Virginia Tech Professors Mulling No-Confidence Vote in Provost

Faculty members at Virginia Tech are considering holding a vote of confidence in Thanassis Rikakis, provost, The Roanoke Times reported. Surveys and other internal documents suggest increasing faculty dissatisfaction with the direction of the university and communication between administrators and professors, according to the Times. The Faculty Senate has also resolved that a memo from Rikakis suggesting that a negative tenure or promotion review can result in reappointment to another position elsewhere in the university is in violation of the Faculty Handbook, the Times reported. A Tech spokesperson said that the university maintains that the provost “has followed all the policies and procedures defined by the Faculty Handbook.”