The top students in each of Vanderbilt’s nine undergraduate and
professional schools were recognized with Founder’s Medals during
commencement exercises May 14.
Founder’s Medals have been awarded every year since 1877 to the leading
scholars in each school. Cornelius Vanderbilt started the tradition in
1877 with a special endowment.
Chancellor Gordon Gee presented the medals to the following students:
Sarah Seelig of Louisville, Ky., Founder’s Medalist for the Blair
School of Music, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in piano
performance. Seelig made the Dean’s List every semester and was elected
to the national music honor society Pi Kappa Lambda. She is also a
member of the international music fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota and
received that group’s award this year for the senior with the highest
GPA.
An excellent pianist, Seelig has played master class performances for
Menachem Pressler and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb and
has performed with the Vanderbilt Orchestra, the pit orchestras for
Vanderbilt Opera Theatre and Vanderbilt Off Broadway and the Vanderbilt
Jazz Big Band. She is also a composer and has had several of her
compositions performed.
She is one of only 20 performers who will attend the Bang-On-a-Can
Institute of Music in Massachusetts this summer. Next year, she will
serve as a teaching assistant at the Blair School while preparing to
audition for graduate school in piano performance and possibly
composition.
Sejal Patel of Richmond, Texas, Founder’s Medalist for the College of
Arts and Science, graduated with a major in economics and a minor in
corporate strategy.
Patel came to Vanderbilt as a Chancellor’s Scholar, which includes a
full-tuition scholarship. She was named a College Scholar, the highest
honor for an Arts and Science student, and was one of just six juniors
selected as a member of Phi Beta Kappa in 2003. She has served as the
public relations chair for the Mortar Board senior honor society and is
a member of several other honor societies. She is one of 10 members of
a national board that plans youth activities for America’s Hindu
centers.
Patel attended the London School of Economics during the summer of
2002. She served as a teaching assistant for four different classes at
Vanderbilt and also tutored economics students at the Learning Center.
Patel has accepted a position with the prestigious
management-consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
Robert Odell Wyatt II of Nashville, Founder’s Medalist for the Divinity
School, graduated with a master’s degree in theological studies. Wyatt
also holds doctoral degrees in English and theology from Northwestern
University.
Wyatt has been a professor of journalism for the past 31 years and this
spring is retiring from Middle Tennessee State University, where he
directed the Office of Communication Research. He has also served as
the book review editor for The Tennessean, as a research adviser for
the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center and as four-time chair of the
nonfiction jury for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1992, Wyatt received the
Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Research in Journalism
from the Society of Professional Journalists. In 1997, he received the
Worcester Prize from the World Association of Public Opinion Research
for his study of the problems in international communication among
Israeli Arabs, Jews and Americans. Wyatt is leaving Nashville for
Chicago, where he will receive holy orders this summer in the Episcopal
Church.
Heather Elizabeth Brant of Jacksonville, Fla., was awarded the
Founder’s Medal for the School of Engineering. She graduated with a
bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and a 4.0 GPA. Brant is a
member of the Gamma Beta Phi honor society. In addition to her academic
achievements, Brant has been an active member and leader of the Victor
Christian A Cappella Choir and Baptist Collegiate Ministries. While at
Vanderbilt, she volunteered at the Cumberland Science Center and
tutored at Preston Taylor Ministries in Nashville. Last summer, she
conducted research at the National Institutes of Health after being
selected as a Whitaker Foundation intern.
Brant will begin a Ph.D. program in biomedical engineering this fall at
the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has been awarded a fellowship
from the National Science Foundation to fund her graduate study, which
will focus on neuroengineering and the use of neural-controlled
prostheses for restoring motor function.
John Kenneth Chapman of Tarpon Springs, Fla., Founder’s Medalist for
the law school, came to Vanderbilt with a bachelor’s degree from the
University of Florida. Before enrolling at the law school, he worked in
real estate as both an agent and as a loan officer.
While at Vanderbilt, Chapman has served as senior articles editor on the Vanderbilt Law Review,
was a quarterfinalist in the intramural moot court competition,
received the Vanderbilt Scholastic Excellence Award in Constitutional
Law II, was a contributing editor for the legal journal Obiter Dictum and was a member of the Legal Aid Society and the Criminal Law
Association. He held internships with the law firm Covington and
Burling in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Department of Justice and the
Metro-Nashville public defender’s office.
After graduation, Chapman will begin a clerkship with the 4th Circuit
Court of Appeal Judge M. Blaine Michael in Charleston, W.Va.
Mary Hunt Martin of Nashville, Founder’s Medalist for the School of
Medicine, graduated from Stanford in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in
human biology.
While at Vanderbilt, Martin conducted clinical research involving the
preferences of pediatric patients and their families in the emergency
department and helped author a case report on a type of meningitis. She
was selected for membership in the Microbes and Defense Academic
Society and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society as a junior
student. Martin spent a summer volunteering in Quito, Ecuador, and
volunteered in a clinic that serves Nashville’s low-income immigrant
population. She served as vice president of her class her first year
and as president in the three subsequent years.
Martin will enter a residency program in internal medicine and
pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s
Hospital in June.
Tanya Renee Sorrell of Baton Rouge, La., is the Founder’s Medalist for
the School of Nursing. She holds a master’s degree in clinical
psychology and health psychology from the University of Southern
Mississippi and a bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University.
Sorrell was awarded the Julia Hereford Alumni Full Merit Scholarship
after her first year, during which she earned a 4.0 while working full
time as a crisis therapist nights and weekends. She was selected as one
of the first students to represent Vanderbilt as an exchange scholar in
the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education-European Union
Program. Her international exchange experiences have taken her to over
10 countries on six continents.
Sorrell has served as president of the School of Nursing’s
International Health Commission and was nominated by her peers and
selected by the faculty as the Outstanding Mental Health Practitioner
in her class. Sorrell has since accepted a position with the EXCEL
Group in Yuma, Ariz., and has recently been appointed clinical director
of its Crisis Stabilization Unit. She plans to pursue doctoral studies
in nursing.
Brian Thomas McCann of Dayton, Ohio, is the Founder’s Medalist for the
Owen Graduate School of Management. McCann graduated cum laude with a
bachelor’s degree in political science from Wright State University in
1990.
Prior to joining the Owen School, Brian was the director of finance and
administration for Solve Interactive, a family-owned Internet services
start-up. He received multiple Pyramid marketing awards from Home
Builders Association of Dayton and Miami Valley while working as a real
estate developer. He is currently editing and authoring
supporting instructional materials for Business in One Lesson, an MBA-level managerial economics textbook, to be published by Owen faculty member Luke Froeb.
McCann entered the Owen School with a full tuition merit scholarship
and received the Bruce D. Henderson Award for highest academic honors
in his first year. He continued to work for Solve Interactive on
a distance basis while at Owen. With a dual concentration in finance
and strategy, he was elected to Beta Gamma Sigma, the national business
administration honor society. McCann is currently considering pursuing
a Ph.D.
Alexis Anne Nesbit of Pittsburgh, Penn., Founder’s Medalist for Peabody
College, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in special education and
elementary education.
While at Vanderbilt, Nesbit received the Award for Distinguished
Teaching Excellence and Distinguished Academic Achievement from the
special education program. She is a member of Alpha Omicron Pi
sorority, Kappa Delta Pi, Kappa Delta Epsilon and Campus Crusade for
Christ. After graduation, Nesbit plans to pursue her master’s degree in
deaf education from the University of Pittsburgh and hopes to secure a
teaching position at a school for the deaf.
Media contact: Melanie Catania, (615) 322-NEWS
melanie.moran@vanderbilt.edu