All University Central employees need to get new Commodore Card

Beginning Jan. 18, 2010, all Commodore Cards for University Central faculty and staff will be replaced. The old-style Commodore Cards will expire in late February 2010.

Engineering’s Weiss gets award at White House

Sharon Weiss of the School of Engineering was honored at a ceremony at the White House with a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Weiss, assistant professor of electrical engineering, attended a reception Jan. 13 for Department of Defense PECASE recipients hosted by Zachary Lemnios, director of defense research and engineering.

International Lens film series begins Jan. 20 at Sarratt

The spring 2010 International Lens film series launches Jan. 20 at Sarratt Cinema and continues through April. All the screenings are free and open to the public.

Geoffrey Canada, president & CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone, to speak Jan. 21

The Harlem Children’s Zone is a 97-block laboratory based on his belief that if you really want to change the lives of inner-city kids, you have to change everything all at once – their schools, families and neighborhoods.

Hall Lecture features ORNL official

The deputy laboratory director for science and technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will deliver the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering Hall Lecture. Live streaming and archived video of the presentation will be available on VUCast, the Web site of Vanderbilt News Service, at www.vanderbilt.edu/news. The Hall lecture by Thomas Zacharia is at 4 p.m. Jan. 14 in Featheringill Hall.

Women’s Health Event Jan. 16

University Community Health Services in conjunction with Vanderbilt University School of Nursing will offer $30 women’s health exams including Pap Test as part of its Women’s Health Day.

more info and top stories »

  This Week

Jan. 14: “MAPquest – From Cancer to Diabetes.” Melanie Cobb

Jan. 14: Department of Art – Opening Receptions

Jan. 14: School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt Applications Available

Jan. 14: Travel Website Training Session

Jan. 15: Political Science Experiments at VU: An Introduction to the RIPS Lab

 Mark Your Calendars

Jan. 17: Blair – Music on Film

Jan. 18: 2010 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Series Events – Lecture, Keynote Address & Candlelight Vigil

Jan. 19: 2010 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Series Lecture – Douglas Blackmon

Jan. 20: 2010 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Series & Living History Luncheon Series – Veterans of the Nashville Sit-ins – “The Struggle Continues”

Jan. 21: Community Breakfast – John Thatamanil

more events »

Sign Up for a Clinical Trial

Study Volunteers Needed for Research on Sedentary Behaviors

Research Volunteers With High Blood Pressure Needed

Right from the Start – A Research Study of Early Pregnancy Health

Announcements

Memorial for Waller scheduled

Sarratt Art Studios announces spring art classes

Back due to popular demand: Train to run/walk the Country Music Half Marathon

Two VU professors have issued fourth edition of iconic accounting textbook

Watch the NFL play-offs while supporting the VU Trauma Survivors Network

Health Plus offers blood pressure education series

Lecture on the Great Flood of 1910 in Paris

Annual Scholar-Sips fundraiser to be held Feb. 12

Enter competition for photos taken in Brazil

more announcements »

Featured Media

Those guys can really sing, facing fat and calling all plastic bottles. It’s VUCast time.

more media »

Tune in to VUCast, for audio and video of events happening around campus. You can also find VU podcasts on iTunes and VU videos on YouTube.

From Lens: It’s not all about science

Bill Stead does a lot of thinking about connections.

As director of Vanderbilt Medical Center’s Informatics Center , he’s in charge of managing an information technology infrastructure that supports Vanderbilt’s patient care, research and educational programs.

As chairman of the Vanderbilt Center for Better Health , he also oversees efforts designed to help transform the nation’s health care system and accelerate improvements in health care outcomes.

But although he describes himself as an optimist, Stead worries that the United States is “drifting towards … a whole series of national-scale crises,” not only in health care, but in education, infrastructure, energy and the environment.

“We’ve now had a decade of one bubble after another,” he explains. “We’re getting people who are experts at making money out of chaos … (but) I think as a society we’ve really lost our ability to do anything important.

“We did take on high performance computing as a challenge a number of years ago. We did take on the human genome. (But) I’m not aware that we’ve done anything since then that has been taken on as a national grand challenge.

“It’s not all about science. I believe it’s a much broader cultural problem.”