User:VT hawkeye/VT history worksheet
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[edit] History
[edit] Early days
Virginia Tech's roots date back to 1851 and the founding of a small Methodist school called the Olin and Preston Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia. When that school came upon major financial difficulties for the second time in less than twenty years, its trustees urged their state legislators to pursue funding under the Morrill Land Grant Act for a state college in Blacksburg, to which they could then sell the Institute's property. In March 1872, the Virginia General Assembly approved and Gov. Gilbert C. Walker signed legislation to create the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College from the land purchased from the predecessor institution and a portion of the adjoining "Solitude" estate.[1] The early college began as a three-year school awarding certificates rather than degress; the university's Historical Data Book describes the curriculum as "more nearly like a junior college than a four-year college," with a first year of mostly preparatory classes and only two years of true college-level instruction.
For its first twenty years, the school struggled with low enrollment, conflict with local residents, debates over the necessity of military training at the school, and political battles between presidents, the board of visitors and the state legislature. Several important changes were made in 1879: a Bachelor of Arts degree was instituted, providing VAMC's first true college-level degree, students were required to live on campus, and the strict military discipline that would come to characterize the early Corps of Cadets was initiated.[2] The school suffered severe administrative turmoil during the brief reign of the Readjuster Party in control of the state government in the early 1880s, easing only briefly in the four-year presidential term of Thomas C. Conrad from 1882-1886[3]. Stability would have to wait until the five-year presidency (1886-1891) of Lunsford Lindsay Lomax; the prime accomplishment of his tenure was the establishment of an agricultural experiment station under the federal Hatch Act, which would later become the foundation of Virginia's cooperative extension service.[4]
[edit] McBryde and V.P.I.
John M. McBryde, the president of South Carolina College, was appointed president in 1891 and would serve for sixteen years. The changes made under his presidency formed the foundation of the modern Virginia Tech.[5] Academic programs were reorganized, the faculty went from nine to forty-eight instructors, and the bachelor of science degree was instituted in seven major areas, and enrollment went from 135 during his first year to peak over seven hundred.[6] The campus expanded apace, adding an incredible sixty-seven new buildings during his tenure including well over two hundred new dormitory rooms. In 1896, the General Assembly changed the name of the institution to Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute, a name popularly shortened to Virginia Polytechnic Institute (V.P.I.) almost immediately; a further contraction gained some currency as well -- Virginia Tech. The school colors were also changed from gray and black to Chicago maroon and burnt orange, and the school adopted a cheer called the Old Hokie composed by student O.M. Stull. Tech's first intercollegiate football team was formed in 1893.
[edit] References
- ^ http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/databook/text/chap1/1_2.htm
- ^ http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/databook/text/chap1/1_3.htm
- ^ http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/125th/kinnear/mibucon.htm
- ^ http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/databook/text/chap1/1_6.htm
- ^ http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/125th/kinnear/mcbryde.htm
- ^ http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/databook/text/chap1/1_7.htm
