[2] Steger's early years as president focused on expanding Virginia Tech's continuing education and outreach programs beyond the main Blacksburg campus.
Most recently, Steger's administration was instrumental in the establishment of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute which will focus on research efforts to end disease, expand the world's food supply, and environmental protection.
In an effort to draw many research and outreach activities together, Steger's administration also created the Virginia Tech Institute for Information Technology.
Steger was President during the Virginia Tech shootings of April 16, 2007, in which 32 people were killed and another 17 were injured by Seung-Hui Cho in two buildings on opposite sides of the sprawling campus.
"[3] In the report produced by a state appointed commission to review response by university, local, state, and federal agencies to the unfolding incident focused its criticism on the mental health system which failed Cho but also noted that "senior university administrators, acting as the emergency Policy Group, failed to issue an all-campus notification about the first two killings in a dormitory until almost two hours had elapsed.
"[4] Nearly two-and-a-half hours after the first two killings, after leaving the Virginia Tech campus and walking to the Blacksburg Post Office to mail his manifesto to MSNBC, Cho chained the doors of Norris Hall and opened fire.