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Vanderbilt’s eighth chancellor promised “my hardest work” and reflected about the journey of his family from Greece to America as he addressed the entire Vanderbilt community for the first time as chancellor, instead of interim chancellor.
A band played music from the film Zorba the Greek as Zeppos, who held the interim post for seven months, bounded to the stage to speak to an overflow crowd at the Student Life Center on March 10. Nearly 1,500 members of the Vanderbilt community attended.
He was introduced by Martha Ingram, chairman of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust.
“I am convinced that he is the best person in the country to run Vanderbilt,” Ingram said of Zeppos, who was offered the position after a nationwide search for a successor to Gordon Gee, now at Ohio State University. “Nick knows keenly both our areas of strength and where growth is essential,” Ingram said.
Zeppos spoke of his grandfather, who left Athens – site of the original Parthenon – to chase opportunity in America. The Zeppos family settled in Wisconsin and eventually Chancellor Zeppos made his way as an assistant law professor to Vanderbilt, across the street from Nashville’s famous Parthenon replica.
“He never saw the Parthenon again,” Zeppos said. “It completes a nice pattern” for this generation that he is near the Nashville Parthenon, Zeppos said, with wife Lydia Howarth, two sons and mother-in-law looking on.
“Vanderbilt is my home, and I promise my hardest work.”
Former Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell and U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper were in the crowd, which was a mix of Vanderbilt administrators, faculty, staff and students.
Noting Zeppos’ two decade career at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt SGA president Cara Bilotta pointed out that “(Zeppos) has been working to make Vanderbilt a better place since the day that we (students) were born.”
Contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu