Virginia Tech’s cultural centers will remain open, despite a vote by the board of visitors last week to dissolve the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion office.
In a livestreamed meeting Friday, President Tim Sands spoke at length about the impact of federal executive orders halting DEI efforts in educational settings. He took a particularly candid approach, responding to concerns about how Tech would continue to serve its community in light of the Trump administration’s efforts to quell these initiatives in educational settings nationwide.
The conversation was limited to a small group of representatives of the five university senates that liaise with state-run universities’ administration, representing faculty, administrative and professional faculty, undergraduates, graduate and professional students and staff. The university has more than 38,000 students across its campus locations, along with nearly 2,600 faculty members.
“The resolution they passed, I don’t like it,” Sands said of the board of visitors resolution approved March 25 that pledged to examine the university’s practices to ensure it adheres to civil rights laws that bar discrimination. “I don’t think it’s properly worded. I think it’s constraining. But I understand why they did it.”
He went on to explain that he has expressed his personal opinions to the board on many occasions. But in regard to adhering to executive orders and other demands from the new federal administration, “I have to check myself, because the underlying problem is not something that our board of visitors can actually control. It’s really a lack of trust by the public in higher education.”
Americans’ confidence in higher education has dropped significantly over the past 10 years, according to research by Gallup, with Republicans expressing the least confidence out of the three predominant party affiliations.
Sands said Tech’s commitment to InclusiveVT, an element added to the school’s strategic plan about a decade ago, “is absolutely essential to maintain the vibrancy of Virginia Tech.” Sands said some changes will be made in order to comply with the current interpretation of civil rights law, with some programs needing to be repositioned, “but the momentum will continue.”
Cultural and community centers, including the Black Cultural Center that opened nearly 35 years ago, will be moved out of the purview of the now-dissolved Office of Inclusive Strategy and Excellence but will continue to exist. Because they are open to the broader community, there’s “no problem” with maintaining them, Sands said.
The future of Tech’s Living-Learning Communities is in discussions, and “we’re making progress there,” Sands said. The school has more than 20 communities that house students around a particular theme, including options such as entrepreneurship, LGBTQ+ studies and the arts, alongside groups designed for transfer students, students in recovery and first-generation students. The university is examining those to ensure that students can choose whichever they want and that no one is excluded, Sands said.
Sands also updated the group about the status of federally funded research projects. About a dozen research projects representing a “small fraction” of the university’s federally funded work have received stop-work orders, he said, and Tech is trying to minimize the immediate impact on faculty, staff and students working on those projects.
“The bigger impact is downstream,” he said. “If research funding dries up, it will have a significant impact on the institution and our mission.”
He again referenced the public’s declining trust in higher education, saying that establishing the value of the work done at Tech is “a long-term fight.”
Sands went well over the hour that had been allotted for the meeting, taking questions from representatives for nearly 60 minutes and concluding only when a staff member warned that the room needed to be relinquished for another reservation.
He said the university would be putting together a series of town halls on topics related to the impacts of federal changes, but he did not say when those would begin.
Sands must report to the board of visitors by the end of April about the university’s progress complying with its resolution. He said the work of reviewing university programs “won’t be completely done by then,” but will be well underway.
