Virginia Tech
public university with the main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, commonly referred to as Virginia Tech (VT), is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. It was founded as the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1872.
The university also has educational facilities in six regions statewide, a research center in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and a study-abroad site in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland. Through its Corps of Cadets ROTC program, Virginia Tech is a senior military college.
Virginia Tech offers 280 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to its over 38,000 students; as of 2016, it was the state's second-largest public university by enrollment. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research spending and doctorate production".
The university's athletic teams are the Virginia Tech Hokies and compete in Division I of the NCAA as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
History
In 1872, with federal funds provided by the Morrill Act of 1862, the Reconstruction-era Virginia General Assembly purchased the facilities of Preston and Olin Institute, a small Methodist school for boys in Southwest Virginia's rural Montgomery County. That same year, 250 acres (100 ha) of the adjoining Solitude Farm including the house and several farm buildings on the estate were acquired for $21,250 from Robert Taylor Preston, a son of Governor of Virginia, James Patton Preston. The commonwealth incorporated a new institution on the site, a state-supported land-grant military institute named Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College.
“Virginia Tech” enters the record as public university with the main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Virginia, Tech and public can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Virginia Tech” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Virginia, Tech and public provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q65379. VIAF identifies the subject as 135641695. The Library of Congress control number is n80125909. Authority coordinates are 37.225, -80.425. 6 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1872, 2016 and 1862.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Virginia Tech”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Virginia Tech primary sources, Virginia Tech archive and Virginia research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Virginia Tech”?
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Virginia Tech” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.