Disclosure: I wanted to use AI to help me write an article on my 10-year anniversary at Virginia Tech. I used Perplexity because I wanted to see how much documentation still exists about the work that has been done for the past ten years. In a time when so much work around diversity, equity, and inclusion has been removed and erased and “invisibilized,” I was curious about what was still visible. In addition to leveraging AI to do the research, I also leveraged AI to “write” the post. It created a draft, and I have made minimal edits. What was important to me in this article was the footnotes and documentation.
## Once Upon a Time
I arrived at Virginia Tech in January 2016 with a mix of urgency, hope, and a sober understanding of history. I had read roughly twenty years of diversity reports and recommendations and felt deeply that it was finally “time to reap”—to harvest the labor of generations of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members who had long insisted the university’s structures should match its stated values. That January, even before my official start date on February 1, I spoke at an AdvanceVT summit about this conviction: that we were moving from a planning era into a moment of implementation, when we could build durable programs, policies, and narratives that reflected who Virginia Tech wanted to be.[1][2] This year is the first year in 10 years that has been no Advancing InclusiveVT/Diversity Summit.
Over the next decade, Virginia Tech developed an ecosystem of InclusiveVT representatives, college diversity officers, diversity committees, Cultural and Community Centers, councils, symposia, and policy changes that reshaped campus life. This article is my ten-year look back on that institutional transformation. It is also written in the shadow of the March 2025 vote to dissolve the Inclusivity Excellence and Strategy Office and the November 2025 Board decision eliminating all explicitly named “DEI” programs. The changes that altered the administrative landscape but hopefully did not erase the decade of work—or the culture—that preceded them.[3][4]
## From reports to an InclusiveVT framework
Long before 2016, Virginia Tech had been studying diversity and climate. The 2013–2018 Diversity Strategic Plan adopted an Inclusive Excellence framework with four core dimensions: access and success; campus climate and intergroup relations; education and scholarship; and institutional infrastructure.[2][5][1]
In 2014, the university launched InclusiveVT as a set of initiatives. It was refined and defined by the community after I led and facilitated 90 days of conversation about how to define InclusiveVT after my arrival. In May 2016, InclusiveVT was “the institutional and individual commitment to Ut Prosim (that I may serve) in the spirit of community, diversity, and excellence.” It was intentionally connected to the institution’s defining motto, Ut Prosim (that I may serve). It was about reimagining the institution’s historical military-based motto of “service to country,” to a perspective that the institution had a responsibility to prepare its students to be of service to anyone, anytime, and anywhere. And that responsibility meant making sure that students had an understanding of cultures, backgrounds, perspectives, and ideas that were different from their own. Over time, a President’s Inclusion and Diversity Executive Council, supported by InclusiveVT representatives across major units, created a structure for “active, intentional engagement” and for embedding inclusion within unit plans and accountability processes. College-level diversity officers and diversity committees were charged with advancing the InclusiveVT pillars locally and reporting their progress, effectively distributing responsibility across the institution.[5][6][7][1][2]
Strategic planning documents such as The Virginia Tech Difference: Advancing Beyond Boundaries described an “inclusive process” through which equity goals were woven into university-wide priorities. By the early 2020s, the university’s six-year plan referenced Virginia Tech’s recognition as a Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award institution, signaling that the InclusiveVT framework had become part of the university’s public identity.[7][8][9]
## Access and success: Pipelines, centers, and belonging
One of the clearest signs of change was the growth of pre-college pipelines that brought underrepresented high-school students onto campus and into Virginia Tech’s orbit. The Black College Institute (BCI) became a flagship program, offering multi-day, residential academic and leadership enrichment program to students “interested in the African American experience.” It was intentionally founded to focus on the African-American experience. Although a majority of the participants were Black, it was not a race-based program and it never excluded any racial group. The only requirements were high-achieving, academically curious, and interested in the African American experience. Videos from 2017, 2022, and 2024 show students living in residence halls, visiting colleges and departments, engaging in workshops, and creating research projects on African American issues (Black maternal health, stereotypes, athletics, language, education, prison-education pipeline). It was about demystifying college and Virginia Tech while building community.[10][11][12][13] It was also seen as fulfilling Virginia Tech’s responsibility as a land-grant institution that should be serving all citizens of the state, including its African American population that had intentionally been denied admission until 1963 at an institution founded in 1872. In 2016, the percentage of Black students in the entering class was 3.8%. Over time, it rose to 8.9%. Yet, the total number of Black students did not reach 2000, out of a total enrollment of 30,000+. The impact of BCI touched over 3000 rising high school students, parents, alumni, family, and friends through opening and closing ceremonies that allowed students to showcase their talents.
In parallel, Virginia Tech hosted the Hispanic College Institute (HCI) in partnership with the Virginia Latino Higher Education Network (VALHEN). Recap videos from 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2024 show Latinx students meeting mentors, working on applications and résumés, and exploring campus as they imagine their futures in higher education. Together, BCI and HCI formed a visible access pipeline ecosystem aligned with the Strategic Plan’s call to improve underrepresented student recruitment and success.[14][15][16][17][2] The objective was to ensure that the Virginia Tech experience created a diverse community and underrepresented and underserved student diversity increased from 14% to 20%, fulfilling a strategic plan goal.
Within the university, the Cultural and Community Centers served as anchor spaces for belonging. The Black Cultural Center (BCC), proposed by Black students in 1984 and opened in 1991, remained a central hub for exhibits, dialogues, and social space for Black students and their allies.
This video shares about the first Black students at Virginia Tech.
https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=7089974659885872746&li_theme=light
Over the decade, Virginia Tech strengthened and expanded the center model, supporting El Centro (Hispanic and Latinx Cultural Center), the APIDA + Center, the American Indian and Indigenous Community Center (AIICC), and the Pride Center, all framed as hubs for underrepresented student success, marginalized communities, and campus-wide cultural competency.[18][19][20][21][22][23]
El Centro, the Hispanic and Latinx Cultural Center, opened in 2016 as a home for Latinx students, housing the Latinx Library and hosting community gatherings, advising, and educational events. It also became the institutional home for the Virginia Tech Latinx Symposium (often experienced as a Latinx summit), an all-day event that highlights Latinx scholarship, student leadership, and community issues, and anchors Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month programming that includes talks, performances, and cultural celebrations.[28][29][30][31][18]
The APIDA + Center founded in 2018 advocates for Asian Pacific Islander Desi American communities through programming on wellbeing, cultural identity, and history; it advises APIDA student organizations and collaborates with departments on APIDA-relevant curriculum and retention efforts. Its event schedule shows language tables, professional development sessions, and APIDA Heritage Month events that both support APIDA students and educate the broader campus.[23][32]
The Pride Center, reimagined in 2018, evidenced broadened commitment to LGBTQ+ students and offered extensive campus-wide education programs.
Living-learning communities complemented these centers. The Ujima Living-Learning Community in Peddrew-Yates Hall, for example, provided a residential home for students interested in the African-American culture, experience, and history that offered mentoring, Africana Studies courses, academic support, and programming connected to the history of Irving Peddrew, the first Black student to attend Virginia Tech. In 2022, Lavender House opened as the university’s first living-learning community for LGBTQ+ studies, integrating a queer studies course with residential life and explicitly affirming LGBTQ+ students and allies in an academic residential environment.[24][25][26][27]
## Indigenous engagement: Land, powwow, and relationships
The decade also deepened Virginia Tech’s engagement with Indigenous peoples and histories. The American Indian and Indigenous Community Center (AIICC) was founded in 2017 and articulated a land acknowledgment that recognizes the campus as located on Tutelo/Monacan homelands and commits the university to sustained, transparent engagement with these Nations and with other Native communities, including recruitment and retention of Indigenous students, staff, and faculty.[22][33][34]
In 2019, University Council approved a resolution establishing Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday in October, a resolution authored by Native at Virginia Tech students (Jason Chavez) who challenged the institution to honor Native presence and sovereignty.
The Spring Powwow, initially a student-driven event, grew into a major annual gathering on the Graduate Life Center lawn hosted by the Indigenous Community Center and Native at VT. Articles and event pages describe the powwow as a space where the campus and local communities can learn about Indigenous cultures, protocols, and histories, with participation from dancers, drummers, and leaders including members of the Monacan Indian Nation. These efforts were supported by the Indigenous Studies Program and by a growing digital archive documenting Indigenous histories in the region, including Virginia Tech’s relationships with the Monacan Nation.[33][35][36][37][38] Virginia Tech also hosted a Native American Summit with the 11 federally recognized tribal nations. Cultural centers often collaborated together and secured federal grant funding for both the APIDA and AIICC centers to support student success.
These units worked in close partnership with the InclusiveVT framework, college diversity officers, and campus governance bodies to embed inclusion into everyday student and faculty life.[26][27]
## Student Opportunities and Achievement Resources (SOAR)
Student Opportunities and Achievement Resources (SOAR), created in 2018 within the Office for Inclusion and Diversity, provided holistic support and coordinated outreach to underrepresented and underserved students, working with advising, the Student Success Center, and other partners to improve retention and success. The SOAR team also led the Black College Institute, which brought over 3,000 high school students to Virginia Tech over 7 years, providing almost 200 leadership internships as part of a year-round program. SOAR’s work embodied the InclusiveVT commitment to wrap support around students and help them succeed while contributing to the institution’s diversity goals. SOAR was founded as a result of the acknowledgment of the disparity in graduation rates for minoritized students, particularly African Americans. The program identified that the most significant factor affecting retention and graduation was financial aid. In collaboration with Advancement, it secured emergency funding scholarships, and partnered with Financial Aid and Student Affairs.
## Faculty, leadership, and professional pipelines
As InclusiveVT matured, Virginia Tech invested in diversifying its faculty and leadership pipeline. The Future Faculty Diversity Program (FFDP) brought promising doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars from around the country to campus for a multi-day experience that introduced them to Virginia Tech’s departments, community, and resources, while communicating the university’s commitment to InclusiveVT. Program booklets trace the initiative back to 2010 and describe its goals: to diversify applicant pools, demystify the faculty role, and cultivate relationships with scholars who might join VT in future years.[39][40][41][42] Over time, almost 70 faculty were hired into the Virginia Tech community through the program in collaboration with department heads and deans.
The Faculty Women of Color in the Academy (FWCA) national conference emerged as another key node in this ecosystem. I founded the conference at University of Illinois and Virginia Tech eagerly welcomed it. For the past 10 years, FWCA convened faculty women of color and Indigenous women from across the country for scholarly exchange, leadership development, wellness, and community building. Conference materials frame FWCA as a unique national space that centered the experiences and contributions of faculty women of color in higher education and highlighted Virginia Tech’s role as convener.[43][44]
At the same time, VT launched programs aimed at shifting leadership culture. The “White Allies as Transformational Leaders” initiative, for example, sought to equip white administrators and leaders with the tools, language, and accountability frameworks necessary to act as effective allies in advancing a more inclusive university. Reports such as Advancing Faculty Diversity at Virginia Tech documented broader efforts to improve recruitment, hiring, and retention practices and to create a more affirming climate for faculty from historically underrepresented groups.[45][46]
## Curriculum, research, and the human condition
The InclusiveVT decade was not limited to co-curricular programs; it also reached into the curriculum and research enterprise. The Diversity Strategic Plan called for expanding courses and pathways that addressed diversity, global inclusion, and social justice, and planning documents describe the development of curricula that focused explicitly on social equity and human disparity in the United States. These curricular shifts helped ensure that more students encountered critical conversations about race, inequality, and justice in their formal academic programs, not only in extra-curricular spaces.[1][2]
At the level of research priorities, Destination Areas and transdisciplinary communities were created, including one focused on equity and social disparity in the human condition. This structure signaled that scholarship on social equity and human flourishing was not peripheral but central to the university’s vision, and that resources—faculty lines, seed grants, graduate opportunities—would support such work. The Advancing the Human Condition Symposium, documented in university repositories and videos of graduate student presentations, showcased faculty and student research on topics such as health disparities, racial justice, and human rights, embodying this emphasis on equity-oriented scholarship.[8][9][47][48]
Advancing Diversity/InclusiveVT Gatherings complemented this scholarly work by bringing together faculty, staff, and students to share diversity-focused research, teaching practices, and initiatives. Program booklets show sessions across disciplines, indicating that inclusion had become a topic of intellectual inquiry and institutional learning, not just a matter of compliance.[46][49]
## Place, history, and changing the landscape
One of the most profound transformations of the InclusiveVT decade took place on the campus landscape itself. The Solitude–Fraction initiative, “Telling the Whole Story,” re-centered Solitude (constructed around 1802) as the oldest building on campus and formally recognized the adjacent structure as the Fraction Family House, the only surviving building that housed enslaved people on the former plantation. Partnership and collaboration with descendants from the Fraction Family brought almost 100 descendants to Virginia Tech as part of the sesquicentennial. The project’s “Imagine,” “Learn,” and “Engage” pages describe a mission to interrogate the intertwined histories of settlers, Indigenous communities, and enslaved Africans and to provide spaces for inquiry, creative expression, and community reflection.[50][51][52][53]
The Land Acknowledgement and Labor Recognition statements, crafted in collaboration with the American Indian and Indigenous Community Center, the Black Caucus, and historians, acknowledge that Virginia Tech operates on Tutelo/Monacan homelands and that its founding is tied to land appropriated via the Morrill Act and to the enslaved labor of hundreds of Black people on the Solitude and Smithfield plantations and in the construction of campus. These statements were formally adopted through Presidential Policy Memorandum No. 322 in 2023, embedding them in university policy rather than leaving them as symbolic gestures.[54][55][56]
The Council on Virginia Tech History, created as part of the sesquicentennial, worked with campus partners to commission public art for Solitude–Fraction and to recommend historical markers across campus that surface marginalized histories. During the sesquicentennial, Virginia Tech installed a series of historical markers as part of the Council on Virginia Tech History’s work, drawing attention to Black, Indigenous, and women’s histories and other previously under-acknowledged stories. Calls for public art proposals describe Solitude and the Fraction Family House as a landscape of both pain and reflection and invite artists to help the university tell a more complete story. A video on “African American Experiences at Solitude” and related events tied to the “1872 Forward” initiative further underscored this focus on remembrance and reckoning.[57][58][59][60]
Renaming decisions also changed the physical narrative. In 2020, the Board of Visitors voted to rename Lee and Barringer Halls—buildings that had honored men with racist and white supremacist histories—as Hoge Hall and Whitehurst Hall. The new names memorialize Janie and William Hoge, a Black couple who housed and cared for eight Black engineering students, including Irving Peddrew, Lindsay Cherry, Floyd Wilson, and Charlie Yates, when Black students were not allowed to live on campus, and James Leslie Whitehurst Jr., the first Black student permitted to live in a campus residence hall and a student leader.[25][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68]
Board documents, media coverage, and the Janie Hoge Memorial Scholarship page together tell the story of how the Hoge home at 306 Clay Street became a refuge and “home base” for early Black students, providing meals, laundry, and emotional support, and how that legacy is now inscribed on the campus map. Special Collections materials and Corps articles add to this picture by highlighting how early Black cadets like Lindsay Cherry later donated their Corps saber and class ring to the Black Cultural Center so that future students could see themselves in VT’s history.[63][65][66][69][70][71][72][73]
The event “1872 Forward: A Celebration of Virginia Tech,” developed with partners including the More Than a Fraction Foundation and Solitude–Fraction, told a complex narrative about the university’s founding and growth, foregrounding enslaved labor and land dispossession, and was recognized with an Anthem Award for its social impact. My own sesquicentennial poem, “**Virginia Tech: Creation. Celebration. Commission.**,” performed during these celebrations and captured in a short video, sought to weave these strands together, acknowledging that “much has been done, much more remains to do” as part of the Virginia Tech story.[58][59][60][74][57]
## Governance and advocacy: CEOD and faculty/staff caucuses
Behind many of these changes stood governance and advocacy structures that helped connect community voices to decision-making. The Commission on Equal Opportunity and Diversity (CEOD), a University Council commission, was charged with reviewing and recommending policies related to equal opportunity, affirmative action, accessibility, and diversity, and served as a formal channel through which faculty and staff caucuses could bring forward concerns and proposals. CEOD statements, such as a 2018 clarification on sex, gender, and equal opportunity, explicitly affirmed protections based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation and connected those protections to VT’s equal opportunity statement.[75][76]
Faculty and staff caucuses, including the Black Faculty/Staff Caucus, the Hispanic and Latinx Faculty & Staff Caucus, the APIDA Caucus, the women’s caucus, the LGBTQ caucus, the Appalachian Caucus, and the veteran’s caucus, and others, provided community, advocacy, and leadership for employees from historically underrepresented groups. An InclusiveVT resource page describes these caucuses as organizations that develop policy recommendations, promote recruitment and retention, and collaborate with university leadership to improve the experiences of their members and the students they serve. These groups, in partnership with CEOD and the InclusiveVT infrastructure, ensured that inclusion work was not confined to a single office but distributed across governance bodies and networks.[77][78]
The women’s caucus led important conversations about the inequity that women faculty, staff, and graduate students were facing at Virginia Tech. Conversations with 400 women eventually led to greater awareness related to service and policy implementation.
## Campus climate: InclusiveVT Week, Principles Week, and George Floyd
Campus-wide rituals and conversations helped sustain this ecosystem. InclusiveVT Week invited units and organizations to dedicate a week each year to intentional programming on inclusion and diversity; vice-presidential reflections describe it as a time when the entire campus community is called to focus on belonging and equity, often accompanied by speaker series and social campaigns. Principles of Community Week, held each March, provided opportunities to revisit Virginia Tech’s Principles of Community—its aspirational diversity statement—through panels, videos, and events that connected the Principles to Ut Prosim and to lived experiences such as being first-generation, a woman in STEM, or part of other underrepresented groups.[79][80][81][82][83]
The murder of George Floyd in 2020 marked a painful and galvanizing moment. Virginia Tech hosted “Virginia Tech’s Unfinished Conversation on Race” as a live, campus-wide YouTube event, bringing the community together to name anti-Black violence, discuss structural racism, and reflect on the university’s roles and responsibilities. Around the same time, the live webcast “Making the Chair Fit” used the metaphor of a chair that must be reshaped to fit people—rather than forcing people to contort themselves to fit a fixed chair—to explore how institutional structures might be redesigned in light of the inequities laid bare by COVID-19.[84][85]
Subsequent “Unfinished Conversation” dialogues and alumni-hosted events, including conversations with Irving Peddrew and other early Black students, connected personal narratives of exclusion and resilience to institutional changes such as Solitude–Fraction, renamings, and the Land and Labor Acknowledgement. Together, these digital conversations became part of the emotional and intellectual archive of the InclusiveVT decade, documenting how the community grappled with racial injustice and sought to imagine a different future.[55][66][86]
## InclusiveVT Education and Awareness
InclusiveVT’s education and awareness work turned diversity learning into a structured part of how students and faculty move through Virginia Tech. It spans credit-bearing coursework, required online modules, faculty development, and college-level programming, all tied back to institutional strategy.
For students, Virginia Tech created both formal and co-curricular diversity-education pathways. The Graduate School launched a 9-credit Inclusion and Diversity Graduate Certificate, anchored by GRAD 5214 (Diversity and Inclusion in a Global Society) and electives on identity, social structures, and justice, giving graduate students a coherent academic program in diversity and equity.[97] At the same time, the university’s strategic plan required all graduate programs to include a “cultural competency” component by 2022 and expects undergraduates to complete Pathways courses that meet Critical Analysis of Equity and Identity in the U.S. and Intercultural and Global Awareness outcomes.[40] For undergraduates, VT adopted DiversityEdu, an online module that introduces students to the Principles of Community and foundational concepts such as identity, bias, and respectful engagement, supported by a discussion guide for instructors and staff.[99]
These efforts were reinforced by co-curricular programs coordinated through Student Affairs’ Inclusion & Belonging and the Cultural and Community Centers, where dialogues, peer-led sessions, and collaborative events with El Centro, the APIDA + Center, AIICC, and the Pride Center give students practice in engaging across difference.[100][18][28][32][23]
Faculty and instructors had their own structured pathways: Inclusive Pedagogy workshops offer multi-session courses (e.g., “How Student Identities Matter,” “Inclusive Pedagogy Pathway”) that use scenarios and campus resources to help faculty adopt equitable teaching practices and earn digital badges.[101] University-wide lists of spring diversity and inclusion courses highlight self-paced offerings such as Anti-Racist Teaching, Creating an Inclusive Climate/Workplace, Fostering an Inclusive Classroom, Inclusive Advising, Reducing Implicit Bias, and “What is Privilege and Why Does it Matter?”.[102]
Institutions like the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) and TLOS extend this work. CETL offers workshops and asynchronous courses that explicitly emphasize inclusive pedagogy and global/intercultural learning as core faculty-development outcomes.[103] TLOS runs Inclusive Practices workshops and accessible-technologies training that help faculty and stinclusive, accessible learning environments, with sessions on universal design, supporting individuals with disabilities, and accessibility in computing and STEM classrooms.[104][105] Strategic documents such as “Elevate the Ut Prosim Difference” link these efforts to a VT-shaped student experience, calling for increased participation in diversity-related courses and co-curricular opportunities and for full implementation of graduate diversity-education requirements.[48][40]
InclusiveVT reports describe education and awareness as an ongoing practice, referencing diversity-education forums, Diversity Summits, and Advancing Diversity programs as recurring venues for campus learning, and noting the role of InclusiveVT representatives in disseminating resources across units.[30] The role of Assistant Provost for Diversity Education—profiled in a career video—was explicitly charged with designing and coordinating these programs, workshops, and materials for the university.[106] Colleges such as Pamplin, Liberal Arts & Human Sciences, and Engineering also developed their own DEI offices and diversity committees that created college-specific workshops, dialogues, and international experiential learning programs focused on diversity and intercultural competence, often aligned with InclusiveVT Week and Principles of Community Week.[107][53]
Finally, diversity education was embedded in governance and assessment. The Virginia Tech Difference: An Inclusive Process includes explicit metrics—for example, achieving 100% graduate-program participation in a cultural-competency requirement and Pathways targets for equity and identity outcomes—tying diversity education to institutional planning, budgeting, and accountability.[40] In combination, these elements made InclusiveVT Education and Awareness an ecosystem rather than a single program: a coordinated set of curricular, co-curricular, and professional-development experiences designed to ensure that learning about diversity, equity, and inclusion became a normal, expected part of life at Virginia Tech.
This InclusiveVT Impact report reflects the difference:
## National recognition: HEED and Anthem Awards
The InclusiveVT decade also received external validation. Virginia Tech’s six-year plan and communications note that the university earned INSIGHT Into Diversity’s Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award, recognizing comprehensive diversity and inclusion efforts.[9][87]
The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine earned the Health Professions HEED Award multiple times, citing its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in medical education.[87]
Anthem Awards from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences recognized both the Black College Institute and “1872 Forward: A Celebration of Virginia Tech,” signaling national acknowledgment of the university’s pre-college pipeline work and its public-history and reconciliation efforts.[11][60][10]
These awards affirmed that the InclusiveVT ecosystem—from access programs to historical reckoning—had impact beyond campus boundaries.
## Restructuring, dissolution, and loss
The final part of this decade-long story is difficult. In December 2024, in response to changing state-level directives and political pressures, Virginia Tech began restructuring its inclusion and diversity functions. On March 24, 2025, the Board of Visitors voted to dissolve the Inclusivity Excellence and Strategy Office, which housed much of the InclusiveVT administrative infrastructure, citing financial necessity and compliance with new guidance.[4][3]
Local media coverage documented hundreds of students, staff, and faculty protesting the decision, marching and speaking out in defense of DEI offices and programs. A Cardinal News analysis noted that the board’s resolution directed the university to eliminate or reconfigure initiatives that supported diversity, equity, and inclusion and recorded students’ fears that dissolving the office would increase discrimination and undermine years of progress.[88][3][4] The November 2025 Board meeting formalized this policy shift by eliminating all programs explicitly labeled “DEI,” leaving offices, titles, and initiatives that had been built over a decade to be dissolved, renamed, or redistributed.
For me, this period has been marked by grief and concern. It was painful to watch structures we worked so hard to build be dismantled or renamed. It is also a test of what has truly taken root—what remains embedded in policy, landscape, curriculum, and culture when offices are dissolved and acronyms are banned. The InclusiveVT framework as a formal administrative entity has been curtailed; the question is how much of its spirit and substance survives in the people and places it helped shape.
I miss the community that had been created, the camaraderie across campus, the network, and the friendships. Many diversity professionals were from minoritized backgrounds. Many lost their positions, including many that I had hired and worked closely with for 10 years. I cannot articulate the sadness and distress I feel for so many of my colleagues. Despite all the progress, I have been the “lonely only.” For 10 years, there has never been another African American woman hired as a vice president, vice provost, or dean; not a Native American; not an APIDA woman. Not one! There was one Latina in a Vice Provost role for a few years. Many of my colleagues share a sense of feeling labelled with a scarlet “D,” symbolically standing for “diversity, do not touch,” and increasing isolation by the campus community. For me, during that time, I was experiencing health crises, with my blood pressure at stroke level. Requesting a meeting to be rescheduled, I was told to provide medical documentation if I was not able to attend or proof that I was on approved medical leave. It was a period of deep isolation for many of my colleagues. Many are still looking for opportunities and grieving the radical disenfranchisement from what seemed an almost impenetrable commitment.
Yet, I am grateful for the opportunity that I was given to lead; to be creative; to work with faculty, staff, students, and alumni. To meet so many amazing Hokies.
## Time to reap: Seeds and legacies
Despite these losses, it is not accurate to say that nothing remains. The decade of InclusiveVT work left material, symbolic, and human legacies that cannot simply be voted away. Buildings now bear the names of Janie and William Hoge and James Leslie Whitehurst Jr., embedding into the campus landscape the stories of Black community members and students who opened doors for others. The Land and Labor Acknowledgement lives in policy, in classrooms, and in the consciousness of students, faculty, and staff who have heard it and wrestled with its implications. Solitude–Fraction stands as a physical site where the experiences of enslaved people and their descendants are centered rather than marginalized.[51][56][61][62][65][50][54][55][57][63]
Programs such as BCI, HCI, FWCA, FFDP, and the Spring Powwow have produced cohorts of alumni and networks whose lives and expectations were shaped by their time at Virginia Tech.[35][36][47][82][83][2][8][10][11][14][39][43][79][84]
Curricular changes and research communities focused on equity and the human condition have seeded scholarship, courses, and degrees that continue to influence how VT teaches and learns. Cultural practices like InclusiveVT Week, Principles of Community Week, and the “Unfinished Conversation” series have left a record of what the university once declared it wanted to be, and what many still insist it can be again.
When I arrived in 2016, I believed it was time to reap—to gather the harvest of decades of advocacy and planning. In 2025, after the dissolution of the office and the elimination of formally labeled DEI programs, it can feel as though fields have been cut down. Yet anyone who has spent time in agriculture knows that seeds remain in the soil. The InclusiveVT decade created an ecosystem of programs, people, structures, and stories that continues to shape expectations, identities, and commitments. The real question now is how future generations of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners will protect, replant, and reimagine these legacies in a new and more difficult season.
One of the seeds buried at Tech led to the founding of a new non-profit organization by three amazing friends who are leading the organization as board members. SPARK is an acronym for Scholarly Platforms for Advancing Research and Knowledge.
It is a platform for Dear Higher Education: Letters from the Social Justice Mountain and SPARK FWCA, being held virtually for 2026, with the aspirations for an in-person 15th annual conference in 2027. Learn more at www.sparkacademic.org.
Registration is open for SPARK FWCA, being held April 9-12, with almost 20 sessions, amazing keynotes, workshops, and healing hours. The registration fee is $250 and scholarships are available. The theme is Liberation in Practice: Healing, Justice, and Imagination in Higher Education.
SPARK is also hosting two healing hours by incredible healing practioners, grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing On February 24 SPARK will host Native American healer and practioner, Willow Abrahamson, LCSW, who uses Indigenous practices to support healing. On March 3, the Healing Hour will feature Roksana Badruddoja, PhD, MBA, whose research as a decolonial ethnographer uses indigenous methodologies to address trauma and grief. Please consider signing up. www.sparkacademic.org
Another unexpected seed was unburying my father’s archive on his aborted faculty career as a nuclear physicist and the first African to get a PhD in nuclear physics from an American university. I’m excited about this book project and telling his story particulalry in this moment.
## Will there be a happily ever after?
AI has the potential to radically transform the higher education landscape. From my vantage point, as a scholar and practitioner intentionally using and leveraging AI, it can create and reproduce inequities and disparities. It can perpetuate bias; and if there ever was a time that understanding human beings, their differences, their points of similarity and connection, to understand the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is now. I hope others are motivated, too, what remains “out there” for so many institutions around their work.
—
## References
[1] Diversity Strategic Plan 2013–2018 – Virginia Tech
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/content/dam/inclusive_vt_edu/resources/dsp/dsp-2013-2018-pdf.pdf
[2] Inclusion and Diversity Report 2015 – VTechWorks
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstreams/53694dc8-c171-4379-bb1e-f9488d0ec788/download
[3] InclusiveVT: Past, Present, Future – VTechWorks
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/79578
[4] President’s Inclusion and Diversity Executive Council – Framework (PDF)
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/content/dam/inclusive_vt_edu/resources/forums/docs/framework-pdf.pdf
[5] The Virginia Tech Difference: An Inclusive Process – Strategic Affairs
https://strategicaffairs.vt.edu/StrategicPlanning/vtdiffabb/AnInclusiveProcess.html
[6] The Virginia Tech Difference: Advancing Beyond Boundaries – Strategic Plan (PDF)
(linked via Strategic Affairs site)
[7] Virginia Tech 2021 Six-Year Plan
https://rga.lis.virginia.gov/Published/2021/RD755/PDF
[8] Black College Institute – Overview video
[9] 7th annual Black College Institute – Feature
[10] Black College Institute explores degree programs – Segment
[11] High school students attend Black College Institute – Early coverage
[12] HCI 2024 Recap – VALHEN at Virginia Tech
[13] VALHEN HCI @ VT 2019 – Video
[14] VALHEN HCI @ VT 2022 – Video
[15] VALHEN – Hispanic College Institute context
[16] Cultural and Community Centers – Overview
[17] History of Cultural and Community Centers – VT
https://ccc.vt.edu/history.html
[18] Black Cultural Center (BCC) page
https://ccc.vt.edu/index/bcc.html
[19] Ujima: A Living-Learning Community – Video
[20] AIICC Summer Higher Education Program – About
https://ccc.vt.edu/index/aiicc/agency-education/summerhigheredprogram/About_Page.html
[21] Indigenous Studies Program – CLAHS
[22] Indigenous Peoples Day – Cultural and Community Centers
https://ccc.vt.edu/calendar/Indigenous_Peoples_Day.html
[23] Spring Powwow organizer article – 2022
https://liberalarts.vt.edu/news/articles/2022/04/spring-powwow.html
[24] Spring 2025 Powwow – Event page
https://ccc.vt.edu/calendar/powwow.html
[25] Indigenous History at Virginia Tech – Digital Collection
https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/exhibits/show/indigenous-vt/collection
[26] Monacan Indian Nation – Official site
[27] “Beyond Hunting Grounds” – Essay
https://www.plantvirginianatives.org/plantswvanatives/beyond-hunting-grounds
[28] NIFA Project – Native Student Retention
[29] FFDP 2022 Booklet – Virginia Tech
[30] FFDP announcement – UCSB GradPost
[31] FFDP listing – Minority Postdoc
https://www.minoritypostdoc.org/resources/virginia-tech-future-faculty-diversity-program
[32] FFDP promotion – UMBC LLC
https://llc.umbc.edu/home/news-events/post/142916
[33] FWCA 2024 Conference Program – VT
[34] FWCA description – UMass
[35] White Allies as Transformational Leaders – News item
[36] Advancing Faculty Diversity at Virginia Tech – July 2021 Report
https://inside.aad.vt.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Advancing-Faculty-Diversity-July-2021-FINAL.pdf
[37] Advancing Diversity Gathering – January 11, 2022 Program
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstreams/7e5f6ec5-886f-4ff5-9d7e-9b735aaefad1/download
[38] Advancing the Human Condition Symposium – Overview
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/items/423a236e-2184-4e8d-8eb5-4bdc3a11673e
[39] Graduate research at Advancing the Human Condition – Video
[40] Solitude–Fraction: Telling the Whole Story – Overview
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/education/solitude-fraction–telling-the-whole-story.html
[41] Solitude–Fraction “Imagine” page
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/education/solitude-fraction–telling-the-whole-story/imagine.html
[42] Solitude–Fraction “Engage” page
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/education/solitude-fraction–telling-the-whole-story/engage.html
[43] Solitude–Fraction “Learn” page
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/education/solitude-fraction–telling-the-whole-story/learn.html
[44] Land Acknowledgement and Labor Recognition – InclusiveVT
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/resources/land-acknowledgement-and-labor-recognition.html
[45] Land & Labor Acknowledgement – Indigenous VT Exhibit
https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/exhibits/show/indigenous-vt/land-acknowledgement
[46] Presidential Policy Memorandum No. 322
https://policies.vt.edu/assets/ppm-322.pdf
[47] Council on Virginia Tech History – Public Art Call
Fraction Family House: Council on Virginia Tech History Seeks Proposals for Public Art
[48] Our Sesquicentennial – Corps Review article
https://vtcc.vt.edu/alumni/corpsreview/cr-fall21/fall21-sesquicentennial.html
[49] African American Experiences at Solitude – Video
https://liberalarts.vt.edu/news/video/african-american-experiences-at-solitude.html
[50] Irving Linwood Peddrew III – Special Collections blog
Irving Linwood Peddrew, III, First Black Student at VPI
[51] First African-American student to attend Va. Tech finally gets degree – Richmond Free Press
https://m.richmondfreepress.com/news/2016/may/20/first-african-american-student-attend-va-tech-fina
[52] Trailblazers: Black alumni from the ’60s and ’70s – VT Magazine
https://www.vtmag.vt.edu/sum14/trailblazers-black-alumni-60s-70s.html
[53] First African American admitted to Virginia Tech dies at 88 – WTKR
[54] The Janie Hoge Memorial Scholarship Fund – InclusiveVT
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/resources/hoge.html
[55] VT renames two residence halls after Black trailblazers – WSLS
[56] VT to rename two residence halls – WSET
[57] VT renames dorms once named after men with racist views – CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/14/us/virginia-tech-dorm-rename
[58] Cherry Saber and Ring Donation Shares History Across Generations – Corps Review
https://vtcc.vt.edu/alumni/corpsreview/CorpsReviewSpring2025/CherryDonation.html
[59] Commandant, Corps of Cadets – Facebook post on Cherry’s gift
[60] Lindsay Cherry, 1956 – Digital image
https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/BlackHistoryVT-People/Cherry_Lindsay_1956
[61] Cadet Lindsay Cherry with Company A – Digital photo
https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/Photographs_001/lh619
[62] Resolution to ratify August 13, 2020 actions (BOV)
[63] 1872 Forward Anthem Award article – Yahoo
https://www.yahoo.com/news/vt-receives-anthem-award-1872-235340025.html
[64] Sesquicentennial poem video – “Celebrating the different cultures that shape Virginia Tech”
https://news.vt.edu/articles/2022/07/mag-Pratt-Clarke_poem.html
[65] CEOD – Governance page
https://governance.vt.edu/BodyDetails/CEOD
[66] CEOD Statement on sex, gender, and equal opportunity
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/resources/ceod-statement.html
[67] Faculty & Staff Caucuses – Overview
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/resources/FS-Caucuses.html
[68] Virginia Tech Hispanic & Latinx Faculty & Staff Caucus – Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/VTHFSC
[69] Principles of Community Week – InclusiveVT
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/about/vtpoc/poc-week.html
[70] Principles of Community video – 2022
[71] InclusiveVT Week – Menah’s Mediation
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/about/vp-corner/Menahs-Mediation-September-2024-InclusiveVT-Week.html
[72] InclusiveVT Week flyer – FBRI
[73] “On this Day, Black History Happened at Virginia Tech” – InclusiveVT
https://www.inclusive.vt.edu/about/vp-corner/inclusivevt-0623-black-history-at-virginia-tech.html
[74] Virginia Tech’s Unfinished Conversation on Race – Live stream
[75] “Making the Chair Fit” – Live conversation
[76] Unfinished Conversation with VT’s first Black student – Alumni event
[77] VT professor on George Floyd – WFIR
Virginia Tech professor on George Floyd and the social issues resurfacing after his death
[78] VTCSOM – Health Professions HEED Award
https://medicine.vtc.vt.edu/news/progress-notes/20220110.html
[79] VT board dissolves Inclusivity Excellence and Strategy Office – WSET
[80] WSET protest video
[81] VT will dissolve its DEI office – Cardinal News
[82] Hires mark new growth for InclusiveVT – Augusta Free Press
https://augustafreepress.com/news/hires-mark-new-growth-inclusivevt
[83] Virginia Tech employer profile – AAG
https://jobs.aag.org/profile/virginia-tech/753631
[84] Cecily Rodriguez LinkedIn post – Office integration
[97] Inclusion and Diversity Graduate Certificate – Graduate School
[99] DiversityEdu undergraduate module – Discussion Guide
[100] Inclusion & Belonging – Student Affairs
[101] Inclusive Pedagogy Workshops – Office for Inclusion and Diversity
[102] Spring diversity and inclusion courses – VTCSOM compilation
https://medicine.vtc.vt.edu/news/links/20210107.html
[103] CETL Workshops – Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
https://teaching.vt.edu/programs/workshops.html
[104] Inclusive Practices workshops – VT Professional Development (TLOS)
https://profdev.tlos.vt.edu/?category%5Bid%5D=103049&category%5Bname%5D=Inclusive+Practices
[105] Accessible Technologies training – TLOS
https://tlos.vt.edu/training-tools/accessible-technologies.html
[106] “Elevate the Ut Prosim Difference” – InclusiveVT Strategic Priority 2
[107] InclusiveVT: Past, Present, Future – diversity education elements
This was one of my highlights at Virginia Tech. I had the honor of interview Ta-nehisi Coates at the Center for the Arts.
