A Vibrant Intellectual Community

In late 2024, the university released its framework for achieving “global distinction” in coming years. The committee charged with developing that institution-defining initiative described that aspiration this way:

Global Distinction will result from elevating the quality, quantity, and prominence of our scholarship, research, creativity, and impact. Common measures include scholarly impact (e.g., citation impact, publication of books and monographs; curation of designs, visual art and artistic performances, etc.); extramural grant and contract expenditures; distinctive faculty awards, fellowships, and memberships; research-based doctoral education; and postdoctoral associate training.¹

The group also suggested that Virginia Tech would chart its progress toward this goal by strongly supporting its faculty (and staff) in all they do to realize the university’s mission:

Now and into the future, the best way for faculty to contribute to Global Distinction is by continuing to excel in their work across the tripartite missions of education, research, and outreach.²

        While the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation has since suggested that it is tracking various widely accepted measures of university excellence, it has rightly insisted the initiative is not about those specific indicators alone or even generally. Rather, it is about encouraging all at the university to reach for and realize new levels of distinction.

        I want to report here briefly on our efforts to do our part in helping Virginia Tech to realize this goal and to share examples of several initiatives and activities that suggest how and why that is so. I do not pretend that I can list all that is afoot in these terms at the Institute, but I do seek to provide an overview of relevant efforts. First, our sponsored work portfolio continues to be healthy, featuring federal, state and local projects. Despite the recent research funding reductions at the federal level, a team of our faculty recently submitted a major proposal to the National Institutes of Health related to our long-term effort to assist the Central Appalachian region in discovering and sharing effective public health strategies to address its ongoing opioid addiction epidemic. Work has also begun on a significant federally funded effort in partnership with the City of Roanoke to help that municipality develop the capacities of its nonprofit community and its own wherewithal to collaborate with those entities. A team of VTIPG faculty and graduate students have likewise been working with faculty and students associated with the Community Design Assistance Center to assist the Town of Floyd as its leaders reimagine the site of a former textile facility located near its downtown. A share of our colleagues also has been busy honing the curriculum of an existing program we co-manage with a state agency aimed at developing the Commonwealth’s future public service leaders. Another group is assisting several Virginia communities as those jurisdictions seek to attain more accurate fiscal forecasting and management strategies.

        Much other work continues or is in prospect, and our faculty and allied graduate students seek to share it whenever possible via scholarship. Accordingly, one of our Ph.D. students recently presented a paper crafted with another affiliated doctoral student and one of our faculty at the annual national conference of the American Association of Geographers in Detroit. Another of our faculty members also presented work there. As I write, two of our faculty are returning from Italy, where they presented a paper, born of a sponsored project, at the International Research Society for Public Management. Likewise, one of our Ph.D. students is in Montreal to present a paper that arose from sponsored work at the annual international Crises conference at the University of Quebec. Thereafter, he will fly to Vancouver to present a paper with a colleague from the University of British Columbia at the International Conference on Urban Affairs. That effort arose from sponsored research conducted in Roanoke. Meanwhile, closer to home, another of our affiliated graduate students and one of our faculty members saw their abstract accepted in recent days for an upcoming national conference at the Universities (Maryland) at Shady Grove.

        In addition to these papers and presentations, groups of our faculty and students are presently crafting research articles based on Institute work in Floyd and in Pulaski and in the nation of Georgia. Two of our faculty members and an affiliated doctoral student are also at work on a research initiative as part of an ongoing partnership with colleagues at the Jordanian University of Science and Technology in Irbid, Jordan. Finally, one of our faculty is working with still another affiliated graduate student on an article predicated on her thesis. This list hardly exhausts the research underway across the Institute and simply listing it surely does not capture the curiosity, imagination and energy it represents.

        Apart from this work, VTIPG faculty and doctoral students are now in the final stages of publishing a book addressing the housing crisis that has afflicted a group of refugees of the Georgian civil war for several decades. Meanwhile, a fresh book proposal now in final draft, draws on our podcast series, Social Science and the Public Good, and will result in an edited volume featuring nine of today’s leading scholars on imagination while highlighting the implications of their work for our understanding of the dynamics of democratic social change. All the work highlighted above should be viewed in light of the fact that Institute faculty and graduate students now also have five journal articles under review and are leading or co-leading special issues for two other international journals on germane topics.

        In my view, this overview suggests a lively research community of scholars and graduate students deeply interested not only in inquiry, but in its praxis implications for those affected by policy and governance broadly understood. By any measure I can imagine, these faculty and students are vitally engaged in their respective fields and working assiduously to share their research with interested professions, professionals and scholars. It is a privilege to work with each of them as they pursue efforts not only to identify ways to serve the public weal more effectively, but also to share those fruits with diverse audiences. The Institute is truly a vibrant intellectual community whose members are endeavoring daily to improve the governance of a share of the many stakeholders Virginia Tech seeks to serve in its mission. In so doing, our students, faculty and staff are daily contributing directly to Virginia Tech’s efforts to achieve global distinction.

Notes  

¹ “Virginia Tech Global Distinction FAQ’s.” https://www.vt.edu/global-distinction/faqs.html

² “Virginia Tech Global Distinction FAQs.”