The President's Message

President Charles Steger

A single step

There are moments in the life of every institution in which a single step results in many strides forward; when a cooperative push propels that institution toward greater progress; when the promise of the present predicts the potential of the future. For Virginia Tech, this is that moment.

Well positioned to benefit

Knowledge and discovery are at a premium, and ideas and innovation have become much more than the fuel for the larger engines of industry. They have become capital, and we can see how Virginia Tech is exceptionally well positioned to benefit from this development.

Excelling with private support

We've all watched as, despite our expanding reach and role in the world, state support has continued to dwindle. Indeed, we receive less in state funding today than we did six years ago. Yet such diminishing support has not impeded our progress. Your increased financial support, along with the support of like-minded friends from the foundation and corporate world, has allowed us not only to survive, but to excel.

Moving boldly and confidently into the future

But there is another element at work here, an element that compounds the effect of our forward motion, and that is the rapid rate with which the future approaches. Today, as never before, the interval between theoretical concept and useful application has been compressed, and as those applications generate the need for more knowledge, more concepts are born. This is a cycle that quickens exponentially, and it is a cycle that increasingly dominates our intellectual landscape. To move boldly and confidently into the future at this accelerated pace requires vision and an unwavering commitment.

The five key funding priorities

Of course, inventing the future is a participatory process -- a process of action, not observation. At Virginia Tech, we understand this, and we are taking action. We have a vision of this university in the years and decades ahead -- a vision built around the backbone of increased levels of annual and sustained giving, and directed by five key funding priorities:

• Academic Excellence
• The Undergraduate Experience
• Research Facilities
• Virginia Tech and the Community
• The President's Discovery Fund

Support for these areas will affect lives on all corners of this campus and around the world, and will help us capitalize on our existing strengths, expand upon our core competencies, and lead us to extraordinary accomplishments.

Sharing a dream

But in the final analysis, we are not asking you to help make the campaign a success, for the campaign is only a means to an end. We are asking you to play a role in inventing the future -- the future of research, the future of service and leadership, the future of learning, the future of building technologies, and the future of the arts. We are inviting you to join us in this process, a process that celebrates what has brought us here, acknowledges what compels us to move ahead, and honors the shared values and dreams that unite us.