Step back in time with the help of virtual and augmented reality.

Guests of the “Visualizing Virginia Tech History” event on Feb. 11 from 4—5 p.m. will find themselves on an immersive journey through Virginia Tech history.

The interactive multimedia tour of campus will be led by Associate Professor Paul Quigley and students in the Virginia Tech History Lab.

The event is part of the first-ever Virginia Tech Humanities Week and will be held at Solitude, a historic home located on the Blacksburg campus at 705 West Campus Drive.

To attend the in-person interactive tour, register through this link.

Attendees can drop in at any point during the event and will experience a multimedia exhibition on Virginia Tech’s hidden histories, including a projection mapping display, digital exhibits, and an Extended Reality tour of the Solitude grounds.  

The event will include an exhibition of “Visualizing Virginia Tech History” projects.

The projects are funded by the Council on Virginia Tech History and are the work of the History Lab, a transdisciplinary team of faculty and students engaged in rethinking the relationship between technology and the humanities and engaging diverse audiences across campus and beyond.

The team’s focus is uncovering the hidden histories of Virginia Tech. The exhibition will include components such as:

  • “We are Virginia Tech,” an immersive projection mapping display exploring 150 years of Virginia Tech history in a 12-minute presentation. A narrated documentary video, combined with images projected onto a 3D campus model, surveys the people, places, and traditions that made the university what it is today.
  • Multimedia tours using creative technologies to uncover hidden histories of Virginia Tech, such as the slave plantation era at Solitude, and the often difficult process of community building for the first generations of Black students at Virginia Tech.
  • Smart tablets allowing visitors to view changing campus scenes on HistoryPin and explore digital exhibits on topics ranging from student protest to women of color at Virginia Tech (see https://historylab.squarespace.com/all-exhibits).
  • Pop-up interpretive panels and printed walking tour brochures that allow visitors to learn more about little-known or marginalized aspects of Virginia Tech history.

Humanities Week will be held Feb. 7—11 and includes a range of events celebrating 150 years of the humanities at Virginia Tech and the university's Sesquicentennial Celebration.

To view the full schedule and learn more about Humanities Week, visit the Humanities Week webpage.

Virginia Tech Humanities Week Events