Deans' Forum
on the Environment
The Virginia Tech Council of Deans has launched a series of Forums with the intention of bringing the academic community together in a spirit of collaboration and partnership to raise awareness of the diverse, yet substantial, research pursuits by the faculty and students at Virginia Tech with each other, members of industry and the community. To that end, the Council of Deans has supported the Deans’ Forum on the Environment to position Virginia Tech as the Commonwealth’s lead university in discovery, learning, and engagement related to the environment.
The specific goals for the Forum were to:
• Build on our existing strengths and the legacy of our land-grant mission to increase our collective participation in and contribution to addressing the environmental challenges of the region, nation, and world.
• Enhance awareness of environmental issues and foster synergy in research, education, and outreach efforts throughout the Virginia Tech community.
• Provide perspectives from policy leaders on environment-related research needs, both nationally and regionally, so the Virginia Tech community can lead the charge in addressing those needs.
• Provide a forum for students and student organizations to explore and exchange ideas on how to enhance Virginia Tech’s leadership in implementing sound environmental policies.
This Forum undertook three primary components of exchange between communities of environmental scholars. The first was a poster session, featuring more than 250 different research enterprises that enabled faculty and students to gain a better understanding of environment-related discovery, learning, and engagement activities being pursued at Virginia Tech. Aligned with the poster sessions, the forum featured keynote talks by state and national leaders. The second is the Deans' Forum on the Environment Book of Abstracts. It chronicles the existing research, as well as the researchers. The third is this university-based web site, which has been developed to provide a clearinghouse of on-going and past research and scholarship in the area of environment.
We hope you both enjoy and see these resources as opportunities for collaboration and partnership across the broad spectrum of environmental concerns.
The Virginia Tech Council of Deans, February 2007
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Sharron Quisenberry, Dean
College of Architecture and Urban Studies
Jack Davis, Dean
College of Engineering
Richard Benson, Dean
College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences
Jerry Niles, Dean
College of Natural Resources
Michael Kelly, Dean
Pamplin College of Business
Richard Sorensen, Dean
College of Science
Lay Nam Chang, Dean
Virginia-Maryland Regional College
of Veterinary Medicine
Gehardt Schurig, Dean
Graduate School
Karen DePauw, Dean
University Libraries
Eileen Hitchingham, Dean
Deans' Forum on the Environment Task Force
Posters Displayed at the Forum
Download the Deans' Forum on the Environment Book of Abstracts (100MB pdf)