Collegiate Times

Tech students pledge that they will Power Vote, a Power Shift initiative where voters promise to cast their vote based on acandidate's stand on environmental issues.

"It's been so exciting to see how hard so many students from VT have worked, how much leadership is happening here," Tidwell said. "And I look forward to some great things coming out of this part of the state and on this campus. It's a leadership voice that the rest of the state is really hungry for. And I think it's finally getting out there."

The entire environmental event was widely accepted by many visiting students, as well.

"Now we have a statewide coalition of students in Virginia that have the same ideals and interests, something that has never been done before. The possibilities are inspiring," said James Madison University student Nicholas Melas, an anthropology and geography major.

For six-and-a-half months, about 50 active planning members on the Power Shift planning committee have been planning and organizing for a successful weekend.

Recruitment coordinators from at least 12 different universities were present. Around 500 students showed up to participate in this historic event.

Next spring there's set to be another National Power Shift. Last year, Tech was the number one school represented -- bringing roughly 100 students to the host school, the University of Maryland.

 "We just know that there's a pretty broad group of students that really care about these issues," Pontius said. "I mean, look at this conference that we planned. We couldn't have done this with just a few of us."

"We're creating a state network with all of the colleges and universities that are represented this weekend," said Angie de Soto, a senior environmental policy and planning major, and one of four central planners of the Virginia Power Shift event. "There's going to be about 22 (schools). We're all going to move forward after this weekend to work together to have more political engagement at the state level so that we can really start working with these decision makers and legislators to move toward more clean energy policies and addressing greenhouse gas emissions."

"Although the planning committee was made up from students from across the state, it was definitely dominated by Hokies," De Soto said. "We had it here because we've had such huge success here and we have a campus large enough to bring this many people into town for this size of a conference."

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