Now that we are back in school after the Fall break, a time of giving thanks, we are reminded that many in our community may be intimately affected by the terrible events in Mumbai, India. Many on our faculty and in our student body hail from or have family in India. Our thoughts are prayers are with you in this difficult time. We express our deepest sympathies to people of India while they absorb the scope and impact of cowardly and senseless violence.

Two of Virginia Tech's most distinguished teacher/scholars -- Gary Downey, Alumni Distinguished Professor in the Department of Science and Technology in Society in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, and Marc Edwards, the Charles Lunsford Professor of Civil Engineering in the College of Engineering and 2007 John D. and Catherine MacArthur Fellow -- will deliver the keynote addresses at Virginia Tech's 2008 Fall University and Graduate School Commencement ceremonies to be held Friday, Dec. 19.

The Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering, the School of Architecture + Design in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences' Undergraduate Research Institute, and a pair of departments working together, the Department of History and the Department of Teaching and Learning in the School of Education, will all receive the 2008 University Exemplary Department Award at a ceremony to be held Tuesday, Dec. 2 at The Inn at Virginia Tech.

The following individuals delivered the University Commencement address at Virginia Tech (dating back to 1959):

The following individuals delivered the Graduate Commencement address at Virginia Tech (dating back to 1995):

Accounting and information systems associate professor Steve Sheetz has received a grant from accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to investigate why more firms have not adopted XBRL -- eXtensible Business Reporting Language, part of a group of information systems languages used for communicating information between businesses and on the Internet.

Mosquitoes are like Typhoid Mary. They can spread viruses which cause West Nile fever, dengue fever, or yellow fever without themselves getting sick.

Intense glacial erosion has not only carved the surface of the highest coastal mountain range on earth, the spectacular St. Elias range in Alaska, but has elicited a structural response from deep within the mountain.

The following individuals delivered the University Commencement address at Virginia Tech (dating back to 1959):

The following individuals delivered the University Commencement address at Virginia Tech (dating back to 1959):

The following individuals delivered the Graduate Commencement address at Virginia Tech (dating back to 1995):

Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets alumnus Capt. Eric Keith, who received a degree in psychology from the College of Science in 1999, has been selected as a Hokie Hero.

The Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering, the School of Architecture + Design in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences' Undergraduate Research Institute, and a pair of departments working together, the Department of History and the Department of Teaching and Learning in the School of Education, will all receive the 2008 University Exemplary Department Award at a ceremony to be held Tuesday, Dec. 2 at The Inn at Virginia Tech.

The following individuals delivered the University Commencement address at Virginia Tech (dating back to 1959):

The following individuals delivered the Graduate Commencement address at Virginia Tech (dating back to 1995):