Campus of Virginia Tech
It contains a 3,003-seat auditorium, a venue where major events such as commencement, presidential speeches, concerts, and performing arts shows are held.
Additionally, the first floor of the building houses faculty offices, studios and classrooms for the College of Architecture and Urban Studies.
[10] Cowgill Hall, located on Perry Street, is the home of Virginia Tech's College of Architecture and Urban Studies.
[11] In 2006 Cowgill Hall was named the winner of the Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects Test of Time Award.
[15] Derring Hall, a five-story building, was constructed in 1969 and contains offices, classroom space, and laboratories for primarily the biological sciences and geosciences programs at Virginia Tech.
The building was named after Paul Neyron Derring, a popular administrator with the students, who was stricken blind at the age of thirteen.
It was named in honor of Fred D. Durham, co-founder of the Dover Corporation, a Fortune 500 manufacturing company located in New York City.
The building was closed for the rest of the 2007 spring semester, and reopened with access limited to faculty and students with legitimate business inside at remaining offices and laboratories on June 18, 2007.
The area consists of six reconfigured rooms and laboratories and is home to the new Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention as well as the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics.
It is the base of operations for the Virginia Tech Rescue Squad and home to the Army, Navy, and Air Force ROTC programs.
[citation needed] East Ambler Johnston reopened in the fall of 2011 as the Honors Residential College (HRC).
Unlike most of the other residence halls on campus, it is required that all of its occupants maintain a grade point average of 3.50 and it is customary that they live in the building for the duration of their undergraduate education.
The name is derived from its location at the crest of a hill at the east end of Virginia Tech's central Drillfield, between West Campus Drive and the Grove.
Because visitation was not permitted in the residence hall, and women were not allowed to leave campus on dates, courting took place in this room.
It was named for Dr. Claudius Lee, an 1896 alumnus of Tech and a professor of electrical engineering who served the university in various capacities for nearly seventy years.
In 1997, students in a history class found a page in the 1896 Bugle (Virginia Tech's student yearbook) that seemed to indicate that while an undergraduate, over a century earlier, Claudius Lee had been president of a campus Ku Klux Klan where he was listed as the "Father of Terror" as well as being named "Arch-fiend" of the Pittsylvania Club organization, whose yearbook page featured a black person being lynched.
[43] At the time proposals to rename the building were strongly opposed by many older alumni who had known Claudius Lee during his long tenure as a professor.
In 2018 the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors approved spending $3.5 million to develop a plan to replace Slusher Hall.
Students who opt to participate in one of these programs also must agree to two years of on-campus housing rather than just one, as is required for most incoming freshmen by the university.
[60] The main dining area, now called "D2", was known as the "Depot at Dietrick" prior to a $6.5 million renovation completed in 2004 that converted the hall from a cafeteria-style facility to one that more closely resembles a food court.
West End Market opened in 1999 as Virginia Tech's second major food court dining facility.
West End Market offers students meals ranging from burgers, sandwiches, wraps, and pizza (cooked in a their own stone hearth pizza oven), to fresh grilled fish, steaks, and lobster taken from JP's Chop House Lobster tank.
Owens Hall was voted by Joe Frett Weekly to have the "Best Philly Cheesesteaks in the U.S." In 1997, a section of the building called the Hokie Grill & Co. was remodeled to feature Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut franchises.
[66] Burruss Hall is the main administration building, it also contains a 3,003-seat auditorium and houses several departments in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies.
The first alumnus president, Burruss guided VPI through tremendous increases in faculty, student body, and degree offerings; vast growth in the physical plant; and efficient changes in administrative structure.
He successfully pushed to admit women and shortened the military requirement to two years, setting the stage for a larger civilian student body.
In the spring of 2012, a $1.2 million project, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, installed 480 solar panels on top of the parking deck.
The solar panels cover an area of 16,000 square feet and are expected to generate about 136,000 kilowatt-hours annually, or about 13% of the total parking deck's power usage.
The most notable feature is a gazebo located on its south side connected to picnic and seating areas by pedestrian pathways.
On the night of April 16, 2007, students placed pieces of Hokie Stone in a semi-circle at the base of the reviewing stand overlooking the Drillfield, and this then led to the creation of the present-day memorial.
