NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The first buildings completed as part of the Commons, which will serve as the home for all first-year students at Vanderbilt University beginning in 2008, have been named for a woman who played an integral role in Vanderbilt’s very existence and a man whose medical discoveries earned him a Nobel Prize.
Crawford House, named for Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt, and Sutherland House, named for Earl W. Sutherland Jr., are two new residence halls in the Commons that will open in fall 2006.
Frank Armstrong Crawford is credited with moving her husband, financier Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, toward his only major philanthropy – giving a million dollars in 1873 to build and endow Vanderbilt University.
Earl W. Sutherland Jr., who served as professor of physiology at Vanderbilt University from 1963 until his death in 1974, received the Nobel Prize in 1971 for his discoveries concerning “the mechanisms of the actions of hormones.” Sutherland studied how epinephrine, a hormone secreted into the blood stream from the adrenals under conditions of stress, acts as the signal that adapts an individual to a new situation. Many other hormones act in a similar manner to help individuals adapt to the requirements of their surroundings. Sutherland’s work has helped researchers today understand how various hormones exert important functions within organisms.
By fall 2008 the Commons will be a community of 10 residence halls to be known as “houses” and a new dining/recreation facility. Five existing residence halls are being converted and three more residence halls will be built. A tenured faculty member will serve as dean of the Commons and each house will be managed by a faculty member or student life professional in residence.
Until the Commons is complete and ready to open in fall 2008, more than 300 rising sophomores will live in Crawford House and Sutherland House beginning in fall 2006. The sophomores were assigned to the new residence halls through the university’s housing lottery held in the spring.
The Commons is the first phase of College Halls at Vanderbilt, a residential college system designed to create the most vibrant living and learning environment in higher education. It is Vanderbilt’s largest construction project on the Peabody campus since the university merged with the formerly independent teacher’s college in 1979.
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Media contact: Princine Lewis, (615) 322-NEWS
princine.l.lewis@vanderbilt.edu