WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:09.360 Today Virginia Tech is the only university  in Virginia ranked among the nation's top   00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:15.040 50 research universities. Many of our faculty  members have national and even international   00:00:15.040 --> 00:00:21.360 reputations and our students are talented  and motivated and we have a burning desire   00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:26.320 to be even better. So today I  propose that we accept the challenge   00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:33.200 to place Virginia Tech in the top 30 research  universities in America by the year 2010. 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:43.120 Just 10 years ago Virginia Tech established  the goal of becoming one of the nation's   00:00:43.120 --> 00:00:47.760 top 30 research institutions.  Today that goal has been reached. 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:55.360 My brother went to school here 10 years ago, class of 2001, and things have really changed for the   00:00:55.360 --> 00:01:01.920 better since then both in and out of class. It is  not just that our civil engineering program is   00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:10.480 one of the best programs in the world but we  also have excellent mathematics and physics and   00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:16.400 chemistry and business programs because today we  have the space and the equipment I'm able to put   00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:21.440 my students in my laboratory. Sometimes in the past  we've had them in the hallways because   00:01:21.440 --> 00:01:25.840 there was no space. It's great to have professors  who are on the cutting edge of their profession.   00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:30.240 My psych professor even let me help  her with the project that she was doing   00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:35.440 which gave me a publication to my credit as  an undergrad. We've made tremendous progress   00:01:35.440 --> 00:01:37.360 in recruiting a diverse student body. 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:45.520 domestically our diversity reflects the demography  of our state and we're moving toward reflecting   00:01:45.520 --> 00:01:51.600 the demography of the nation. There's more  one-to-one contact with professors and graduate   00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:56.880 students and undergraduate students all together.  The NSF funding and the USDA funding has allowed   00:01:56.880 --> 00:02:03.920 us to have very good graduate students, graduate  assistants, that have worked on this project   00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:09.440 as well as postdocs. We have achieved a number  of doctoral programs in the humanities but   00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:14.720 especially in the social sciences and I think the  leading of those programs would have to be the   00:02:14.720 --> 00:02:21.600 Virginia Center for Civil War Studies which was  established in 1999. It is now the largest Civil   00:02:21.600 --> 00:02:26.640 War center in the world. I came here as a grad  student specifically to work with my advisor.   00:02:26.640 --> 00:02:32.320 I mean, can you believe it, a Nobel prize winner? She's great. Obviously when you recruit outstanding young   00:02:32.320 --> 00:02:37.680 faculty retention becomes an issue. Those folks are  highly marketable and we've been able to retain   00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:43.040 many of these young faculty because we've provided state-of-the-art equipment, the Commonwealth has   00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:49.520 assisted us with bricks and mortar and we've also been able to recognize them through various reward mechanisms. 00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:54.480 What's the biggest difference?  The fine arts center, the performance hall,   00:02:54.480 --> 00:02:59.600 university art gallery, all of the first class  attractions we can now bring to this campus. 00:03:01.040 --> 00:03:08.000 At the turn of the century ten years ago most  research was being done inside the colleges and   00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:14.560 individual departments. Now we have shed ourselves of these older disciplines in terms of thinking in   00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:20.640 classic disciplines engineering chemistry and  physics and now we think in terms of broader   00:03:20.640 --> 00:03:27.600 concepts, bioinformatics, nanotechnology. And  with the new research space consolidated sharing   00:03:27.600 --> 00:03:35.520 facilities this has enabled those teams to come  together from wherever they are on the campus to   00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:41.920 form those multi-disciplinary groups that are so  necessary for modern technological research.  00:03:41.920 --> 00:03:46.960 About five years ago I was in this building and it was in my office and I just walked out and I happened   00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:53.360 to run into someone who is in microbiology that  I'd never met before and we started talking and   00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:59.520 it turns out that the problem he's working on which is the rate of protein synthesis is closely   00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:05.200 related to a fundamental issue that we have been interested in which has no applications whatsoever   00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:10.560 until I met him. We now have a joint  appointment program at the center where   00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:16.080 faculty can hold an appointment at the Center  for Gerontology and with their home discipline. 00:04:18.320 --> 00:04:24.960 We no longer think of ourselves as an institution  that works on its own. We've established strategic   00:04:24.960 --> 00:04:32.080 partnerships with a number of federal agencies,  including the National Science Foundation,   00:04:32.080 --> 00:04:38.400 the National Institutes of Health and the new  federal institute for information technology and   00:04:38.400 --> 00:04:45.120 communications which was started in the year 2005. Today there are over 30 buildings that comprise   00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:51.120 the Corporate Research Center. Not so long ago  we achieved our goal of a million square feet   00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:56.320 and employing over 3,000 people but the  biggest change in the research park is the   00:04:57.760 --> 00:05:02.720 greatly expanded role with international  corporations. Many of these companies that now   00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:10.960 exist in the Roanoke valley, here in Blacksburg  and all along route 81 on the way down are really   00:05:10.960 --> 00:05:16.880 part of our family. Even though the effect of the  Virginia Tech Institute for Critical Technologies   00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:24.800 in terms of increased prestige and income for  the university has been great, the far larger   00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:33.280 impact has been on the economic activities  in this region and the state of Virginia. 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:42.080 A number of very exciting projects that were  carried out initially have now resulted in   00:05:42.640 --> 00:05:46.720 significant healthcare benefits for the future. Over the last eight years we've been able to   00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:50.880 acquire specialized equipment so that we  can actually take a look at bone health and   00:05:50.880 --> 00:05:55.760 interactions with bone and exercise and  nutrients and how those impact bone health   00:05:55.760 --> 00:06:01.920 and prevent osteoporosis. Thanks in large measure  to Virginia Tech's leadership we see Virginia as   00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:07.680 the most sophisticated telecommunications state in the entire nation. As a result of some of the   00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:12.720 technologies that we've developed and deployed  at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute here   00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:19.600 at Virginia Tech today plants serve as sentinels  which means that they sense their environment and   00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:25.200 then report through colors to satellite  imagery systems whether they're thirsty   00:06:25.200 --> 00:06:28.640 whether they're being attacked by a pathogen  whether they're being attacked by an insect.  00:06:30.960 --> 00:06:36.720 Research and outreach are partners in the  university partners to help serve the state   00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:43.200 and as we have attained our goal of top 30  research status we've also found that that   00:06:43.200 --> 00:06:49.360 we have moved into top 30 outreach status. It's not a tri-part mission anymore it's a unified mission. 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:54.960 The international institute for information  technology provides research education   00:06:55.840 --> 00:07:02.800 professional education consulting entrepreneurism.  We have established centers of learning   00:07:03.520 --> 00:07:09.680 not only in Europe but in in Africa  in Asia and Latin America. If we then   00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:13.760 only think about our physical locations  throughout all of those places where we   00:07:13.760 --> 00:07:20.560 are literally dealing with 10,000 graduate  students. That wouldn't tell the whole picture   00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:25.200 because we have a virtual presence that again  spans the globe in which we are educating in   00:07:25.200 --> 00:07:31.840 one form or another for professional degrees  master's degrees, for PhDs, as well as special   00:07:31.840 --> 00:07:38.160 certificates and executive training. We are dealing with over 25,000 graduate students worldwide. 00:07:41.200 --> 00:07:47.360 In the past Virginia Tech was looked at as  a rural university and now we have proven   00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:54.080 that location doesn't matter. By the year 2010  today Virginia Tech will be one of the leading   00:07:54.080 --> 00:08:00.000 research institutions in the world in biomedical  and medical research. I could say I've been around   00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:04.640 this campus a long time and I've seen a number  of changes but I think what's happened in the   00:08:04.640 --> 00:08:09.680 last 10 years has really been one of the  most exciting times of my entire career. 00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:14.080 Virginia Tech is the top choice for all the  students in my high school and some of the   00:08:14.080 --> 00:08:18.160 schools that my brother applied to 10 years  ago aren't even considered now. Yeah I'm still   00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:24.880 announcing the pre-game and halftime and I tell  you it's been exciting two national championships   00:08:24.880 --> 00:08:32.320 the last two years who'da thought it 10 years ago. The campus is bursting with new ideas revitalized   00:08:32.880 --> 00:08:38.960 ambitions. It's been an amazing 10 years. Over the  last decade we transformed Virginia Tech into   00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:43.920 really a top producer in the world attracting the  top students and faculty from all over the planet   00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:53.840 here to Blacksburg it's been a wild ride and a  terrific ride I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.