This improvement led to the changing of our school's name in 1896 to Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute. In 1944 the school again changed its name, this time it was shortened to Virginia Polytechnic Institute, or VPI.
Virginia Tech was an all-male school until the 1920s when women begin enrolling. Mary Brumfield received the first VPI degree awarded to a woman. Tech achieved full accreditation in 1923.
Blacks first enrolled at Tech in 1953 and Irving L. Peddrew III was the first to be admitted to Tech.
In 1966, Tech dropped the two-year corps training requirement for its male students and in 1973 women were allowed to join the Corps, making Tech the first school in the nation to allow women to join the Corps of Cadets.
The school got its current name, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, in 1970 and in the early 1990s Tech authorized the official use of Virginia Tech as equivalent to its full name.
One question that Tech students hear all the time is, "What's a Hokie'? There are a couple of answers to this question and the shortest one is a supporter of Virginia Tech.
Another answer is that it is a term coined by O.M. Stull (class of 1896), who won a competition to create a cheer to commemorate the school's new name.
Virginia Tech has many traditions including the use of Hokie Stone. Most of the Tech's buildings are made of Hokie Stone, which, according to the Virginia Tech Web site, is "a native limestone common in southwest Virginia and parts of Tennessee and Alabama." Starting in the 1950s, Tech began operating its own quarry to produce Hokie Stone.
A resolution was passed in the 1990s by the Board of Visitors that decrees that the popular limestone must now appear on every building.
Another long lasting tradition is Tech's school colors of burnt orange and Chicago maroon, which were established in 1896. The "Hokie Effect" started in 2001, which involves all Hokie football fans wearing orange or maroon at two different home games of the season.
Football is also a huge part of Virginia Tech and has many traditions including "Skipper." Skipper is the cannon that is fired in Lane Stadium following the playing of the national anthem and again each time the football team scores.
Alton B. Harper Jr. and Homer Hadley Hickam, the two cadets who built the canon in 1964, named it in honor of John Kennedy.
The current image of the Hokie Bird made its debut during the football season opener against Clemson on Sept. 12, 1987.
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