VT Stories Oral History with Todd Ogle, April 03, 2017 (Ms2016-015)

Maddy Bloomer: Okay, are we ready?

Todd Ogle: Ready.

Maddy: Alright, good afternoon. This is Maddy Bloomer, a student in New Media

Storytelling for VT Stories. Today is April 3rd, of 2017. It is 3:59 p.m., and

we are in Dr. Todd Ogle's office in 2070 Torgeson Hall. Could you please

introduce yourself with, my name is--, accompanied with when and where you were born?

Todd: My name is Todd Ogle, and I was born May 10th, 1972, in Washington D.C.

Maddy: Okay and what years did you attend Virginia Tech? And what did you study

while you were a student here?

Todd: I was a student here from the fall of 1992-- Yes, sorry I'm old.

Maddy: [Laughs] you're fine.

Todd: Fall of 1992 through May of 1995, and I studied what was called

communication studies at the time, which is now, I think, just communications.

Maddy: Alright. Can you please tell me about where and how you were raised? And

about your family?

Todd: 00:01:00Well I was raised in Northern Virginia. We moved from--well, I lived in

Alexandria, outside the beltway part of Alexandria until I was about twelve.

Then we moved a little further out to Prince William County. That's where I went

to high school. What else do you want to know?

Maddy: Your family.

Todd: My family. I have a sister-- an older sister. She went to George Mason.

She didn't go to Virginia Tech. And dogs, cats [laughs].

Maddy: That's it? Just dogs and cats?

Todd: Yes, yes.

Maddy: Okay [laughs]. When did you first think of college, and what made you

choose Virginia Tech?

Todd: I started thinking about college about halfway through high school

[laughs]. I started thinking about Virginia Tech, we had a 00:02:00little bit of a

family history. I had an older cousin who went to Virginia Tech in the early

[19]80s, and a lot of my friends were going to Virginia Tech., as well as my

girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife. I paid a visit down here my freshman

year and spent the weekend with some friends. We went to a concert in Burruss

Auditorium, and I had been planning on going to George Mason. I was going to

community college up in Northern Virginia at the time, but when I visited

campus--this would have been in 1990-1991. I stayed the weekend in Pritchard

Hall, which back in the early [19]90s was not an experience that most people

wanted to voluntarily take on. But I stayed the night, went and ate in the

dining hall, went over to a concert with 00:03:00a popular band at the time. And I was

like, wow. This is college. I looked around campus and was just blown away by

the feel of it. It felt like a campus, sort of an embedded campus, like I was

used to and what I was thinking I was going to be doing. So, that's when it

really solidified for me. That's where I wanted to go for sure.

Maddy: What exactly stood out?

Todd: Just the student experience really. I mean, I was only here for a weekend

but you know, being with your friends, being able to walk to everything you

wanted to do from, you know. I didn't go to any classes with anybody, but all

the fun stuff to do over the weekend and knowing that your classes were just

around and whatnot. I grew up in a very spread out suburban environment where

you drove to do anything you were doing. So, it was just, I don't 00:04:00know. Just the

student experience. The residential on-campus, central campus environment that I liked.

Maddy: Community type kind of feel.

Todd: Yeah, yeah.

Maddy: Do you remember what concert?

Todd: Smithereens.

Maddy: Do you still listen to them, or--?

Todd: Nooo, no. They only had, like, one or two hits. But look them up, they

were real. They existed.

Maddy: Okay, cool.

Todd: And they were cool at the time.

Maddy: [Laughs]

Todd: So it wasn't some random band that you'd never heard of. It was just

somebody that was, at least for that moment, was very cool. I also saw Faith No

More when I was already actually a student here, in Burruss again. That was

really awesome. Got to throw the lead singer into the crowd, so that was fun.

Maddy: Yeah, sounds like it.

Todd: That's what it was about.

Maddy: Awesome. Um, so can you describe your first memory here? What it felt

like being on campus, what it looked like, how it smelled, etc.?

Todd: [Laughs] Well, I was in Pritchard, so we won't talk much about 00:05:00that alone,

though it's a much more refined experience these days. It was, I guess, just

back to the previous question. It was just the architecture--everything feeling

different. It wasn't just another brick building amongst a bunch of other brick

buildings. You could tell you were on campus versus not being on campus. It was

early-- I can't remember if it was early fall. Anyway, the weather was nice.

There wasn't a football game, so maybe it was spring, but you know, it was nice

to be outside. Just being around other students running into people I went to

high school with, and being like, man, I want to be a part of this. This is

really neat. So again, just back to the, that sense of community and being a

part of something, and we've built a lot of building since then, but the core of

campus is still the same and obviously the Drillfield. But you know, my

recollection was, I pulled in off of 460, and I'd never been here before,

especially not under my 00:06:00own navigation. Drove in Southgate, saw the big VT bush,

was like, okay. I'm in the right place. Drove past the stadium, looking to

figure out how to park to go to Pritchard Hall, and then once I found the guys

and we started going out to get some food, it was just really cool to just make

short walk over to Dietrick, get something to eat, do our thing, and then go

across the Drillfield to go to a concert. I was like, wow. You know, everything

you want is right here. This is awesome.

Maddy: How old were you at that time?

Todd: Nineteen. Nineteen, I think.

Maddy: Okay, what made you want to pursue a master's and doctorate in teaching

instructional technology?

Todd: I was a humanities type person. I really enjoyed writing, and I initially

actually got my first 00:07:00job out of school as a writer and an editor. But I was

always a little bit of a propeller head. I liked to mess with computers. I

learned a lot about how to do a variety of things with computers from my

engineering neighbors, and, you know, you have to remember this was in the Stone

Ages, so if you wanted to do anything, you had to actually learn how to get your

way around and, you know, what we now call the command line, but if you wanted

to play video games, you had to [chuckles] be able to, like, mess around a

little bit with your computer. And so I got into those sorts of things and in my

first job, again, this is going to age me and sound silly, but actually my

internship between my junior and senior year, the Worldwide Web 00:08:00existed, but it

was still really a research laboratory type thing. And most everything that went

on was proctored through AOL at that time. And I learned about the Worldwide

Web, and I was talking to--I was in a Marketing and Promotions group--and was

like, we gotta get on the Worldwide Web. [Laughs] And so I started working on

webpages, and my first job as a writer and editor, I wanted to shift over into

that, which is now obviously very commonplace, and a lot of people do it. But it

was very new and exciting at the time, and that's what really kind of hooked me

into digital media and digital technologies, and I just--I couldn't get enough

of it. So I took a course that I guess was at night, but I was able to take it

while I was working, and it was basically Digital Media for Teaching and

Learning topics course. And I just really enjoyed it. I could see myself making

media and using media 00:09:00for teaching and learning. And that's when I decided to go

back full-time and quit my job and started a Master's degree. I had taken a few

courses along--over the course of a year--at night, but then I quit and went

back full-time. And that was going to be just to do the master's, and I was

going to go right back out because the idea of not having a job for very long

wasn't super appealing to me. Um, but I was interviewing for jobs and I actually

had one job offer, but then my program--my adviser suggested that I consider

going on and doing a PhD, and I had just taken a really, really great research

methods class, and I had these ideas about things I wanted to test out with

virtual reality, which is all hot right now, but you know, nearly twenty years

ago, it was a very, very different ballgame. And I 00:10:00thought, you know, if they'll

fund me to get to spend the next couple of years messing around with the stuff

that I'm interested in, why wouldn't I do it? So, that's what got me motivated

to stay on and do the PhD.

Maddy: Hm, interesting. What did you edit and write about?

Todd: It was a little, what we now have many of, here at Virginia Tech, but it

was an institute. It was the Waste Policy Institute. And I wrote in one, I

started out as a writer, and within very short order was handed the Managing

Editor role for a publication that prepared emergency responders along the

routes in which hazardous waste, primarily nuclear waste from places like Three

Mile Island, were being transported across the country out to Yucca Flats and

stuff out in the desert southwest 00:11:00for long-term storage. And the other

publication that I just wrote for was one that was--so, that one was geared

toward first-responders, and the other one was more geared to, uh, scientists.

So it was a different style of writing. But both of them were interesting

because you got to do a little bit of research, more interviews, and wrote in a

certain tone for the emergency response-type audience, and the other one you got

to write it a little bit different way. And it was--it was fun. It was

interesting. It wasn't--I wasn't a chemical engineer. This was like a chemical

engineering type outfit. I was a communications person, but that's what I was

writing about.

Maddy: So very different from what you're doing now.

Todd: Yes, yes, nothing to do with it.

Maddy: Um, in what moment did you realize your passion for history, especially

in terms of using digital technology to explore and teach it?

Todd: Mm. Well, I've always just really enjoyed history as a 00:12:00topic. I read a lot

of history as a kid, particularly military history, and I was going through--I

tend to be a little bit of a serial person, so I was going through a Civil

War--American Civil War--phase of interest, and I was reading a lot of stuff

about that. And I'd already been doing work with virtual reality, and augmented

reality really was still very much a laboratory thing at that time. But I had

these ideas around, wouldn't it be nice to be able to go out to a Civil War

battlefield, like Gettysburg, and be able to see with your own eyes, rather than

look at a map and try to imagine aspects of the bottle unfolding in front of

you? Which would have been augmented reality. At the time, that would've

required all kinds of ludicrous equipment that we still mess with today in

virtual reality, but between my initial thinking about it and the

mid-2000s--well, once the iPhone came out and then the second iteration of it

actually had a camera and a GPS in 00:13:00it, the augmented reality that we talk about

it and play with now became possible. And doing historical recreations in

virtual reality was always kind of an interesting thing to me, but I hadn't

really played around with it much. But the two ideas came together for me when

the technology was available for someone like me who wasn't a computer science

person, or wasn't going to create a new technology but apply it to an area. And

so I started talking to one of my friends who works in history education and

telling them about my ideas, and that's when we decided to do a first test case

just to see what we could do, which ended up being 00:14:00an augmented reality map or

experience of campus. So that was the very first thing we did, and that's still

out there today. We're actually--we just had students in a class update the

information so that we can, uh, refresh it a little bit with all the new

buildings that have opened up and some of the other things we wanted to do. But

uh, that was, uh, that was five years ago now. So it really just brought

together two things I've always been interested in.

Maddy: Sounds cool, what exactly got you interested in military history?

Todd: My dad was in the Air Force, and the only stuff we had around besides the

Encyclopedia were a bunch of Time Life books on World War II Air Force stuff.

[Laughs] So you know, and there wasn't much on TV back in the early [19]80s. So

when I had downtime, I just went and pulled 00:15:00the same different sets of books

about World War II off the shelf. I probably could've written a thesis on World

War II in my high school years, but it was just what was there. You know, it

sparked my imagination a little bit and just thought it was interesting, so.

Maddy: Did your dad talk about it a lot, or you kind of just had to discover it

on your own?

Todd: I knew about his general interest in it. He wasn't still active duty when

I was a kid. It was an experience for him as a younger man, but he was very

interested in the history of the unit that he served in and the things they did

in World War II. So they had books about that, and so I would just, look through

them, just pull them off the shelf and look through them and end up looking

through them several times each. Just kind of discovered it in a sense. I mean,

we didn't sit and 00:16:00talk about it that much, so he's not a historian or anything.

Maddy: Were you close with him?

Todd: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Maddy: Will you please talk about your role as Senior Director of Networked

Knowledge Environments and TLOS and your experiences so far?

Todd: Sure. It started out as a role to manage some of the folks that support

the computers that are in some classrooms and laboratories and things like that,

which was based on my prior experience being in charge of all the classrooms

across campus and the other technology folks that worked in those classrooms.

But in between that experience and this one here, I had applied for and gotten a

job where my main focus was applied research. And it was primarily 00:17:00for learning

technologies and distance learning applications. And I've tried to continue

doing that, so rather than managing the folks that take care of the computers

and--or the audio visual equipment in the classrooms, I'm trying to seed by

funding faculty or students and do some of my own and collaboration with faculty

and students research and development on new ways of integrating some of these

technologies that I'm interested in into the teaching and learning process. So

virtual reality, augmented reality, 360 video, the data collection methods that

go along with that, which is what I was working on--posting one of the videos up

when you got here, and just to try to help push that area forward, and to give

students experiences with that. So make them part of the development process

through their courses or research projects.

Maddy: Do you mind talking about your educational training here at [Virginia] Tech?

Todd: Sure, what 00:18:00specifically, like was it good? Yes.

Maddy: Whatever you'd like to talk about.

Todd: Sure, yeah. I mean, what was nice about my undergraduate experience is

that I was actually able to go out and get a job in my field right here in

Blacksburg. I decided I wanted to stay in BLacksburg. I'm from the D.C. area, I

interned in D.C., and after spending that summer interning and seeing, woah.

This is what my life will be like. Riding the bus and the metro and the slug

line and [laughs] all that garbage. I was like, you know what, I think I'll see

if I can't get a job in Blacksburg. And being able to do that in my field was

really, really cool. So that was wonderful. And then, you know, what I learned

in my post-graduate work is exactly what I'm doing now and what I really enjoy. 00:19:00So yeah, It's been an absolutely wonderful experience as a student and then

someone who's applying what they've learned to their actual life.

Maddy: Yeah, what made you want to stay in Blacksburg exactly?

Todd: Quality of life. I enjoy outdoor activities that don't include sitting in

the car, and I grew up in Northern Virginia, and I just wanted to be somewhere

different. And [laughs] it's not Hawaii or Germany or something, but it was

different for me. We moved a little bit up there, but it was all still the same

thing, so I was plenty familiar with D.C. and the surrounding area and just

wanted to get out on my own. So, this was a good place to do that.

Maddy: You plan on staying here forever?

Todd: As long as I can, yeah. As long as I'm able to keep doing the things that

keep me out of bed in the 00:20:00 morning.

Maddy: Mm, as your positions have evolved over the years, how do you see

yourself in relation to the university?

Todd: [Pause] I'm not really sure. I'm trying to understand how to respond to

that question. How I See myself in relation to the university. What are some of

the options you're imagining here? I know you haven't asked this question

before, right?

Maddy: I have not, I mean, whatever comes to your mind.

Todd: Well, I see myself as a contributor. I don't know, not sure if that makes

sense or not for the question, but--

Maddy: How so?

Todd: Because I feel like I'm contributing to the body of knowledge in--we'll

just call it learning technologies. I feel like, in doing so, I'm helping to

create positive experiences for students in many disciplines, not just the 00:21:00one I

come from. You know, some of my service-type activities, I feel like I'm just

trying to contribute to, you know, moving the university in the directions it's

wanting to move in with the initiatives it's engaged in right now.

Maddy: Okay, who were some notable professors you had, and why were they important?

Todd: Let's see. Dr. Riley when I was an undergrad, he was great. He's

unfortunately passed away a few years ago, but he really taught me a lot about

writing concisely. It was--these were courses--they were courses that would--I

don't know if they were journalism, but you know, how to write a meaningful

tagline and a first introductory sentence or press release type thing. And that

was a lot of 00:22:00fun. Dr. Burton in my postgraduate experiences was a great mentor

and leader. Greg Sherman was a lot of fun to work with. Glenn Holmes. People

that just, you know, helped me to move in the directions I wanted to move in.

I'm sure I could think of a few more, but I might have to come back to it.

Remember I am old.

Maddy: You're not [laughter], but yeah, If you think of anything else--

Todd: I will, you can just edit it back in.

Maddy: Okay, what mentors or advisors were particularly helpful or influential,

both at [Virginia] Tech and perhaps since then?

Todd: Okay. Well John Burton, for me as a graduate student, was a very good

mentor and 00:23:00adviser. I'm trying to think of outside of school or more lately

here. Professionally since school--I really, really learned a lot working for

Wanda Dean---who is retiring soon, but was the registrar at the time--about how

to be a professional and how to deal with lots of different types of people and

keeping a focus on the mission of the job and the university and trying to keep

things moving in the right direction and how to multitask [chuckles].

Maddy: So that definitely came in handy.

Todd: Yes.

Maddy: What are some of your favorite memories or experiences from your time at

[Virginia] Tech?

Todd: As an undergrad, it was just so much fun 00:24:00going to the football games. We

had the entire--let's see, I guess it's the east stands back then. So believe it

or not, you know, we were able to sit down near the front row. The whole east

side was students back then. Those were, you know, obviously lots of fun. And

the big rivalry games, like West Virginia and stuff. Those were always a lot of

fun. Watching us go from that level and grow to where, you know, all the

attention that we had with Michael Vick and ESPN coming and all that sort of

stuff, that was a lot of fun. And then just professionally, getting to work with

people who share similar interests and are willing to go on journeys with me as

I come up with lots of different ideas for things we can do to tell different

historical stories 00:25:00or other ideas I have. It's just been a lot of fun to work

with people who I consider friends, who I want to actually spend time with

outside of the projects, as well as working on the projects.

Maddy: Do any particular football games stand out to you?

Todd: There was a West Virginia game where we got stuck in No Man's Land in a

trash fight between, I think they were all Virginia Tech fans. Above us and

below us. [laughs] One time. That was sort of interesting. There was the game

where it got rained out and Lee Corso's car got hit by lightning. We had to,

like, evacuate down out of the stadium, and we had to go down on the field for a

minute at first, and the water was standing a couple inches deep. That was

interesting. Going to concerts and stuff was a lot of fun. You know, there's

been good, there's been bad. But I've been here for a lot of both, and more good

than bad.

Maddy: Good to 00:26:00hear. What difficult experiences did you have and how did they

affect you?

Todd: Well, April 16th. I was walking down the sidewalk from Smyth Hall, where I

worked at the time, which is, if you're familiar with some of those buildings,

down toward the Duck Pond on the dormitory side of the Drillfield. And I was

walking to a meeting in Squires, and I was walking down the sidewalk. And there

was construction. I guess they were already building what's now Lavery Hall at

the time. I'll have to think back about what that is. It might have been Lavery.

But I was hearing these sounds that I didn't think sounded quite right, 00:27:00and I

got about in front of War Memorial when the police cars started coming. And the

first thing I saw that I knew something was very, very wrong was when a police

vehicle was coming the wrong way past Burruss on the Drillfield, which is

something you'd never, ever see and I'd never seen before and hope not to see

again. And then the police beginning to move up toward Norris Hall. I stopped

because, and I made note of the time, because I felt like since I was already

seeing things happening, it might be good to, uh, make note of things in case I

needed to answer some questions or something. And seeing all the students come

running out once the situation had been brought to a close. Hearing all the

gunshots and the, you know, flash grenade and stuff that they used to subdue the

shooter and everything. Then just getting off campus, and then trying to deal

with, okay. Where 00:28:00are--where are all the people that you work with? And getting

home and trying to figure out what was going on. It was a very very confusing

day. And then very difficult to get back into what you were already doing when

that all happened--

Maddy: I can imagine.

Todd: Trying to carry on, you know?

Maddy: Mm-hmm.

Todd: So I was very focused at the time on an accreditation process, and

everything kind of just went a little bit on hold. We were all just trying to

figure out what we were doing, and, you just question a lot of things and how

important things are when something like that happens.

Maddy: How do you think Virginia Tech has grown from that experience? Or from

that tragic incident?

Todd: Mm-hmm, we're a lot 00:29:00of just logistical changes and processed changes and

things like that. But I think the most positive thing is just that strengthening

of that sense of community. We all sort of just put our arms around each other

and, you know, Nikki Giovanni with her brilliant words really just kind of

brought it all together for everybody and gave us a single place to stand. And I

think we still do. I think it's pretty amazing to recover as a group of people

from something like that. Well, I know everyone can't ever recover completely

from something like that, but just to be able to keep going on is a testament to

the strength of the whole place.

Maddy: Mm-hmm, Hokie Nation.

Todd: Yeah.

Maddy: Wat was life like at [Virginia] Tech your first year?

Todd: As a student?

Maddy: Yes.

Todd: Just a lot like it is now 00:30:00probably. The food wasn't nearly as good, we

called Dietrick "Die Quick" back then. It was not--

Maddy: [Laughs]

T You guys have no idea [laughs]. I mean, it felt like it was the worst food on

the planet. I mean, there were prisons and stuff back then, but--

Maddy: [Laughs]

Todd: We weren't rated on the top three or whatever we are of food experiences

in the nation. But really, honestly, the way campus has evolved with all the

construction that's occurred, for a lot of the core experience it hasn't really

spread out. It's been infill. So, you know, just a lot like it is today, I

imagine. Just walking back and forth to classes and trying to figure out if

you're in the right place in the ten or fifteen minutes you have on that first

day in between classes, and realizing you're not [laughs], Then trying to find

your way to the other class, and things like that. So, I don't think it's

probably all that different from someone's experience 00:31:00 now.

Maddy: What about specifically your experience, like your later years? How are

they different from your first year?

Todd: Well, you know, you just get very familiar with the campus over time, and

then depending on what your experience is, I had a few different jobs on campus

that had me having to navigate around and learning about, you know, what the

different buildings and stuff were. And eventually you learn how to get from,

you know, one end of the Drillfield and the other without hardly going outside

if the weather's bad and little tricks like that. And you know, just kind of

like the little bits of campus that you have to only learn through experience.

What's kind of fun is, I was just taking my daughter--my eleven year-old

daughter--to Kid's Tech for her last session of that over the weekend. And we

had to park on Washington Street, and in walking back and forth in between the

places we had to go, 00:32:00we walked a path that I walked a hundred times as a grad

student, just where I would normally park. Was just kind of neat because, you

know, things change and buildings pop up and things like that, but some parts

are the exact same thing. Like, I don't remember. I guess the prairie's gone,

but the--the grass quad out there between, like, Pritchard and whatchamacallit.

What's the other dorm across the dorm from Pritchard? Ambler. AJ-Johnston. AJ,

yeah. That's still--that's still the same. Still the same big grass field. There

was another one on the other side before--it's covered with buildings now. But I

don't know. It's just interesting to see, like, what changes and what stays the

same. And some of these buildings have been around for a very, very long time,

and although you thought some things get updated, there's still parts of them

that are exactly like they were, you know, a hundred years ago. So it's kind of neat.

Maddy: Did you get lost a lot at 00:33:00 first?

Todd: [Laughs] no, not too bad. Only when I had to wander over to buildings that

I didn't have a lot of classes in. So you know, the numbering in some buildings

is absolutely meaningless and bizarre. Like it's really hard to find that one

weird room in Pamplin or any room in Wallace Hall. That sort of thing, but

others are numbered in a way that actually makes sense. So you can find your way

around if you're someone who is going into college [laughs].

Maddy: So it wasn't too overwhelming?

Todd: Nah.

Maddy: That's good, I got lost a lot at first. How exactly has your [Virginia]

Tech education played out in your life?

Todd: Well, like I said before, I'm doing exactly what I studied as a

postgraduate student, and I still lean on some of the writing skills I gained as

an undergraduate student every day. So really, 00:34:00I'm doing exactly what I studied,

which is really, really fantastic. I don't think, uh, anyone would pay me to

just be a writer anymore, or to write a press release or something like that,

but those skills that I've retained from that are still very, very handy. I've

finally given up on using the editing marks that we used to use. There's a whole

set of marks that people who are English majors or Communications majors would

recognize, but no one else does, so [laughs] I finally quit using those. But

otherwise, yeah. I'm doing exactly what I studied, so.

Maddy: Would you see yourself in this position fifteen, twenty years ago?

Todd: [Sighs] No, no really 'cause I don't know. I've sort of built this

position around what I was doing prior. But I hoped to be doing the activities

that I 00:35:00do in this position. So you know, when I was working on my PhD, what I'm

doing right now is exactly what I would've hoped to have been doing. So, but

that can take many forms. I wouldn't have necessarily said, yes, one day I'll be

the you know-- and the title you have is, who knows how many revolutions out of

date? So yeah. I don't know that I would've seen this exactly, but the things

that I do, yeah That's exactly what I would've wanted to be doing.

Maddy: What would you consider your title?

Todd: The one I'm using today is Senior Director of Learning Environments,

Research, and Development.

Maddy: Has it changed a lot?

Todd: No. What I do has changed, but it's been too much of a hassle to bother

trying to change the title to go along with it, so it still says Network

Learning Environments. But that was a title that was invented when they were

merging two units an I never really understood what it was supposed to 00:36:00mean, and

I don't know that anybody who's still around does either--that the people who

made up all that stuff are retired, so.

Maddy: Okay, what first comes to your mind when someone simply says the words,

Virginia Tech?

Todd: Hokies.

Maddy: That's it? Just Hokies? [Laughs] No elaboration?

Todd: Nope. Well, we know what Hokies are.

Maddy: Yeah, that's us.

Todd: Yep.

Maddy: We are Hokies.

Todd: Exactly. I always enjoy whenever I see someone in Virginia Tech garb

somewhere that's not around here, just saying, go Hokies, as we pass one

another, and seeing how many of them respond. It used to be much more because

there were fewer people. [Laughs] But you might run into somebody wearing

something, you know, somewhere, and they're, like, what? Because, you know,

there's many more people who might wear it now, I suppose. But it's fun. It's

fun to go to different places, at least throughout the state, and see how many

people are wearing Virginia Tech 00:37:00 stuff.

Maddy: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Like, you can't shake a stick in, like, Williamsburg or out in the

Tidewater without hitting a Hokie. Richmond, too. It's kind of fun. I try to be

a little more careful when I visit Charlottesville. I have family out there,

but, you know, don't want to get hurt, so I try to be a little more subtle about it.

Maddy: Understandable, will you talk about how and why you are still involved

with Virginia Tech?

Todd: [Sighs] Because the things that I want to do are possible here. I have a

team that I work with that cover the various aspects of the learning experiences

I want to create. So, the expertise is here that happen to be made of people

that I like to be around. And I feel like I'm a humanities person in a

technology environment. But I'm trying 00:38:00to exemplify what that can be at a

technology-heavy institution. I think that that's something that we can bring

that you might not get somewhere else is, uh, that blending of the two. Because

you know, if I were a better person, I might have been a historian or a history

teacher. If I was a really good person, I would've been a history teacher, but

you know, bringing together my hobbies, interests, and training with the ability

to create these things that help to tell stories and give learning experiences

is really, really satisfying. And that's what I feel like I can do here.

Maddy: Awesome, why do you think so many Virginia Tech graduates become such

engaged alumni?

Todd: Just a positive experience. Once you're a Hokie, you're always a Hokie.

And I think a lot of people just sort of 00:39:00goes back to what I said a minute ago

about how you're always running into someone. I have family down in Charlotte,

and it seems like half of Charlotte are Hokies as well. Probably ninety percent

of New Jersey. So I think it's part of that residential experience of being

here. Whether you live on campus or not. Just being at the campus, and you know,

going about your life on campus, and taking that experience with you, and you

know, a lot of folks come back for football games or basketball games or things

like that. Other events, but it's just something you take with you.

Maddy: What changes have you seen at [Virginia] Tech over time? And what are

your thoughts on them?

Todd: Mostly just construction. I mean, there's been a lot of, you know,

structural changes, you know, new leadership, 00:40:00but really, it's growth. Just

growth. We've just built so much, and it's all--it's great. What would be

wonderful would be. I know it would be not a growth pattern, but it would be

lovely if there weren't construction going on at some point. [Laughs] Somewhere.

Or at least not where I work. At least in that quadrant. That would be neat. The

growth is exciting, but at the same time, it's, you know, you get tired of

looking at fencing and cranes and stuff all the time. But that's the only way

for, you know, an institution to continue--is to grow. So it has been a lot of

fun to go from just being a consumer of what happens at the university to

someone who helps to create that for other people. So learning about all that

goes into that. It's been interesting.

Maddy: Mm-hmm, at least there's consistency.

Todd: Mm-hmm.

Maddy: What changes would you like to see, and do you plan on being a part of

those changes?

Todd: I'd like to and am currently in plan to continue being a part of just this

idea of, 00:41:00um, where technology and humanities-type, um, experiences get together.

It's really exciting to me. And what I'd like to see, and the change I'd like to

be a part of, is that being an experience for students where they're a part of

the same processes that we use to create these experiences for upper people. So

not just a survey course on something, but actually hands-on things, where

you're going to a place and recreating an experience there for other people to

use or share.

Maddy: How do you plan on implementing that?

Todd: Some of it so far has been--we've required grant money, but what I'd like

to be able to do is shift it to being experiential things through summer courses

or study abroads. Things like that where students can just sign up for it as 00:42:00 a

course-type experience, but they go with us as teams to these places and make

these recreations. Be part of the process. Because it's a big process, and it

takes a lot of different disciplines. But rather than having to rely on grant

money or foundation money and bits and spurts, it'd be nice to have, if it could

just be part of, uh, an ongoing teaching and learning enterprise that was

multidisciplinary. Like the team that we have now.

Maddy: What kind of study abroad would you try to incorporate?

Todd: Well, it would be a reflection of what we do where you can go to a

historical site, for example, and 00:43:00look at it through a variety of lenses, but

you can make a recreation that can be used for the teaching and learning of

history, architecture, environmental science, and then the act of creating those

things brings in folks from everything from computer science to art to

engineering to music to history, obviously, and education. So, I'd like to

create opportunities for students to learn the pieces of these things they'd

like to learn and get to fit that into their curriculum. Because it can be very

hard when you've got a very set curriculum you have to get through to diverge,

you know, a little bit. Me being someone who was a, you 00:44:00know, humanities person

but a little bit of a geek, it was hard to get those geek experiences. I was

lucky in that, for a short time in the nineties, we had a liberal arts

curriculum that had courses that were from some of these harder science areas

but intended for liberal arts students. So I was able to take some programming

courses and things like that. That was sort of short-lived and in graduate

school, it was a little bit harder to get some of those experiences because if

it wasn't offered in your area, it was sort of hard to find it. Some of the

programs we have now didn't exist back then, and I would've signed up for them

if they had. So, I'd like to be able to provide those opportunities for students

today and the future.

Maddy: What kind of opportunities were there back then?

Todd: I had to go over to architecture in graduate 00:45:00school to take a course on

Object-Oriented Programming and a course on 3D Modeling. And that was only

because there was a faculty member there who taught those courses and was

willing to take people from outside [chuckles] their program. But being

architecture courses, they were geared very tightly to architecture, so we were

making doric columns and stuff like that. And I was just like, ugh. I don't want

to make doric columns. I want to do other things. But yeah. It was tricky. It

was--as an undergraduate with that short-lived liberal arts curriculum, it was

nice because I took this one computer science course where I was writing

assembly language and stuff. Like, really low-level programming that you know,

not very many humanities people would do. But I found it fascinating. It was a

lot of fun. I really enjoyed it, and it surprised me because I wasn't a

math-first kind of guy. So, [laughs] I was surprised that I enjoyed it as much

as I did.

Maddy: 00:46:00Awesome, what would you like people to know about you?

Todd: Mmm, well I'm imaginative. I'm creative, and I like to make things better

than the way I found them.

Maddy: You think you're doing that now?

Todd: I do.

Maddy: In what ways?

Todd: By helping tell stories that are, in many ways, hidden and putting them

out into plain sight. Although they have to be proctored right now by

technology, but that will get easier and easier, and in the areas where I don't

have the ability, like in the arts for example, to create the things that need

to go into that by 00:47:00finding the willing partners to help me see those things

through to their full vision. So, that's how I do it. Team building.

Maddy: What would you like people to know about Virginia Tech?

Todd: It's a home. I guess I just said our tagline. I didn't mean to do that.

Maddy: [Chuckles]

Todd: Hokie, and you know other Hokies, and it goes with you.

Maddy: Doesn't everyone know that already, though?

Todd: I think so, but it kind of speaks to that pact. Fat fact.

Maddy: What do people not know, including some negative or difficult things

about [Virginia] Tech that would be helpful to talk 00:48:00 about?

Todd: I'm not sure. Any state entity has bureaucracy. So it can be a long game

to make some things change, but I think that the administration we have today is

trying to eject some new energy into making innovative changes to the way we do

things, which is exciting. It's challenging. [Laughs] But it's exciting. And you

know, I hope that sort of thing can continue because that's the kind of space

that I reside in. I don't really fit well into any one descriptor, so I think

it's a good environment for the sorts of things that I do. I think there's a--I

don't know. People probably do know this, but I think there's a 00:49:00big service

component. I think that people that work here and that go to school here all

have a sense of service, whether that's at a volunteer level or to a more

engaged level. But it's something that's in the DNA, you know. We come away with

a real service-oriented mentality.

Maddy: That's a good point. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you

thought I would ask, or anything you would like to talk about, whether that's

your kids, wife, anything?

Todd: My wife's a Hokie. My kids--some of them may be Hokies. I'm not sure.

We'll have to see. Depends on what they want to do and how far away from home

they want to get. [Laughs] We're probably the beginnings of a Hokie family. 00:50:00 My

parents didn't go to Virginia Tech or anything like that. Except I had a cousin

who did and his kids did, so that was kind of fun while they worked through

their experience here, but yeah. I think it's something that stays with you, so

we'll see. I'm not going to not pay for college if the kids want to go somewhere

else, but you know, depends on what they want to do and, like I said, if they

want to go away to Germany or, you know, California instead of staying in

Blacksburg. But no, that's about all.

Maddy: How'd you meet your wife? High school sweethearts, or?

Todd: High school sweethearts.

Maddy: Cute.

Todd: Yes, we're adorable.

Maddy: What does she do now?

Todd: She's at home with the kids right now. She's a writer primarily. So--

Maddy: So kind of like you?

Todd: Yeah.

Maddy: Yeah?

Todd: Yeah, yeah.

Maddy: Are you sure that's it? All good?

Todd: Yeah.

Maddy: You said Class of [19]95, 00:51:00 correct?

Todd: Yes, yes.

Maddy: Alrighty then, so this was Dr. Todd Ogle, class of 1995. Thank you so

much for your time today.

Todd: You're very welcome.

[End of interview]