NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Nine graduates of Vanderbilt University were honored during Commencement Friday with Founder’s Medals recognizing them as the leading scholar in one of the university’s undergraduate and professional schools.
The awarding of Founder’s Medals is a more than century-old tradition at Vanderbilt, started by a special endowment in 1877 by university founder Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Students who received Founder’s Medals were:
Murray C. “Tripper” Briggs III of Fort Smith, Ark., for the Owen Graduate School of Management. Briggs was the Henderson Award recipient for the highest grade-point average in his first-year class at Owen and was a Dean’s Scholar. He worked as a campus visit coordinator and helped plan orientation for the class of 2007. He studied finance and strategy and will join Home Depot’s Business Leadership Program in Atlanta.
Emily Webb Clark of Nashville, for Peabody College. Clark is a Vanderbilt Ingram Scholar and member of the Gamma Beta Phi Society, the Athenian Society and Skull & Bones. She has volunteered at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and, as a participant in the Honors Research Program in Child Development, was involved in a study of stress and coping among children with sickle cell disease. Clark plans to attend medical school.
Jennifer Lynn Compton, a native of Gardendale, Ala., for the Vanderbilt Divinity School. Compton was awarded the William A. Newcomb Prize for best representing the divinity school’s paradigm of “the minister as theologian” and for her thesis, “Gathering up the Fragments: An Ecological Theology of the Eucharist for the United Methodist Church.” The avid outdoorswoman rejected a scholarship to study environmental engineering in Australia to attend divinity school and chose the Vanderbilt Divinity School because of its commitment to environmental issues. She is seeking ordination in the United Methodist Church and has accepted a position as a federal ranger in the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
Joshua Patrick Fessel, a native of Vincennes, Ind., for the School of Medicine. Fessel earned all A’s and honors through his preclinical training and earned all honors during his clerkships during the third year of clinical training. He has received numerous awards for research including the Young Investigator Award at the eighth annual meeting of the Oxygen Society. He taught science to elementary school students as part of Vanderbilt’s Student Volunteers for Science. Fessel will complete his intern year in internal medicine at Vanderbilt and then plans to continue his residency training in anesthesiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Michael Dale Gooch from Goodspring, Tenn., for the School of Nursing. Gooch maintained a 4.0 grade point average while earning his master of science in nursing. He volunteered for a month in New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency medical relief team. He participated in a research study sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that led to changes in the management of pneumonia patients in the emergency department at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Gooch is employed as a nurse practitioner by TeamHealth, an emergency medicine coverage group. He is considering options to continue his education.
Jimmy Lee Kerrigan from Gallatin, Tenn., for the College of Arts and Science. Kerrigan won a series of scholarships including the Harold Stirling Vanderbilt Scholarship, the Ned McWherter Scholarship and the Ada Bell Stapleton-Blanche Henry Weaver Scholarship. He is a National Merit Scholar and National Dean’s List honoree and served as an honorable delegate to the 2003 Chicago Model United Nations. Richard Haglund Jr., professor of physics, lauded Kerrigan as “witty without being light-headed, serious without being obnoxiously earnest and forceful without giving offense or waxing disputatious.” Kerrigan plans to attend Washington University School of Medicine.
Michael Osborne, a native of Louisville, Ky., for the School of Engineering. Osborne has participated in several research projects at Vanderbilt, including helping to design a mask to be worn in conjunction with a foam-based fire extinguishing system for skyscrapers. He is a member of Phi Kappa Sigma and the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. Osborne will continue his education at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.
‘s L. Howard “Zeke” Taylor Award for most outstanding woodwind, brass or percussion student. He plans to pursue a master of music degree in music performance in oboe at the University of Texas.
Robin Hart Smith from Senatobia, Miss., for Vanderbilt University Law School. As a Vanderbilt undergraduate, he finished second in his class and was banner bearer for the 2003 Commencement. Smith has done research for Tracey George, professor of law, and will clerk next year for Chief Justice Irma Gonzalez of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of California in San Diego.
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu