Virginia Tech Recognized for Disability-Friendly Practices

Virginia Tech was recently recognized for excellence in providing disability-friendly practices toward people with disabilities.

At an awards ceremony held on campus Oct. 29, Virginia Tech administrators were presented with the Disability-Friendly Business Award from the Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services and the Virginia Business Leadership Network. The university was recognized for its efforts in actively recruiting persons with disabilities in its workforce and for making the campus accessible to employees and students with disabilities.

Virginia House of Delegate David Nutter and Muriel Flynn, an employment specialist in Virginia Tech's Personnel Services office, were on hand to accept the award on behalf of the university.

Virginia Tech joined a list of more than 80 businesses statewide that have gone beyond the legal compliance of the American with Disabilities Act and embraced the talents that people with disabilities contribute to the workplace and to the community. Launched in 2002, the Disability Friendly Business Program acknowledges Virginia's businesses that have instituted and promoted practices toward the employment, independence and customer service to persons with disabilities.

The award ceremony was held in observance of October's National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech's eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities, and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top 30 research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg, and other campus centers in northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs.