winner: “Taj Mahal” – taken in Agra, India, by Mika Maloney, junior, Spanish major, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. 6 | International Education Winner: “Didgeridoo Lesson with Modern Aborigines” – taken in Yungaburra, Queensland, Australia, by Stephanie Chin, senior, biological sciences, College of Science. 7 | Hokies Abroad Winner: “Bold Rainbow Lorikeets” – taken in Horseshoe Bay, Queensland, Australia, by Stephanie Chin, senior, biological sciences, College of Science. 8 | Natural Landscape Winner: “Edinburgh castle from the cliffs” – taken in Edinburgh, Scotland, by Thomas Kane, senior, mechanical engineering, College of Engineering. 9 | People-Culture Winner: “Child in Kolkata” – taken in Kolkata, India, by Lydia Michailow, senior, human development, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

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$72 million spent annually by international students at the university and in Montgomery County for academic and living expenses.

tional and Technological Advancement in Roanoke, and other centers within Outreach and International Affairs.

Resurrecting quail in Catawba

Virginia, like many other states, has seen drastic declines in the population of the once-ubiquitous bobwhite. Quail hunt-ers fancied the bird with its distinctive call that, in some places, youngsters have never heard. State agencies that want to work with landowners to in-crease quail habitat found a receptive community in Catawba.

Susan E. Short is associate vice president for engagement

Susan E. Short (above) be-came Virginia Tech’s first associate vice president for engagement in October 2011. Previously, Short had headed two key areas of Outreach and Interna-tional Affairs: Outreach Program Development and the Virginia Tech Roanoke Center. Virginia Tech’s Commonwealth Campus Centers (see pages 30 and 31) report to the associate vice president for engagement, along with the Office of Economic Development, the Institute for Policy and Governance, the Center for Organiza-

Jerome ‘Jerry’ Niles is interim vice president

Jerome “Jerry” Niles began serving as interim vice president for Outreach and International Affairs on April 1, succeeding long-term vice president John Dooley, who now leads the Virginia Tech Foundation. Senior Vice President and Provost Mark G. McNa-mee called Niles out of retirement for the second time. In 2008 Niles, dean emeritus of Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, was also asked to lead the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research on an interim basis before the hiring of Executive Director Liam Leightley. Niles will serve throughout the 2012-13 academic year as McNa-mee leads the university’s search for a permanent vice president.NU

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$1.7 milliona three-year federal grant project spearheaded by the Office of Economic Development to create new jobs in Southwest Virginia’s transportation equipment manufacturing industry.

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Big year for Preston’s

Wine aficionados have a new way to learn about wine through Preston’s, the restaurant at The Inn at Virginia Tech. The new Wine Society entitles members to free education-and-tasting events as well as glassware and a gift certificate toward a meal. Discounts on wine from a “secret list” are also avail-able. But the wine society isn’t all that’s new. Preston’s, one of Blacksburg’s favorite

Resources Conser-vation Service.

After the cen-ter held a quail habitat-restora-tion workshop, Rosenberger and the landown-ers hatched a plan. They would encourage the community to cre-ate a quail-habitat quilt throughout the Catawba Valley. The quilt would consist of as many plots of warm-season grasses as possible. Quail love the grasses because they provide cover for nesting and hiding from predators.

“I see this as a way of maximizing our tax dol-lars,” Gabbard says. “The university showcases land-management practices, and landowners act as the messengers, which results in changes on the ground.”

At the core of the effort: the Catawba Sustainability Center, 377 Virginia Tech-owned acres situated in the Upper James River Basin in the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The center was instru-mental in two ways. First, warm-season grasses have been grown on the prop-erty since 2008. Second,

Christy Gabbard, the cen-ter’s former director, helped unite Catawba landowners (through the community group Catawba Landcare) with Virginia Tech’s An-drew Rosenberger, a private lands biologist for South-west Virginia working with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisher-ies and the USDA Natural

54 Senegalese scholars and investors who visited Virginia Tech through a USAID program aimed at improving agriculture in Senegal.

$45.5 million gross sales at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center generated by the Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement from 2004 to 2012.

11 organizations that partnered with the Virginia Tech Roanoke Center to present the region’s 2012 Technology Expo.

5,000 agriculture textbooks that Virginia Tech faculty, staff, and students have sent to help stock South Sudan university libraries.

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Photo courtesy of the Language and Culture Institute

“SENTEC will be a pri-mary contributor for the development of a bio-based industry in the Tobacco Commission region,” Liam Leightley, the institute’s di-rector, says. “SENTEC will be able to transfer knowl-edge from throughout the world for the benefit of southern Virginia.”

SENTEC’s anchor tenant is Virdia Inc., a leading developer of advanced carbohydrates. Virdia has developed an innova-tive process of convert-ing biomass to cellulosic sugars and lignin for use in the renewable chemicals, bioenergy, and nutrition industries. Applications for the sugars include renewable fuels and fuel

SENTEC adds high-tech impact to southern Virginia

The newest addition to the skyline at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville should help make southern Virginia a leading location for marketable research and enable the region to continue to embrace new technology. The Sustain-able Energy and Technol-ogy Center (SENTEC) adds 25,000 square feet of research laboratories and offices. The building’s sus-tainable features include its vegetated roof, a rainwater cistern, recycled floor-ing, and advanced HVAC systems.

ing Preston’s, Smith was executive chef at The River Company Restaurant and Brewery near Radford.

What’s more, a new dinner menu instituted during the past year ramped up quality with focus on local supplies and fresh ingredients. Each weekday lunch buffet now has a theme, with Wednes-days, for example, being Virginia Farm Day, and Tuesdays featuring interna-tional dishes. All the atten-tion and effort has paid off, with the Roanoke Times’ food critic praising the dinner service in a review filled with adjectives such as “wonderful,” “excellent,” and “fabulous.”

fine-dining restaurants, also recently unveiled two private-label wines — a merlot and a chardonnay. The wines are produced at Prince Michel Vineyards and Winery in Madison, Va.

Preston’s has also reached another milestone: Its first executive chef, Jason Smith, came on board in late 2011. Smith, who was raised in Floyd, began his culinary experience at Chateau Morrisette in high school, where he special-ized in desserts and learned the art of garnishing. He moved on to a three-year apprenticeship at the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Va. Before join-

90 Fulbright Scholars from other nations who have come to the Virginia Tech Language and Culture Institute for preacademic training.

7 years that Virginia Tech has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll as one of the nation’s leading colleges in service.

The 2011-12 school year saw the unveiling of a new program: A group of gifted students came to Blacksburg from Saudi Arabia to study before entering U.S. universities for their college careers. Here, Amaal Tashkandi and Abdulrahman Linjawi solicit donations for the i-Can competition to fight hunger in the New River Valley. The students’ study program grew from a partnership of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the Virginia Tech Language and Culture Institute, and the College of Science.

10,000 people at more than 160 sites who have been served by the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research’s STEM Mobile Learning Lab.

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Photo courtesy of Narrows High School

Jordan Bragg and Victoria Wade of Narrows High School were part of a contingent that organized a fashion show to call attention to teen drug and alcohol abuse. The event sprang from a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant involving the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance.

of cleaner energy, scientific innovation, and economic stimulus,” Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell says.

Education Trust Fund and Danville. In addi-tion, Virdia has invested almost $10 million.

“The development of sustainable and clean sources of energy is a necessary component of our ‘all of the above’ energy strategy, and Virginia is proud to welcome Virdia to the state in pursuance

intermediates, renewable chemicals and materials, and nutritional additives for the animal-feed indus-try. Virdia’s sugars are being tested for use in several industries, most recently by Virent as a feedstock for high-performance jet fuels.

SENTEC was funded by more than $8.5 million in awards and grants, pri-marily from the Virginia Tobacco Commission but also from the Higher

21 record-setting number of first-year students residing in the SERVE (Students Engaging and Responding through Volunteer Service) community in Pritchard Hall.

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STEM-H camp challenges Patrick County students

Designing robots, learning about geo-metric construction, and catching dragonfly nymphs are just some of the activities Patrick County students enjoyed at the STEM-H Challenge Camp held during June 2012. “It was a great collaborative effort that pro-vided students with an intellectually stimulating and fun experience,” says

Virginia Tech Roanoke Centerwww.vtrc.vt.edu

Classes inspire creative thinking in Roanoke employees

The Virginia Tech Roanoke Center is developing and delivering workshops and classes for Roanoke city employ-ees. Calling on the expertise of univer-sity faculty, the center provided five courses that focused on skill develop-ment, including helping first-line su-pervisors make the transition to higher level positions while creating a coach-ing and mentoring environment.

The city’s Gwin Ellis, coordinator of organizational development and learn-ing, requested a workshop on creativity and innovation in the workplace. The workshop addresses the importance of a leader behaving as an effective man-ager and one who can engage the tal-ents of employees to accomplish goals.

“I want to see participants, particularly those in leadership roles, understand how to make the workplace conducive to creative thinking,” Ellis says.

Roanoke City Manager Chris Morrill says, “With fewer employees and in-creasing service demands, it is more critical than ever that our employees keep abreast of best practices, build leadership skills, and learn how to de-velop creative solutions to the growing challenges our communities face. We are fortunate to have the expertise and community focus of the Virginia Tech Roanoke Center.”

Kay Dunkley, director of the Roanoke Center, says, “The series is a good

Julie Walters-Steele, director of the Reynolds Homestead.

The Reynolds Homestead coordinated the camp in partnership with Patrick County public schools and the In-stitute for Advanced Learning and Research. More than 40 students in grades four through eight participated in the weeklong camp designed to in-troduce students to career opportuni-ties in science, technology, engineering, math, and health.

A visit to the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville focused on technology; math was the focus during a visit to Virginia Tech’s Math Emporium in Blacksburg; en-gineering workshops were held at the Reynolds Homestead; health and well-ness activities were featured during a trip to Primland Resort; and environ-mental science was highlighted during a visit to Fairy Stone State Park.

“It is very exciting to have a summer STEM Academy where our gifted students learn so much about science, technology, the environment, and

example of the way the center can cre-ate custom training for an organiza-tion, government, or business.”

To show impact, Ellis and Dunkley developed metrics to measure and evaluate effectiveness. They will ex-amine whether supervisors reinforced behaviors of creativity and innovation, for example, and whether employees believed the coaching strategies were effective. Feedback will be used to plan the 2013 course offerings.

Bailey Morrison, a fifth grader from Woolwine Elementary School, looks out of the hatch of a prototype armored vehicle during a visit to the Advanced Vehicle Research Center in Danville, Va.

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COMMONWEALTHCAMPUS CENTERS

Virginia Tech Richmond & Hampton Roads Centerswww.richmond.vt.eduwww.hrc.vt.edu

Virginia Tech expands east

Melissa Maybury Lubin, director of both the Hampton Roads and Rich-mond centers, has created a new em-phasis: a regional approach. “That way we can more efficiently target the professional development needs of our workforce by extending our program-ming reach from the greater Rich-mond region through the peninsula of Virginia, onto southside in Virginia Beach, and into the Eastern Shore,” Lubin says.

Industry and business demands of Vir-ginia Beach and Richmond are clearly distinct, but there are plenty of over-laps as well, she says. The goal is to find connections between the two centers and collaborate.

“The success of our project-manage-ment certification course is an example of how working as one cohesive unit can have a greater impact on the re-gion,” Lubin says.

Employing videoconferencing tech-nology, both centers were able to of-fer an eight-week, synchronous, live-broadcast course with one instructor who rotated from center to center each week. “By having to hire only one in-structor, we could reduce tuition to an amount that was more palatable for the participants,” Lubin says.

Sharing staff time also maximizes ef-fectiveness of collaborations. Lubin enlisted outreach Program Manager Stacy Harvey to lead the meeting-management contract with Virginia’s Department of Behavior Health and Developmental Services. “As a certified meeting planner, Stacy was the ideal choice to manage this important con-tract for us in Richmond. Even though she resides in Virginia Beach, her ex-pertise transcends the distance because of our long-established relationship with this agency.”

Lubin expects the regional approach to serve the centers well because Virginia Tech is pursuing new space. “With a strong presence in Richmond and Vir-ginia Beach, and now Newport News, Virginia Tech will better serve the in-terests of business and industry on the peninsula of Virginia,” she says. “And the best part of this expansion is that we are also heightening our partner-ship with the University of Virginia to co-locate in Newport News.” In an unusually cooperative rather than competitive mode, the universities can share resources such as classroom space and technology, while playing off of each other’s strengths in the new market.

Virginia Tech Southwest Centerwww.swvac.vt.edu

Region’s teachers focus on reading improvement

The Southwest Center in Abingdon hosted the Leading in Reading grant program throughout the 2011-12 school year. More than 170 teachers in 30 schools participated in the yearlong professional-development opportunity to increase knowledge in research-based reading strategies. As a result of Leading in Reading, all schools imple-mented new reading initiatives and measured results, which were shared at a conference via posters and presenta-tions by teachers.

Leading in Reading is a partnership among Virginia Tech, Radford Uni-versity, and nine school divisions. Vir-ginia Tech faculty member Heidi Anne Mesmer, principal investigator, leads the collaboration with Radford faculty member Jennifer Jones. Rhonda Phil-lips of Virginia Tech is also a contribut-ing faculty member.

The project is expanding in 2012-13 to include more schools. The Leading in Reading program is funded through the federal Improving Teacher Qual-ity State Grants Professional Devel-

Penny McCallum, center director, in foreground, third from left, with teachers in Abingdon

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mathematics, as well as future job op-portunities in these fields,” says Anita Bailey, gifted coordinator for Patrick County Schools.

At the concluding cookout, campers received a certificate and shared their favorite memories of the week.

opment Program administered by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Southwest Center Director Penny Mc-Callum says, “Instilling a love of reading in children is one of the most critical goals of a teacher. I’m so pleased that Leading in Reading was instrumental in making so many of Virginia’s great teachers even better at their jobs.”

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Outreach and International Affairs

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Jerome A. NilesInterim Vice President319 Burruss Hall (0265)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-3205niles@vt.eduwww.outreach.vt .edu

Guru GhoshAssociate Vice PresidentINTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS319 Burruss Hall (0265)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-7888 gghosh@vt.edu

International Affairs

Michael Bertelsen, Associate DirectorOFFICE of INTERNATIONALRESEARCH, EDUCATION, and DEVELOPMENT526 Prices Fork Road (0378)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-6338bertel@vt.eduwww.oired.vt.edu

Paul Knox, International FellowCENTER FOR EUROPEANSTUDIES and ARCHITECTURE123C Burruss Hall (0205)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-1695knox@vt.eduorDaniela Doninelli, Managing DirectorVilla Maderni, Via Settala 86826 Riva San Vitale, SwitzerlandPhone: 011-41-91-6483651daniela@vt.eduwww.oired.vt.edu/cesa

Office of Engagement

Scott Weimer, DirectorCONTINUINGand PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION702 University City Blvd. (0364)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-7887weimers@vt.eduwww.cpe.vt.edu

Max O. Stephenson, DirectorINSTITUTE FOR POLICYand GOVERNANCE205 W. Roanoke St.Blacksburg, VA 24060540-231-6775mstephen@vt.eduwww.ipg.vt.edu

Donald Back, DirectorLANGUAGE andCULTURE INSTITUTE840 University City Blvd. (0273)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-9814dback@vt.eduwww.lci.vt.edu

John Provo, DirectorOFFICE of ECONOMICDEVELOPMENTVirginia Tech702 University City Blvd. (0373)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-4004jprovo@vt.eduwww.econdev.vt.edu

Kimberly Andrews, DirectorUPWARD BOUND/TALENT SEARCHHillcrest Hall–Lower Level (0146)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-6911krandrews@vt.eduwww.ubts.vt.edu

Susan E. ShortAssociate Vice PresidentENGAGEMENT319 Burruss Hall (0265)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-9497sshort@vt.edu

VT/912/9M/130427/TP

Jane Swan, DirectorFINANCE andADMINISTRATION319 Burruss Hall (0265)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-2021jswan@vt.edu

Scott Farmer, DirectorOUTREACH INFORMATION SERVICES702 University City Blvd. (0364)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-5633sdf@vt.edu

Andrea Brunais, ManagerCOMMUNICATIONS702 University City Blvd. (0364)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-4691andreab1@vt.edu

Gary Kirk, Director VT ENGAGE: THE COMMUNITY LEARNING COLLABORATIVE113 Burruss Hall (0168)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-0691garykirk@vt.eduwww.engage.vt.edu

Donna Augustine, DirectorYOUTH SCIENCE COOPERATIVEOUTREACH PROGRAM (STEM–Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)702 University City Blvd. (0364)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-6120donna.augustine@vt.eduwww.usaeop.com

Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement (COTA) Jeri ChildersEngagement and New Initiatives108 North Jefferson St., Suite 701Roanoke, VA 24061540-767-6145jlc@vt.edu

E. Wayne HarrisSchool Leadership702 University City Blvd. (0364)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-761-1488ewharris@vt.edu

Robert HerbertEnvironmental ManagementThe Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center110 Shenandoah Ave. (0175)Roanoke, VA 24016540-853-8275bherbert@vt.edu

Commonwealth Campus Centers

Melissa M. Lubin, DirectorHAMPTON ROADS CENTER, VIRGINIA BEACH1444 Diamond Springs RoadVirginia Beach, VA 23455757-363-3930vthamptonroads@vt.eduwww.hrc.vt.edu

HAMPTON ROADS CENTER, NEWPORT NEWS600 Thimble Shoals Blvd.Newport News, VA 23606

Julie Walters Steele, DirectorREYNOLDS HOMESTEAD463 Homestead LaneCritz, VA 24082-3044276-694-7181jws@vt.eduwww.reynoldshomestead.vt.edu

Melissa M. Lubin, DirectorRICHMOND CENTER2810 North Parham Road, Suite 300Richmond, VA 23294804-662-7288vtrichmond@vt.eduwww.richmond.vt.edu

Kay Dunkley, DirectorROANOKE CENTER108 North Jefferson St., Suite 701Roanoke, VA 24016540-767-6100vtroanoke@vt.eduwww.vtrc.vt.edu

Penny McCallum, DirectorSOUTHWEST CENTERP.O. Box 1987, One Partnership CircleAbingdon, VA 24212-1987276-619-4310pmccal5@vt.eduwww.swvac.vt.edu

Conference Facilities

Gary Walton, Vice President andGeneral ManagerTHE HOTEL ROANOKE &CONFERENCE CENTER110 Shenandoah Ave.Roanoke, VA 24016540-985-5900GWalton@HotelRoanoke.comwww.hotelroanoke.com

Tom Shaver, Hotel ManagerTHE INN AT VIRGINIATECH and SKELTONCONFERENCE CENTER901 Prices Fork Road (0104)Blacksburg, VA 24061540-231-8000tshaver@vt.eduwww.theinnatvirginiatech.com

Faren McNabb, ManagerEXECUTIVE BRIEFING CENTER – ARLINGTON900 N. Glebe Road, 2nd FloorArlington, VA 22203571-858-3030www.ncr.vt.edu/arlington

Southside

Liam Leightley, Executive DirectorINSTITUTE FOR ADVANCEDLEARNING and RESEARCH150 Slayton Ave. (0175)Danville, VA 24540434-766-6700liam.leightley@ialr.orgwww.ialr.org

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Outreach NOW Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 702 University City Boulevard Blacksburg VA 24060-2706

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Sam Linkous tries to never be caught without a camera in hand. He is always looking for art in everyday objects and particularly looks for interesting colors and textures. He shot this at a produce market in Cana, Va. Linkous works in Continuing and Professional Education as a program coordinator.