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Inside Hokie Sports
For the fifth consecutive year, a group of Virginia Tech student-athletes spent a portion of the summer studying
abroad, this time going to Switzerland and France as part of a course entitled UAP (Urban Affairs and Planning)
3954: Sport, Policy and Society. The course broadly focuses on how sports affects international development and the
different roles that sports assumes within a greater society.
The contingent of 12 Tech student-athletes included women’s soccer player Marie Johnston, golfer Allison
Woodward, lacrosse players Emily Wilson, Brittney VanVeldhuisen, Charlie Fix, Kristine Loscalzo, Kristen Kohles and
Haley Lukefahr, and swimmers Laura Schwartz, M.J. Ulrich, Savannah Padgett and Chris Wang.
They spent time in Geneva, Switzerland at the United Nations and the UN Office of Sport for Development and
Peace; in Lausanne, Switzerland at the International Olympic Committee offices; and in Rita San Vitale, Switzerland
at The Steger Center for International Scholarship, which is named after former Virginia Tech President Dr. Charles
Steger. While in Lausanne, the group sat in on a graduate level sports administration course at the International
Academy for Sports Science and Technology.
The trip concluded with a stop in Paris to give the student-athletes a cultural/art experience. They saw Da Vinci’s
Last Supper, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum.
The athletics department’s Office of Student-Athlete Development coordinated the trip in conjunction with
the university. Staff members who went included Danny White (associate AD for student-athlete development),
Gary Bennett (sport psychologist), Shelby Miller (coordinator of student-athlete development) and Joe Tront (faculty
athletics representative).
TRIP TO EUROPE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
FOR GROUP OF TECH STUDENT-ATHLETES
Supporting Tech Athletics Since 1949