Presidential Search Listening Session

Students  ·  Undergraduate Student Senate — August 27 2026
(AI-generated summary from event transcription)

Session-Level Summary

Undergraduate students most want the committee to hear that the next president should make decisions with students rather than for them: gathering student input before changes are made, explaining the reasons for decisions directly rather than leaving them to be looked up, and continuing to listen after implementation so changes can improve. Two recent decisions anchored the discussion. The removals of the Ujima and Lavender House living-learning communities were raised independently by several speakers, who asked for a president with the perseverance to stand by the university’s diversity commitments under federal and political pressure. The new dining plan drew consistently balanced criticism: participants credited its aim of ending food insecurity while faulting the loss of the dining options and flexibility that helped draw many of them to Virginia Tech. Participants also asked for a president who is visible and personable in student spaces, who raises funds for the whole university and not only athletics and engineering, who nurtures the pathways through which students find belonging, who protects academic integrity as artificial intelligence reshapes coursework, and who deepens ties with Blacksburg and the New River Valley. What must not change, they said repeatedly, is Ut Prosim and the Hokie community built on it. The session was hybrid: roughly nine to thirteen attendees spoke in person, and a question relayed from the Zoom audience closed the substantive discussion.

Cross-Category Observations

Student voice is the thread that runs through nearly everything this group said, and two case studies carry it. The living-learning community removals and the dining-plan change appeared among presidential qualities, strategic priorities, and challenges alike, and participants used them less as isolated complaints than as evidence about how the next president should make decisions: with input gathered beforehand, reasons explained by a leader in person, and feedback taken seriously afterward. A reader who treats the two cases as separate topics will miss that they are the same argument made twice.

The session also surfaced a posture question the committee will need to weigh. Participants asked for a president who “stands up more once the pressure’s on,” keeping diversity commitments while under pressure from the federal government; the search committee chair twice offered the reality that federal funding conditions constrain the university, and participants acknowledged that reality while maintaining the ask. The choice this poses for the committee is how a candidate would navigate federal pressure on commitments the university has made, and several participants proposed putting versions of that question directly to candidates.

Ut Prosim converged from three directions: participants named it as what sets Virginia Tech apart and must be preserved, proposed testing candidates on whether they know what it is to be a Hokie, and heard the search committee chair close the session by answering that the land-grant mission and the culture of Ut Prosim must guide every decision made.  It was the point where the room and the search leadership landed on the same words.

Finally, the undergraduate version of the engagement theme is event-shaped. Where other constituencies ask for presence by the president in governance spaces, these students asked for a president at games, at Gobbler Fest, at orientation, and among student organizations: visibility inside the student experience itself.

Theme Detail

Themes are grouped by category. Within each category, themes raised by multiple attendees appear first; themes raised by a single attendee follow.

Presidential Qualities

  • Student input in university decisions
    The session’s most broadly held ask: a president who treats student input as crucial to hard decisions, gathered before changes are made and again afterward so implementation can improve. Participants argued from experience. One, who had led a student organization disbanded this year in the shift to a paid tour-guide program, accepted that the decision had business reasons but described a rocky transition in which student input “wasn’t as valued,” adding that students are smart, knowledgeable, and experienced enough to be involved in decision-making. Others cited the living-learning community removals, made without student input, and the new dining plan, whose problems students said they could have flagged. The point was consistently constructive: on dining, the fix participants asked for was options, not reversal, and the search committee chair acknowledged the feedback in the room.
  • Transparency and proactive communication from the president
    Students are confused about how shared governance, the Board of Visitors, and university decision-making work, and want the reasons for decisions communicated clearly: before changes when possible, and from the president and board directly. When the search committee chair pointed to the university’s governance website, the participant, a regular user of the site, held the point: hearing “these are our reasons, this is the input we considered” from a leader is different from being told where to look it up. Another participant urged the president to use existing student bodies, including Order of the Gavel and the Undergraduate Student Senate, to gather diverse opinions, and to steer those conversations toward the genuinely controversial topics rather than around them. A third asked for an action-oriented president who listens, acts, and tells students what actions he or she is going to take. Participants framed this explicitly as an aspiration, not a criticism of President Sands.
  • Visible, personable presence among students
    A president students actually see and meet: doing events with students, as a previous president of another Virginia public university did with activities like runs with students; personable and “willing to get their hands dirty”; and attending games, Gobbler Fest, and the Big Event rather than seeming “so mysterious.” As one participant put it, the president “is still a normal person.”
  • Standing firm under political and financial pressure
    Participants asked for a president with good morals and, above all, perseverance: someone who does not “fall prey to societal pressure” and who stands on what students need. One participant asked directly how the future president will stand up to pressure from a federal administration, citing funding withheld from prominent universities in cases the participant described as politically targeted, and asked for “somebody that stands up more once the pressure’s on.” A related probe: candidates should be asked whom they serve, the policy of the government or the students, what their purpose is, and whether they know what it is to be a Hokie, and should then lead by that in their actions. The search committee chair twice offered the context that federal funding conditions constrain the university and that this reality is nationwide; participants acknowledged the context and maintained the ask.

Strategic Priorities

  • Diversity commitments and the removed living-learning communities
    Participants asked the next president to sustain and rebuild the university’s diversity commitments, with the removals of Ujima and Lavender House as the concrete grievance. Ujima was described as a place for Black students to gather and find resources, and its loss as pushing students onto substitutes they must fund themselves. These communities “are what makes Virginia Tech different from different colleges,” one participant said, noting that other predominantly white institutions kept theirs, and asking whether the purpose is the students or the money. The asks were explicit: continue encouraging such programs, potentially bring Ujima or Lavender House or successors back, and take up these topics in official student-voice settings rather than avoiding them.
  • Fundraising breadth and creativity beyond athletics
    The president should be a strong fundraiser who connects with the alumni network and donors, with the proceeds reaching the whole university: science, business, and the often-overlooked liberal arts, scholarships, student research, and career opportunities, not only athletics and engineering. Participants also pushed for creative expansion of giving, citing another university’s licensing of its name to clubs worldwide as a donor-network builder, urging fuller engagement of the strong Hokie alumni network, and floating ideas as concrete as renting out Lane Stadium. A board member responded with the growth of Giving Day, now the university’s single largest day of giving, and a recent report to the board that roughly a fifth of alumni are active donors.
  • Belonging, student organizations, and Gobbler Fest
    Participants asked the next president to nurture the pathways through which students find community. One described arriving at Virginia Tech very lonely, as many freshmen and transfer students do, and finding a home in a cultural student organization discovered at Gobbler Fest; the ask was to sustain Gobbler Fest, extend its promotion into the spring semester when momentum fades, and foster a community that students are welcome to join mid-year. Another, an officer of a cultural student organization, asked that the Gobbler Fest performance stage be restored after being reduced to a small tent platform, because performances are how new students discover organizations; the speaker joined a performing club after watching it there. Asked in the room, facilitators confirmed Gobbler Fest is run by Student Affairs.
  • Community ties: the New River Valley and the Town of Blacksburg
    Virginia Tech sits at the heart of the New River Valley, with deep roots in Blacksburg and reach to Roanoke, and participants asked how the president will keep up that relationship through events and presence, not just outreach; football games and the farmers market were cited as anchors that bring the whole community out. A second participant urged engaging the Town of Blacksburg directly, noting the mayor has been trying to work with the university more, and proposed asking candidates how they plan to help the surrounding community. The search committee chair noted that the following morning’s listening session would be devoted to the town-gown relationship.
  • Recognition for diversity-serving campus centers
    Two participants asked the president to recognize and support campus centers such as the center for refugee and migrant studies, where one had interned, adding that its international work, including with countries in Africa, deserves more recognition than it gets. Supporting such centers was framed as how the diversity and inclusivity the community says it wants actually gets built.
  • Academic integrity, the honor system, and a re-examination of Pathways (single attendee)
    A student leader in the university’s honor system asked, across three turns to speak, for a president focused on maintaining academic integrity and the value of the honor system and the degree, especially against a sharp rise in misconduct involving artificial intelligence, and for more staff and resources for the office that handles cases. Two structural asks followed: examine how far professor-level policies for honor cases should be standardized, since how a case is submitted varies widely by professor and standardization runs against faculty autonomy the speaker respects; and re-examine the Pathways general-education system, since a large share of honor cases arise in Pathways classes students see no value in. The speaker was explicit that this is not a call to abolish general education but to study why students disengage and whether the system is working.
  • Climate sustainability commitments (single attendee, relaying student groups)
    Speaking on behalf of student groups unable to attend, a participant relayed that students want a president who furthers Virginia Tech’s climate sustainability progress, including in dining, rather than rolling it back, and who makes sure previously set goals are actually reached.
  • Expand international campuses and presence (single attendee)
    Building on the well-loved Switzerland study-abroad campus, a participant proposed international presence in other parts of the world, bringing in new students, faculty, donors, and partners and expanding funding internationally.
  • Commitment to the Corps of Cadets (single attendee)
    A participant who is not a cadet asked for a big presidential commitment to the Corps: Virginia Tech is one of the five senior military colleges with, another voice added, a higher commissioning rate, and deserves broader representation and national recognition, broadcast and advertised. A facilitator noted this year’s incoming Corps class was reportedly the largest in a long time.
  • Cross-department cohesiveness (single attendee)
    Speaking from an admissions perspective, a participant asked for a president who pushes departments to work together, citing friction on matters like adding a mock residence hall to tours and coordinating with parking services, against the positive example of emergency services collaborating across departments on the football student entrance. The suggested candidate question: how would you make sure departments work together in solving challenges?
  • Career and internship pathways across majors (single attendee)
    More internship opportunities and more routes to them for students across different majors beyond existing career fairs.
  • Bring back in-person summer orientation (single attendee)
    Facilitators opened by asking about orientation and campus-visit experiences. They framed the question with the enrollment cliff and the board’s ongoing discussion of on-campus versus online orientation. A  participant recommended restoring in-person summer orientation, now largely online other than events for students admitted in the spring, citing a friend’s in-person July orientation at another university as the kind of experience students carry home. 
  • What the next president will protect when funding is tight (single question, via Zoom)
    A question relayed from the Zoom audience closed the discussion: what trade-offs is the next president expected to make, and what will they protect when funding is tight? The search committee chair answered candidly that she does not know, but that as a land-grant university Virginia Tech has a clear mission and a culture of Ut Prosim, “and that has to guide every decision that’s made here.”

Challenges

  • The new dining plan trades options for security
    This was the session’s most concrete operational grievance, raised with consistent nuance. Participants credited the new plan’s intent and effect: unlimited dining that ends the old problem of students running out of food money mid-semester. But freshmen are now effectively limited to two dining halls, with too little flexible money for the dining centers and food events that were part of what attracted them to Virginia Tech.  The crowding and lines at Owens have made the change unpopular. Several participants said food was a real factor in their decision to attend Virginia Tech, and that the backlash is about options and control rather than food insecurity. The asks: consider students in such decisions, keep gathering feedback after implementation, and restore options. The search committee chair asked follow-up questions and called it good feedback for the board to have.
  • Removal of identity-based living-learning communities
    The factual grievance beneath the diversity themes: Ujima and Lavender House were removed abruptly and without student input, unlike other living-learning communities saved in the spring, stripping gathering places and resources and pushing the load onto unfunded student groups. The search committee chair responded that much of this stems from conditions attached to federal funding that research depends on, a reality she said is nationwide, while affirming that diversity and inclusion are important; participants maintained that the next president should stand by these commitments regardless.
  • Dining waste policy inconsistently executed (single attendee)
    Relaying student anecdotes and feedback from dining employees, a participant said corners are sometimes cut on waste handling, with enforcement varying by manager, and asked that waste, recycling, and composting be managed as policy intends.

What to Preserve

  • Ut Prosim and the Hokie community
    Raised independently by two participants and echoed in the search committee chair’s closing answer. Ut Prosim is what sets Virginia Tech apart: the next president should consider what it means to them, enable students to give back, and guide alumni to continue the cycle. Another participant, comparing visits across Virginia universities, said what stuck was Ut Prosim and the Hokie community, reinforced from the admissions presentation onward. The chair endorsed asking candidates what they think sets Virginia Tech apart.
  • Flexibility, walkability, and options as the student experience (single attendee)
    A participant described choosing Virginia Tech for the best education and scholarship for their situation, but also for a walkable, intertwined campus where students out in the community make it “a community for Hokies,” and for flexibility: different dorm types, organizations, and dining options that let students shape their own experience. Students appreciate having options; keep them.

Presidential Search Process

  • How input is weighed and candidates are measured (single attendee, sustained exchange)
     A participant asked how the committee takes into account and measures the feedback it hears across constituencies, and, in follow-ups, how candidate metrics such as student success are assessed and how hard-to-measure qualities like community-building can be evaluated. The search committee chair answered that input shaped the presidential profile posted on the search websites and guides candidate evaluation against public metrics such as fundraising, enrollment, and student success; that nearly fifty listening sessions have been held; that no interviews had yet occurred but would begin soon; and that session notes will be compiled for the incoming president. A search firm representative added that evaluation “is not a science, it’s an art”: layered conversations, due diligence, and references, testing what is known as the pool narrows. The questions signaled interest in the search’s rigor; no criticism of the process was voiced.

This session was hybrid, held in person in Squires Colonial Hall with a small Zoom audience. A student moderator relayed questions from the Zoom side, including the closing question on trade-offs, which is integrated into the themes and identified by channel. Neither transcript identifies in-room speakers individually; participant counts are approximate.