Wanda Grubb receives Provost's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising

Wanda Grubb of Floyd, Va., student services specialist for the Department of Animal and Poultry Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech, received Virginia Tech’s 2004 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising.

The award was established in 2000 to recognize an individual who serves undergraduate advisees in exemplary ways. Candidates must be faculty or classified staff members with assigned advising responsibilities. A committee of members from the Academy of Advising Excellence chooses the recipients.

Nominated by Department Head Mark McCann with several faculty and students seconding the nomination, Grubb has been called "the (advising) program’s foundation," "the linch pin that holds this system together," "the definitive source for any advising questions," and "the glue that holds our department together." She is credited with being at least partially responsible for the department receiving the University’s Exemplary Department Award twice. Grubb has a wealth of information, a genuine caring for the students, and a great deal of compassion for students in difficult situations. "If a student needs to be straightened out, however, she will do so…ever so gently," a faculty member said.

Giving of her time generously, Grubb carries out duties ranging from welcoming prospective students and their families to advising prospective transfer students, to managing summer orientation to handling scheduling problems to tracking down students in an emergency or "hunt[ing] students down until they have filled out their graduation analysis so there are few to zero surprises when commencement arrives."

One prospective student, for example, said his parents were anxious about his going so far away to school, but "she alleviated any anxieties..." One said she was a student at another college, dreaming of transferring to Virginia Tech, when a phone call brought her in touch with Grubb, who, throughout the summer, "was very helpful and willing to assist me with all my concerns and questions," even volunteering to complete a check sheet of classes the student was planning to take to be sure they would mesh with classes at Virginia Tech."

Grubb’s own philosophy explains her "passionate advising" and her true concern for students. Beginning work at Virginia Tech as secretary senior, Grubb began working with undergraduate students in 1984. "…I realized I had found my niche in life," she said. Comparing her role to that of an air traffic controller, Grubb said she has "always tried to treat students the way I would want my own children to be treated when they were away from home for the first time and trying to reach their goals in life." Because she fell short by one three-credit course of earning her bachelor’s in college, due in part "to poor advising," she tries to help students get off to a good start, gain confidence that people really care, and make decisions about their own college careers.

Her reward? "Watching them succeed and hearing them say ‘thanks,’" she wrote in a statement about her advising philosophy. "I feel that my role here at Virginia Tech has enriched my life and has made me a better person."

Consistently ranked by the National Science Foundation among the top 10 institutions in agricultural research, Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences offers students the opportunity to learn from some of the world’s leading agricultural scientists. The college’s comprehensive curriculum gives students a balanced education that ranges from food and fiber production to economics to human health. The college is a national leader in incorporating technology, biotechnology, computer applications, and other recent scientific advances into its teaching program.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become among the largest universities 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 research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.