Colonel Rob McDonald joined the VMI faculty in 1992. While serving as Associate Dean of the Faculty since 2001, he has continued to teach as a professor of English and fine arts. Recent offerings include Southern literature, creative writing (nonfiction), and a special seminar—developed in collaboration with cadets—titled Text + Image.

Colonel McDonald is a widely published scholar whose books include Reading Erskine Caldwell: New Essays; Teaching Writing: Landmarks and Horizons (ed. with Christina Russell McDonald); Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in Literary History and Criticism (edited with Linda Rohrer Paige); Erskine Caldwell: Selected Letters, 1929-1955; The Critical Response to Erskine Caldwell; and Teaching Composition in the 90s: Sites of Contention (edited with Christina G. Russell). From 2005-2015, he served as editor of of the journal Studies in American Culture.

For more than a decade, Colonel McDonald has been exploring photography as a creative extension of his academic interests in the literature and culture of the South. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and book publications.

Colonel McDonald’s photographs are in the collection of numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. In 2013, he became the Institute’s first recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. In 2019, he received a professional fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

VMI has recognized Colonel McDonald with several awards, including the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award (1997), the Matthew Fontaine Maury Award for Excellence in Faculty Research (1998), the VMI Distinguished Teaching Award (2001), and the Wilbur S. Hinman, Jr. Award for Undergraduate Research (2009 and 2010). 

In 2007, the Superintendent presented Colonel McDonald with the VMI Achievement Medal in recognition of his contributions to the Institute.

VMI's 11th deputy superintendent for academics and dean of the faculty is Brig. Gen. Robert "Bob" Moreschi. He has served in this capacity since July 2018, having previously been a member of the faculty since 2002 and head of the Department of Economics and Business (ECBU) from 2013 to 2018.

As VMI's chief academic officer, he oversees curriculum, majors, support services, governance, faculty, staff, and all things relating to the academic program.

After graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1988 with a Ph.D. in economics, Moreschi steadily climbed the corporate ladder at several Chicago-based investment and money management firms for 14 years. For 13 of those years, he was also an adjunct professor, teaching finance to undergraduate and MBA students.

In 2002, because of his love of teaching, he embarked on a career change, joining VMI's faculty as an associate professor of finance, became a full professor in 2007 and was tenured in 2008. In 2013, he was appointed head of VMI's ECBU department. As department head, he led the program's reaffirmation of accreditation with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International) – an impressive feat for a college of VMI's size, as less than 6% of all AACSB accredited schools are undergraduate degree-granting only institutions.

In 2016, Moreschi was named the John and Jane Roberts Institute Professor in Free Enterprise Business. In 2018, he was awarded the Nanette and Thomas Watjen 1976 Chair in Economics and Business. During his years on the faculty, he served on numerous Institute and department committees, including the Core Curriculum Oversight Committee, the Chairs and Professorships Committee, and was the first chair of the Discrimination Appeals Committee. He was also the faculty representative to the VMI Foundation Board of Trustees and for 16 years served as faculty advisor to the Cadet Investment Group.

Moreschi is a contributing member of two chief academic officer groups: The Virginia College/University Provosts and the Southern Conference Provosts. An active member of the community and his profession, Moreschi is an elder of the Lexington Presbyterian Church and formerly served on the Audit and Oversight Committee at the Kendal at Lexington retirement community and on the board of the Lexington/Rockbridge United Way. He served as President and member of the Board of Directors of the Academy of Financial Services (AFS), an international organization of academics and practitioners interested in financial planning research and education, and for many years since joining VMI actively consulted to financial and investment firms.

Capt. Michael J. Sebastino is VMI’s associate dean for academic administration and planning. From 2003 to 2009, Sebastino was the Institute’s grants, contracts, and intellectual property administrator.  In this position, he established strong working relationships with state and federal agencies, the VMI Foundation, and faculty and staff across post. He supported the development of the undergraduate research initiative and played a key role in organizing the academic program’s funding requests and in reporting to the Jackson-Hope Board of Overseers.

Sebastino holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from The Citadel and a master of business administration degree from Old Dominion University. Prior to his arrival at VMI, he worked as a licensing associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and he is a retired, commissioned officer who served for 30 years in both the active and reserve components of the U.S. Navy.