Most complicated questions of our time.
Today is possible because of the work of so many.
I'd like to just take a few moments
to recognize several colleagues.
There was an amazing community on our campus that
came together after last year's symposium.
They were members of our planning committee
in the equity and social disparity area.
Can they please stand if they are here.
All the planning committee members,
can you please stand and be recognized.
They're all shy. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] This year,
we also have special guest.
This is the first year that we've combined
our future faculty Fellows program with this symposium.
The program is in its 10th year.
It's designed to recruit talented,
under-represented faculty to Virginia Tech.
This year, we had a phenomenal applicant pool
and a record number of applications,
368, which is an increase
of last years, 140 applications.
The pool was exceptionally strong.
The almost 40 candidates that are here represent
candidates from all eight colleges and 36 departments.
The snow storm has put a little bit of
[LAUGHTER] a challenge in some of the travel plans,
but they're here today.
Can I ask the candidates that are here to please stand.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
We had a wonderful conversation this morning and I look
forward to the two days that
you will be here on our campus.
We recognize that we can only
advance the human condition with
the inclusion of diverse talent and faculty
of color are essential to this work.
I also want to recognize Dr.
Patrice Dickerson who's
our Director of Faculty Diversity.
She's been here at Virginia Tech for
just over a year and at that time has been absolutely
instrumental when working with our members of
the advanced InclusiveVT committee
to champion faculty diversity.
Running two programs the week
after Thanksgiving cannot happen [LAUGHTER] without
an amazing team and so I'd like to ask
Patrice if she could please stand and be recognized.
[APPLAUSE] Then finally,
the fact that this is the week after Thanksgiving,
I was able to spend some time
during the holiday just reflecting
on my almost now three years that
I've been here at Virginia Tech.
I often share that when I started,
I started with an office of two people,
it was Marcie Bishop and Marcy Schnitzer.
Our team now is almost 18 people and there here
today and if the team could
please stand and be recognized.
[APPLAUSE] Thank you so much.
Finally, I'm going to turn the program
over to Dr. Michele Deramo.
She's our assistant provost.
For the last two years with this symposium,
someone asked her the other day,
how did it come about and she
said it was some idea Menah had in the middle of
the night and [LAUGHTER]
she has been wonderful in terms of taking
pieces of complicated ideas across
multiple disciplines in trying to
weave them into a program that's cohesive,
that makes sense and hopefully is transformational.
I'd like to ask Michele to come forward. Thank you.