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Week of March 13-17

2023

Board of Visitors: Quarterly meetings to take place March 19-20

The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors (BOV) will hold its quarterly meeting on March 20 at 12:45 p.m. in 2100 Torgersen Hall on the Blacksburg campus. Committee meetings held during the two-day session will be held at The Inn at Virginia Tech, unless otherwise noted. All board members will meet in open session and attend an information session on March 19 at 12:00 p.m. in Latham Ballroom CDEF at The Inn at Virginia Tech.

The March 20 full board meeting and the March 19 information session will be livestreamed. To view either meeting, go to the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors website. Public comment will not be received during the sessions.

For more information on the BOV meetings, topics on the agenda, and a schedule of committee meetings, please read this VTx announcement or visit the Board of Visitors website. If you encounter any issues with accessing the livestream, please call Virginia Tech 4-Help at 540-231-2280.

Virginia Tech: President of Botswana to visit Blacksburg campus, speak on March 21

His Excellency Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi, president of the Republic of Botswana, has accepted an invitation from President Tim Sands to visit the Blacksburg campus and speak to the university community. Masisi’s visit to Virginia Tech is believed to be the first by an international head of state.

Virginia Tech faculty, staff, students, and members of the community are invited to attend Masisi’s presentation, “Merging Conservation, Democracy, and Sustainable Development in Botswana,” on March 21 at 11:00 a.m. in the Commonwealth Ballroom in the Squires Student Center.

Masisi, who took office in 2018, became connected to Virginia Tech through the work of Professor Kathleen Alexander’s research program at the Centre for Conservation of African Resources: Animals, Communities, and Land Use (CARACAL), a nongovernmental organization in northern Botswana she co-founded in 2001. In 2019, he and first lady Neo Masisi toured CARACAL and met with Alexander and her team to discuss the program’s focus on improving health outcomes and livelihoods of communities and sustainably managing the natural ecosystems on which they depend.

Under Masisi’s leadership, increased focus has been directed at economic empowerment of communities and strengthening of conservation and biodiversity stewardship across the nation. Botswana remains a global economic and conservation success story.

For more information on President Masisi’s visit to Virginia Tech, please read this VTx article.

Faculty Affairs: Post-tenure faculty invited to Mid-Career Mentoring Summit

The Office of Faculty Affairs, in partnership with the Office of Inclusion and Diversity, invites post-tenure and mid-career faculty to attend the Mid-Career Mentoring Summit: Building Communities of Support, Inclusion, and AccountabilityMarch 24 from 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. in the Latham Ballroom at The Inn at Virginia Tech.

Offered by the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, the summit is designed to start a new type of discussion about mentoring by describing the common problems that post-tenure and mid-career faculty members experience and why traditional mentoring programs fail to meet those needs. Issues to be discussed during the session include:

  • How does mentoring differ for pre-tenure and post-tenure faculty? 
  • Does your department, college or university effectively mentor pre-tenure and post-tenure faculty? 
  • How can you work towards providing faculty with meaningful mentoring relationships and experiences across the career span? 
  • How can our institutions provide effective mentoring for underrepresented faculty?

Attendees will learn about an alternative framework for mentoring that focuses on needs assessment and shifts the idea of mentoring from a relationship between two faculty members towards building a broad network of support, community, and accountability.

The deadline to register is March 17 (today) at 5:00 p.m.

For more information and to register for the summit, please read this campus notice or email Barbara Lockee, associate vice provost for Faculty Affairs. Participants will earn three credits in the TLOS Computer Refresh Program.

University Libraries: Celebrate authorship at Virginia Tech Authors Recognition Event

The University Libraries will host a celebration of authorship, the Virginia Tech Authors Recognition Event, on March 27 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. in Newman Library. Faculty and staff are invited to attend and celebrate the accomplishments of colleagues across the university. Registration is requested no later than March 20.

The event honors those who have written or edited a book in the previous year as well others who have published articles with support from the University Libraries' Open Access Subvention Fund. Since its inception in 2006, the event has grown and changed to include books and related materials from staff and student published authors in addition to faculty. The University Libraries also recognized authorship in film and music as they are critical publications for many disciplines at Virginia Tech.

Information about the authors being honored during the event or to find out how to submit your book to be included is located through the Virginia Tech Authors Recognition Event Libguide.

For more information on the Virginia Tech Authors Recognition Event and to register to attend, please read this announcement. If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please email the University Libraries at least 10 business days prior to the event.

From Provost Cyril Clarke: Guidance and information on ChatGPT, generative AI tools

The emergence of ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools has become a topic of conversation over the past several weeks for faculty and academic departments. As we continue to learn more about this technology and how it is evolving, it is important to take an objective and informed approach to evaluating the possible pedagogical and ethical impacts of generative AI and how these tools might affect our assessment of student learning outcomes.

As an academic community, we need to gain a better understanding of ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools in order to determine if it is appropriate to include them among our teaching and learning resources. To that end, TLOS has developed guidance and recommendations for faculty who want to learn more about ChatGPT/generative AI and suggestions for evaluating potential impacts on course instruction. I encourage you to review this information and have open discussions with your colleagues as to the potential benefits and challenges associated with this technology.

Academic faculty will bear the primary responsibility for making decisions on how or if the use of generative AI tools by students is acceptable in their individual courses. They will be supported in these decisions and provided access to the latest information and guidance. TLOS will post updates and additional resources on their website as they become available.

Thank you for your ongoing attention to and feedback on this new technology. I hope you will continue to discuss this topic and share your perspectives on how ChatGPT/generative AI may impact our approach to educating our students and preparing them for their future careers.

Additional Resources and Updates

If you have comments or recommendations for how we can improve the Weekly Communications Update or suggestions for specific information and topics that should be shared with faculty, staff, and academic program personnel, please provide them through this Google form or email Provost Communications.

Please visit VT Ready and the Provost’s website frequently for new and updated university information. All members of the campus community should also read their VTx Daily email for further important updates, notices, and resources.