Hokie ClubVirginia Tech Athletics and the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise (HNFE) took the opportunity to further their preexisting relationship in a collaborative meeting between the two sides inside the Student-Athlete Performance Center on Thursday, Feb. 29.
The eat, meet and greet social was designed to bring together the entire staff from both the HNFE program and sports performance department that works day-to-day with VT Athletics.
"Virginia Tech Athletics has pretty incredible resources internally to support student-athletes achieving their goals in their sport," Associate Athletics Director for Sports Nutrition Clint Wattenberg said following the event. "But HNFE really expands the opportunity to build the knowledge and research base to further the innovation that we can provide to keep us at the forefront of athletic performance development."
The staff to attend from the sports performance side included those in sports nutrition, strength and conditioning, sports medicine and athletic mental performance. Virginia Tech devotes a great deal of resources towards the well-being of its student-athletes. Working with HNFE is only an opportunity to further enhance that.
"HNFE has always had a strong relationship with [Virginia Tech] Athletics," department head Dr. Stella Volpe said. "It really does make a lot of sense because we're Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise, and athletics and student-athletes depend on all of those areas. Nutrition and exercise in particular. A lot of our students actually volunteer here either in sports nutrition or in athletic training, or they also are paid students working. So in that regard, we have a really good relationship, but we still can make it stronger."
As of fall 2023, 39 Tech student-athletes were enrolled in an HNFE department major. Additionally, upwards of 45 HNFE students volunteer to gain internship experience with the Hokies' sports performance department – reinforcing the strong relationship Volpe noted between the two. As far as leadership goes, Tech staff members Jennie Zabinsky, Sarah Nguyen and Camie Martin are all HNFE alumnae.
On top of the meeting, the sports nutrition staff organized a tour for several of the faculty members and graduate students in the HNFE program, allowing for an opportunity to connect further with the staff on the athletic side of campus.
"It's easy to have individual conversations to let other colleagues know what we're doing, but it takes these types of opportunities to break bread together collectively," Wattenberg said. "To share about our resources and include our partners over at HNFE into what we're doing, so our campus partners can have a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of what we can and do provide, and where opportunities exist to fill the gaps together.
"These less-structured opportunities really open up the chance to have dialogue around initiatives, around passions, around philosophies and visions, so that we can work to craft shared vision and goals around supporting, for [HNFE], the development of research and literature, and for us, applying those insights to bettering our student-athlete support."