A Message from Amy Sebring

As we start a new academic year, I’m excited about the role University Operations has in shaping the Virginia Tech experience. Our teams have spent the summer months engaged in various planning exercises that lay the foundation for the work that we do, including the financial, capital, and campus master planning processes.

Multiple efforts have been completed and others are underway — including the multifaceted work in the North academic district where construction of the undergraduate science laboratory building has been completed, the new bus loops are operating, two new elevator towers are now open, and the transit center will soon open.  Hitt Hall has also recently opened in the district and now serves as home to the Myers-Lawson School of Construction and the Perry Place dining facility. Across the Drillfield, the War Memorial Hall renovation is complete, and the iconic building is now open for faculty, staff, and students to enjoy. It’s been a busy summer, and the work continues.

Thank you to our Facilities and Auxiliary teams that have vigorously worked to bring these new or renovated facilities and services online! It has been a dash to the finish line in some instances, but it’s great to see that their hard work has paid off as we welcomed our students back to campus. 

We also launched a years-long project to migrate our finance, human resources, and student-facing administrative technology to cloud-based solutions to continue enhancing access to data and improving process efficiency. Our Information Technology team is collaborating with these units as we continue to move towards modernizing our enterprise resource planning (ERP) administrative systems, developing a robust IT governance process, and enhancing our capacities in research computing and information security. 

In 2023, we began the effort to update our facilities usage policy – University Policy 5000: University Real Property (Building, Grounds, Infrastructure) Usage and Events. Over the course of the summer, a workgroup including leadership from Equity and Accessibility, Facilities, Policy and Governance, Public Safety, Student Affairs, University Legal Office, and my office developed both a revised policy and a set of guidelines around time, place, and manner (TPM). I encourage you read the policy and TPM guidelines.

Summer also provided an opportunity to prepare for the next executive budget cycle and the 2025 General Assembly. Our Finance team drafted updates to the university’s Six-Year Plan as part of the state’s standard planning process and are awaiting feedback from executive and legislative leadership in the next few weeks. We also submitted our capital budget requests to the Department of Planning and Budget and are preparing our operating budget requests, which are the first milestone in the annual state budget process.    

These are a few of the examples of the work done by University Operations to support the critical work of the university. Your work ensures that the university has the enabling infrastructure – the people, facilities, technology, and business processes – that are critical to our strategic goals. 

As we look ahead, we are embracing our work with an innovative mindset while preserving the traditions of community, partnership, and service that permeate our university.