From the Dean's Perspective

November 15, 2011

Leadership Institute 2012 DC Trip — Dean Winistorfer and Leadership Institute Co-Directors Steve McMullin and Brian Bond traveled with this year’s cohort of students during the first week of January. The group made stops in Charlottesville, Richmond, Washington, D.C., and Shepherdstown, W.Va., to meet with state and federal agencies, associations, and non-governmental organizations to discuss leadership of organizations in the natural resources arena. In Washington they had the opportunity to visit with the staff of Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb. Front row (L-R): Lorelai Mackenzie, Roxzanna Dalton, Kara Dodson, Adelina Jones, Lauren Cabral, Jandir Santin, and Megan Cochran. Back row (L-R): Associate Professor Brian Bond, Helen Tripp, Associate Professor Steve McMullin, Kalena Comer, Dacthien “Paul” Ngo, Kyle Dingus, and Dean Paul Winistorfer.

2012 started off with a dash of four days of travel in Virginia and Washington, D.C., with our Leadership Institute students. What a great experience for me and faculty co-directors Steve McMullin and Brian Bond to be with these outstanding students and to visit with our state, federal, association, and nongovernmental organization partners. Our students are emerging young professionals. They are smart, articulate, committed, and passionate about the environment, our resources, and global sustainability. I feel great about our future knowing that these students will one day be in leadership roles.
Our fall career fair was a complete success and feedback from participants and our students was very positive. We’ll plan to do it again and we welcome your participation.

As featured in this issue’s cover article, our new meteorology degree is in place; at press time, we had 32 students declared in the major. We have received approval to rename our wood science and forest products department as the Department of Sustainable Biomaterials and now have the opportunity to shift the paradigm in North America in this important academic arena.

As we continue to transition the college, our departments, and our curricula, we hold our traditional disciplinary knowledge base as a foundational strength of the college. We have not thrown the baby out with the bath water or jumped on all bandwagons and emerging fads. We are continuing to strategically position the college and the work we do in the most relevant position possible. Call it the position of greatest potential. Relevant to Virginia Tech, relevant to the commonwealth, relevant to landowners, relevant to businesses and industry, and, most importantly, relevant to students and the careers they will have in the future.

We are still about trees, forests, fish, wildlife, wood, geography, and the environment. If you can’t reach ’em, you can’t teach ’em. We are reaching them. We are teaching them. We are developing the next generation of leaders, foresters, land managers, biologists, geographers, and scientists. We hold true our traditions, but we are aware of the global world we live in today. Our future is exciting and bright — for we are at the foundation of local to global resource management and use, and therefore global sustainability. We are needed more than ever today.

We would love to hear from you. Drop us a line or visit campus this spring. We invite you to be a part of our future.

Best wishes from our faculty, staff, and students.

Paul