VTNews: University reveals plans for $225 million Global Business and Analytics Complex
Virginia Tech officials have revealed plans for a more than $225 million Global Business and Analytics Complex to galvanize people who share a passion for an analytic approach to problems that occur in societies, governments, and businesses throughout the world.
Four new buildings are planned on the Blacksburg campus, including two academic buildings and two living-learning residential communities for about 700 students.
The effort leverages strengths of the Pamplin College of Business, other colleges and academic units, and the Data Analytics and Decision Sciences Destination Area — a node of expertise that overlaps the university.
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The two academic buildings are expected to each be about 100,000 square feet and will be constructed in what are now parking areas at the southwestern corner of Prices Fork Road and West Campus Drive.
One of the academic buildings will be the administrative home to the Pamplin College of Business and contain faculty office and classroom spaces.
The second building will feature open work spaces where faculty from all colleges will work on collaborative projects for teaching and conducting research focused on data analytics and decision sciences. The data analytics and decisions sciences faculty cluster has identified the nexus of complex decision-making and high-dimensional big data as an area where Virginia Tech can be a global leader. The facility will support this work through cutting-edge facilities including high-performance computing, interactive data display and decision facilities, high-end human activity tracking and analysis capabilities, and specialized labs ranging from geospatial and environmental informatics to health analytics and collaborative learning and discovery spaces.
The university will request about $70 million in state funding and will raise at least $70 million through private fundraising to build the two academic buildings, according to current plans.
Huge news for the University as a whole. This should really help Pamplin continue to climb in the academic ranks into being one of the top business schools in the nation.
Comments
RIP parking at VT
Looksmorelike RIP (edit: parking and) the golf course to me based on the map. Convenient parking died long agoNothing to see here. Move Along
two buildings on the golf course, two on the price's fork lots.
Ah. Me Dumb. I didn't pay any attention to the new PFork buildings there...
And I guess they aren't really cutting out what's left of the golf course either......
With this move, it's only a matter of years before the entire golf course is "campus", all the way down to the cage. They'll probably sprinkle in some residential just southeast of Oak Lane, with 460 as the edge on the west. I figured it would happen one day, but here we go...
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.2257788,-80.4269581,2195m/data=!3m1!1e3
Yeah, that's what the master plan calls for. That's why they bought the River Course.
I have a hard time believing that the acquisition of the Pete Dye River Course had much of anything to do with the Virginia Tech golf course on campus....a golf course that never should have existed anyway...a course that started as an agricultural project to get grant money for it's construction and then upon completion of the project was quickly converted into a golf course. It's a hobby course which I don't believe has ever seen competitive use by the golf teams
Ok. The golf team played at BCC back then. The VTGC has been considered campus expansion since the 80s but it wasn't until Goodwin provided the funds for the River Course and the Dye redesign that the began developing the VTGC
Well said and thank you for making me laugh. +1 for you fellow Hokie.
This is the kind of stuff I wish they'd had when I was at Pamplin.
Side note: they'd better be using those lots over by Surge for another parking garage, and RIP anyone who wants to tailgate on campus without a parking hangtag.
They're getting rid of some of the best tailgating spots on all of campus...
What's lots will be lost? As long as Lot 18, the TKP lot, is still there we are good.
I read about all this in the morning and the first thing that struck my mind is what will happen to lot 18. I hope it stays, and I hope it remains grass.
I don't know the names, but the ones directly behind and to the side of the parking garage. Particularly the ones that don't require parking passes from the athletic department (just the $10-20 on gameday). I don't want to have to deal with buying a parking pass and eliminating those lots makes it harder to tailgate unless you signed up for season tickets with a pass or know someone who does. Bad look for getting people who aren't already major contributors invested in the gameday atmosphere
Got a phone call the other day asking for money and telling me that they are trying to up the student body to 50,000. Bold moves are happening in blacksburg.
50k?!?
That boggles the mind, really.
50 k? I know Sands has talked about 30k but 50?
http://www.roanoke.com/news/education/higher_education/virginia_tech/vir...
I've seen a lot of stuff that the infrastructure in Blacksburg and surrounding areas can't support what's there now.
oh thank god, the kid must have misquoted that to me
It is 50k from what I've heard...
30k undergrad + 20k grad students = 50k
20k Grad students would make Tech one of, if not the LARGEST Grad program university in the country,
Yeah, that doesn't sound right at all. That would mean 20% growth in undergrads & 400% growth in grad students.
I'd say if 50k is the actual projection, it would be 10k grad students at the most and probably more like 7,500.
Yeah, suddenly jumping that high is just not possible. When I graduated, there were about 6k grad students, so a target of 7,500-10,000 is probably more reasonable. The biggest issue is money. It's all well and good that the president/administration wants a bunch more grad students, but the faculty still have to fund them, primarily through grants, at least assuming most of the growth is in the traditional science and engineering disciplines that have the most grad students and bring in the most money.
You can't just dictate that the grad student population will triple, especially in light of the fact that federal grant success rates (which are the source of about 90% of university grant funding) are between 10-20% right now, and have been for years. Coupled with new requirements to pay postdocs more (who faculty prefer to hire with available money because they get more done, which means more papers, patents, and grants) and aiming for that many grad students is simply unsustainable.
How many vet grad students and medical school students can Tech grow to?
The vet school just expanded to (I believe) over 120 per class. They just completed an expansion of the school. But if recent years are any indication, the vet job market is already pretty saturated so they should not add any more unless they want their employed grad statistics to plummet.
I should also add: the numbers I list above are not at all scientific, just a gut feeling from watching the world of graduate education for the past few years. It also requires a commensurate hiring of faculty to mentor those grad students, which I hope would happen. Growth for the sake of growth is really bad, especially for grad students. At one point recently, there was a 5:1 ratio of Ph.D.s to available jobs requiring a Ph.D. That's really bad. So cranking out more graduates with advanced degrees is not necessarily a good idea. Productive for the university, yes, but not necessarily wise. Otherwise it contributes to a diploma arms race, in which people with advanced degrees take jobs that require less education (think: Ph.D.s taking jobs that would require a M.S. or even a B.S.), therefore increasing the requirements for entry-level jobs. Because, hey, if you've got a desperate Ph.D., who clearly has lots of skills and needs a paycheck, why would you hire someone with a B.S.?
I also have to wonder if that 50k number is only for the Blacksburg campus, or if they are planning to beef up some of our satellite locations around the commonwealth. Would not surprise me if the majority of that figure is going to come from the satellite locations.
Yeah, that makes a big difference. Expanding our footprint is probably much more doable, practical, and productive. Trying to double the population of students in Blacksburg presents a whole host of challenges.
Pretty sure we are already at 8-10k grad students. Doubling that is a huge increase but not out of the realm of possibility.
Also I have not heard a goal date for hitting that size, so a steady growth plan over a decade would reach it.
I doubt that, OSU which is a much larger overall university has a huge medical school, vet school and law school has less than that.
Currently at 25K undergrads and 5K graduate students
We're right around 5k graduate and professional this year.
https://www.vt.edu/about/factbook/student-overview.html
It actually makes a lot of sense if the goal is to just increase our footprint with beefed up satellite campuses throughout the commonwealth. Right now we have 10 campuses around Virginia, and the other in Switzerland, so if we spread out the growth throughout those campuses, the hit to our main campus won't be so bad.
Wait Ten now?
VT.edu Campus locations
Looks like it:
Virginia Beach - Hampton Roads Center - opened 1975
Newport News - opened 2015
Falls Church - Northern Virginia Center - opened 1969
Alexandria - Washington Alexandria Ceter - opened 1980
Richmond - Richmond Center - opened 2001
Roanoke - Roanoke Higher Education Center - opened 1989
Abingdon - Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center - opened 1991
Leesburg - Marion DuPont Scott Equine Medical Center - opened 1984
College Park - Maryland Campus, Virginia Maryland College of Vet Med - opened 1990
Roanoke - Virginia Tech Carillion School of Medicine and Research Institute - opened 2013
Riva - Center for European Studies - opened 1993
Because you can justify paying them less?
No, that's just it. There has been, for a time, such a backlog of people with Ph.D.s that they are willing to be paid significantly below what they're worth just to get a paycheck again. This is emphasized by the fact that even federal pay scales for postdocs are so low. When I finished my B.S. in 2007, a lot of entry-level jobs (lab technicians, research assistants, etc) that were hiring people like me were offering in the ballpark of $40k (and to be fair, there were some companies that were paying somewhat better). I was already intent on going to grad school at that point so I wasn't pursuing any of them. Fast-forward to five years later, after the economy tanked, everyone hid in grad school for a while, the faculty who were supposed to retire didn't because their retirement plans lost tons of money, and there's a huge backlog of people with terminal degrees and no prospects.
My first salary as a holder of a Ph.D. was $42k, the federal guideline for first-year postdocs. And now, four years later, I make slightly more. Makes you question whether it was actually worth all the pain to actually get all that education. Now, that's for public-sector academia. I could probably make double that in industry but I chose a different path and I have my reasons. But for a postdoc who has been stuck in the same place for up to a decade (happens all too often), and is forced out (which also happens), taking B.S.-level money is not unheard of just to put food on the table. And the hiring company can do that because they hold all the leverage.
If you think $42k is peanuts, at least that's after the Feds bumped it up in the early 2000's from the upper $20k's to the mid-$30k's. And I can remember back maybe 25 yrs ago - before the Feds made another big adjustment in the guideline (early 90's IIRC) - when 1st yr post docs were making something like $19,500.
I forget how much that jump was but it seemed massive (at that time)...something like $5k over 3 years. Drove grant PIs nuts because they had to pay these "spoiled" post docs this new king's ransom yet they got no additional money to do so.
Yeah, I know. PIs are complaining enough now with the bump to $50k under new guidelines. I have been told by current faculty how bad postdoc salaries used to be. It's still just something that always makes me question my choices. I have friends in private companies making 2-3 times what I do, yet I'm working just as hard or harder to pursue a different path. The academic life is a tough one all around.
I knew a PI who used to tell his post docs "Have a nice weekend...see you tomorrow".
The value of the degree has plummeted over the past couple decades. Now that there's this push where everyone has to have a college degree, its gotten to the point where having a bachelors degree is simply no more than a prereq to secure an interview, which has become so much more problematic with the spiking popularity of degree farms like Univ of Phoenix, ITT Tech, ECPI, etc. In the liberal arts fields, you almost need a Master's degree to even have a chance at getting anything in your own field anymore, and even at that point, its tough to get anything that pays over $30k.
I do have to wonder how thin the lining of the higher education bubble is getting. The cost of attendance to get a degree is constantly rising while the need to have a degree to get even an entry level job is spiking. Something is going to have to give eventually.
You make good points.
I was referring more to industry, not academia. Academia requires its degrees... although, to your good points, I have seen a large uptick in adjuncts with doctorates teaching courses or handling other responsibilities that don't require knowledge beyond the master's.
I consult to research universities in this arena for a living. This sums it up pretty accurately VTGuitarman (which is pretty rare on this topic on sports message boards).
I've definitely heard the number 50k students thrown around. I heard it about a year ago from an engineering department head. He said a lot of the focus is increasing all of our engineering departments especially.
Paging Fernley. Fernley, your infrastructure development skills are needed on Aisle 460. Paging Fernley.
wow, totally missed the Fernley-signal...
50k overall on the community would be tough, though if I recall energy, water and waste water treatment are planned for well over. Could be wrong, but i remember going out to each of those facilities while I was at Tech.
If they are going over capacity that's a great investment for anyone with the financial means. If they needed expanded services you could probably get government offtake guarantees for a good 30 years. Lever that up on bond and a 5 - 10 million dollar facility will get you 6x that.
I used to be one of those callers. They wanted me to work on a Thursday, we had the Boston College game, so I just quit. Priorities.
Im sure blacksburg can support 50,000 students /s. I really dont like the massive expansions that are planned. But, thats my opinion.
There are certainly drawbacks. But a 50k student VT is UVa's worst nightmare. It creates more alumni - and thus more tentacles throughout the state financially and politically. It forces UVa to either also expand - and give up the pretense of academic purity & exclusivity - or have the financial and political tables flipped.
In terms of athletics, it means more alumni, public, media and business support throughout the state, the regional and nationally - which in turn drives more financial support for athletic programs. This is the support VT must have in order to move into the next tier of football program cache and athletic program strength overall.
The sheer number of alumni produced is the reason the B1G is what it is financially, academic, and athletically.
Yeah, an enrollment of 50k for a university is complete big boy status. Academically, it would be great for the school, especially if we're able to do this while continuing to raise the standard with the school, and not devaluing the degree. You're talking legitimate world class institution level at that point.
Athletically, 50k brings you into the discussion for becoming a legitimate elite level program, if only because of the sheer number of alumni the school will have, and if you have a good fundraising infrastructure in place, money will no longer be an issue. Athletically, its the worst nightmare of just about everyone else in our region, as we'd become a dominant university for the area, seeing the alumni and fan base overwhelm the region. And with a student body of that size, with the number of alumni we'll be pumping out every year, you'll have no choice but to expand Lane and build a larger venue than Cassell.
Damn, yo. That's my major, that's what I actually do every day. I watch people increasingly make strategic decisions to be "Data Driven" organizations and embrace analytics and Business Intelligence without the first clue of what that means. That does not, however, prevent them from throwing anywhere from thousands to millions of dollars at shiny software and consultants/contractors to build them "Business Intelligence". And the majority of people I've had to deal with are terrible at it, which gives the entire industry and concept a terrible name.
Tech had a lot of good professors in this area, at least when I was there. Taylor, the Dept head, in particular and Zobel (who has managed to overcome his degree from LOLUVA) are both still there and are fantastic. I like that they are showing a huge commitment to a burgeoning field, and I hope Tech can focus on lending some credibility and rigorous process to the profession.
Zobel also has a "degree" from UNC. That man has overcome a lot to become such a good professor.
Agree wholeheartedly on the first paragraph, fashionable buzzwords drive that need to spend. Organizations will literally burn money just to have the ability to check the box next to that new buzzword.
Not so much on the second however.. I really liked Zobel despite his general hoo-ness. Dr. Taylor on the other hand, was always complete dick head during my time at tech. For someone who build their legacy on quantitative decision making and logistics, it was amazing that he could never match class sizes to class demands.
At one point he suggested I defer graduating, because all of the classes offered were considerably overbooked. This was my senior year, when the expected graduation class size should be well firmed and known. Fuck that guy, and his shit overpriced textbooks that he mandated as course materials for quite a few of the classes. I took great pride in pirating the ebooks and distributing to fellow students.
Also, Rakes.. who taught networking.. using overheads that were manufactured in the 1980's, clear plastic sheets to write on and having no distributable class notes (ie, powerpoint). It was interesting learning about the foundations of the internet, from a guy who didn't really like to use it himself.
Damn, I definitely did not have that interaction with him. I would say he was a much better teacher than he appears to be an administrator. I forget what class it was, but he took over a course for a professor who had a long term medical issue arise; he was able to effectively teach the entirety of the week's material in 45 min of the Tue session, assign work and cancel Thu's class while offering Office Hours to anyone who needed help. I've never seen any teacher communicate information to a class as effectively and efficiently as he did it. I will grant, however, that it wasn't his textbook because it wasn't his class at the beginning of the semester, and I never interacted with him extensively beyond that class. I will definitely take your impression into consideration on his running of the department, though.
Never had Rakes, and yes, Zobel could get a bit Hoo-ey. But he also did a good job motivating me when I had him, and he called me out like a boss when I needed it at one point to get my shit together. Which I appreciated now that I am gainfully employed.
I'm currently in Zobels class and its definitely very informative. I had rakes for networks last year. I definitely should pay more attention in class though... TKP in class will really get after ya
Glad Im getting out when I am. its frankly going to be a sh*tshow here in the next 10 years. The town of Bburg doesnt want the school to grow, theres no parking as is, there limited housing.
Pardon my ignorance as I haven't been down in BBurg for five or so years, but is there really limited housing? I thought they were building all new apartment complexes?
They are building apartment complexes, but a) they're expensive as hell (the new one is $1,000/room/month) and b) the Town of Blacksburg is making all of these complexes get built way off campus. Makes it hard for students.
Which new apartments are you talking about? The Edge apartments are $650-$850 a month which includes utilities and The Retreat are $600-$800 and also include utilities. I'm not aware of any complexes that are that expensive
correct, there are tons of places to live. You can live close to campus or you can live somewhere relatively cheap. There are always tons of empty units in the complexes off south main (towards ellet road), but these aren't terribly convenient. Then there's the edge, right across price's fork, and those are crazy expensive. The new units near the university city mall look to be pricey as well. Not sure how steep all the units they're building across from plantation road are. If you don't mind the commute, there is abundant cheap housing in the people farm in Christiansburg between the high school and cambria street.
Almost all of the South Main area condo's are within a three minute walk to a BT bus stop. I lived in one for most of my time at Tech.
and then only a 35 minute ride!! I hyperbolize (is that even a word, it is now), but seriously, when I lived down on New Kent Road, it was actually faster to jog to campus than ride the bus most of the time.
Just looked up The Edge. Is $765 expensive for a two bedroom, new construction apartment? That's $382/person, maybe totaling $425 after utilities.
No, that's very affordable for Blacksburg. Especially for a new and nice complex.
Are you positive that's per apartment and not per resident?
We used to live across tom's creek and rented out our 2 bedroom basement for $650 and I recall, when the edge first opened, our tenants told us we were charging less than half.
EDIT: actually I just looked it up. The prices listed are the roughly the same for 2,3, and 4 bedroom places. That's definitely a per resident rate NOT a per unit. So, like I said, crazy expensive.
$765 per resident.
Source: I have friends that lived there and quickly noped the hell out when they found out they were spending all their money.
The Edge includes utilities with their prices. It's expensive but you're paying to be closer to classroom buildings than pretty much every dorm on campus
The convenience is nice but I really don't get people who live at The Edge. Save your money (or your parents', whatever) and buy a nice place when you get out of school. In college now, I use my house as a place to sleep at night and nothing more haha
the town is very against new student housing right now. Developer recently proposed rezoning some commercial property up at N Main and Patrick Henry and building about 650 apartments above street retail. The first town meeting about it didn't go well for the developer
Well, I hope the school does grow significantly as that will make the value of my rental condo's go up in value.
Well, it looks like my days of parking at the golf course and walking to lot 18 on gameday are coming to a close.
We can get you there on the HyperLoop
*HokieLoop
I really hope they go with the traditional Hokie Stone facade and not that burnt orange, like in the renderings...
Don't judge it until you see it. Could be time for a new look on campus.
I think they're going to put a lot more into the bus system to help the parking situation, which is probably for the best anyways.
TL;DR - But I want a better Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering building!
ughh. that would be the new $95 million Goodwin Hall
I get the need to expand and keep up with other competitors with more size, but I really have noticed over my college career here that they have increasingly sacrificed quality instruction.
First of all there's the math empo which I never had to deal with but still we could go on about forever. I'm a junior and I have yet to have a legitimate professor in a single one of my in-major classes. It has always been TAs or visiting professors here for research (which is also another big money maker for VT). I get why they have to do it but I'm pretty pissed off that I feel like the student is the one constantly getting ignored here considering you need students to have a university.
Unfortunately, you see this everywhere. There is huge demand for college degrees, more than has ever been seen before. So universities are trying to keep up in an arms race to offer spots to many more students than they thought possible even a decade ago. You're seeing teaching duties outsourced to "cheap" resources like grad students (who are required to teach as part of their degree program) and adjunct professors, who essentially are being paid minimum wage with no benefits. That's a crime but it's a whole different tangent.
It may be time to re-evaluate whether or not a university education really is necessary for many career paths. At this point, a B.S. is basically a checkbox that needs to be filled for most job applicants.
That's what I'm going through right now, employers at the management level of public safety won't even interview me until I have at least a bachelors and they really want a masters. No matter that I've done the job for 12 years.
RIP campus life. My friends still there already say it's suffering. I went to Tech because I wanted a small school feel with big school benefits, otherwise I would have gone to Alabama/OSU/Penn State etc. this move does little to benefit the current students IMO.
Not having gone to Tech as a student I question this for one reason. Isn't the point of the new resident halls with classrooms and more common areas built into them to address this issue?
Everything I have heard from people working in the existing living-learning communities is that the students love them. I did a theme housing program many years ago, the precursor to these, and it was one of the best things I did at VT. The new classroom community setup is being very well received, from what I have heard.
This is true, and I should have been a bit more specific. Campus itself has gotten pretty crowded, over half of off campus students have meal plans, and getting lunch and dinner is rough, especially if trying to get in and out. The library isn't getting any bigger either. They just have issues to address as they grow. You can't just build new doors and classrooms and ignore everything else.
I lived in a living-learning community at East AJ from 2012-2014. When the students and faculty buy in to the idea its an awesome experience
I don't understand why everyone here is getting upset about this. The university wants to expand and President Sands finds it to be in the best interest for the school and its students. I still attend the university and campus is still great and beautiful. I've had people visit campus with me from other schools and they all say the same thing. It's amazing how big Tech is, but still manages to maintain it's small town feel. Parking is always going to be an issue. My only take is that the university is hoping more kids start taking the bus even though it's already bogged down with too many students most mornings.
Okay, I'll approach this from a different perspective. The small town feel is in danger see example 1) Mike's Grill. President Sands, love him by the way, wants to grow the university at an alarming rate. He wants between 500 to 1000 additional students per year. This was the plan when I worked in admissions at Tech and has continued from my recent discussion with colleagues.
Tech is pushing the #1 Student Life Quality and alumni rankings. Those are going to take dips when there is more petty complaints. What might these petty complaints be? Lack of parking. This has been covered ad nauseam. Lack of on campus housing. You are already seeing freshmen housing squeezed. Students are being placed in overflow housing (hotels usually) until people drop out or are kicked out. This creates bad feelings that set the tone for four years. Lack of classes. If you have seen how quickly seats go, it's terrifying. VT's four year graduation rate will likely dip even further than it has from just the engineering boom alone.
I can think of 101 other things but I will leave it at, with my experience in higher education administration, VT's boom will last another 5 years and then tone and direction will create some real dissonance with the alumni.
I'm going to address this as both a Virginia Tech student (albeit a freshman in his first semester) and as a lifelong Blacksburg resident.
Student -- I think that the push to continue to be one of the best universities in the country is fantastic. To become one of the elite universities, there will always need to be innovative developments being made. President Sands has come in and really made an effort for that to continue to happen and to grow. This new development is the first part of what I expect to be many expansions towards the 460 side of campus. There are issues that will come out of this.
As other people have said, getting food on campus is a nightmare during the peak hours. Turner has turned into a madhouse for lunch, where it's even hard to walk around looking for food. West End during dinnertime is always packed, and I usually go right before they close, just to avoid the rush. However, the living-learning communities are great for Virginia Tech. I'm living in one right now -- the Residential College at West AJ -- and it's great to have such a tight knit group of people around in the hectic environment that is college.
Blacksburger -- 50K students will NOT work for this town as it is set up right now. The feel of Blacksburg dramatically shifted during the summer and during the school year while I was living at home. Everything felt rushed and crowded when the students got back to town. This would only get worse if we shove 20K more students into town (duh).
I love Virginia Tech and I love Blacksburg, but those two have got to work together and stop being passive aggressive with each other. Virginia Tech has got to do a better job of interacting with downtown business (RIP Mikes Grill), and Blacksburg has got to do a better job with zoning for students to be closer to campus so it's not a 15 minute drive for students to get to class.
Interesting to read your perspective about keeping things close. As civil/structural engineering students back in the late 70's, a friend and I were talking about the high rises we wanted to build up from the east side of downtown. We imagined the view of town and campus would be pretty cool and we still wouldn't need cars (do people still walk to class these days?). Maybe that's going to be a reality sooner rather than later if the town and university work together to manage the inevitable growth that comes that way.
Definitely don't have a dog in the fight, but after living in South Korea high rises are the answer to everything. Nearly every city here is nothing but high rise apartment after high rise apartment. They had to find a way to fit 51 million people in a tiny (compared to Murica) space and aside from weekends and holidays, it works beautifully here.
Hokie20 be all like:
This is my concern - we want to add 20k more students, and we are proposing two on-campus residential buildings to hold only 700? Themed/honors housing is nice, but where are we going to put all these people? It seems like wasteful/inefficient construction when on-campus housing is already overcrowded and affordable off-campus housing is pretty far away from campus. Dining halls will also need to be expanded, library, student center, etc. There literally may not be any open ground on campus anymore when we keep adding buildings with such narrow focus and limited housing capacity. The Town of Blacksburg is also not equipped to handle the school nearly doubling in size at its current status.
It seems like a lot of the discussion on here is focused on what increasing the student body means for student life and tailgating. While interesting, I don't think enough has been said on what this particular announcement is actually about: growing VT's reputation and presence in the data analytics field.
I might be biased but data analytics is a growing industry that's going to drive a lot of new work in the coming years. Up until this announcement I was under the impression that VT was falling behind other universities in keeping up with the trend (surprising given our reputation for engineering and research). For that reason I see this announcement as nothing but positive.
Agreed.
I too may be biased, but I think FifthFuller's notion from above suits my feelings on this:
Emphasis on credibility. Don't become a degree farm that attracts students of all interests because of an easy path and the potential starting salary. Get involved in research in emerging tech, put out good quality graduates and build the reputation of the program by the additions you make to the industry. Lots of empty suits and minds that chase the paycheck IMO.
One other angle - it's impossible to stop to slow down. VT has increased its footprint exponentially over the last twenty years. More students every year.
How many of us have kids? The population growth rates are staggering, but I want my soon to be born son to go to VT. I might have another kid, I want them to go to VT. Nobody in my family before my generation went to college. Two cousins and myself went to VT. I have another younger cousin, it's where he wants to go.
Either it happens or we get left behind.
Always heard engineering was pre-business as a major selection. Guess we are pushing on making our business program just as notable as some of our Technical programs.