Virginia Tech must accept the responsibility to explain what Virginia Tech is doing and why to a public that may not, at first, understand without special effort. Virginia Tech must be willing to rethink the value and nature of faculty contributions and productivity. The university's responses to faculty members must be related to the purposes and missions of its organizations. In addition, the university must recognize the slope of a learning curve that will be inherent in the work of the College of Education as it changes. Virginia Tech must be willing to support what is new, different, and sometimes unsuccessful.
Achievement can occur only when the fear of failure is absent.
We must be willing to accept some failures to nurture eventual successes. The committee is convinced that there are consequences for everything Virginia Tech does as an institution. At this point, little consideration appears to have been given to the consequences Virginia Tech has faced or will face from the College of Education restructuring and other restructuring efforts. The committee is convinced that the university could lose valuable lessons if we view these restructuring efforts myopically or only through the haze of casual post hoc retrospective. One consequence of restructuring is the opportunity to build elsewhere.