Here is a selection of stories available prior to Vanderbilt’s May 9 Commencement. Vanderbilt has a campus broadcast facility with a dedicated fiber optic line for live TV interviews and a radio ISDN line.
Basketball star Shan Foster leaves behind more than shattered records
Vanderbilt basketball star Shan Foster, who will receive a degree in human and organizational development from Vanderbilt’s Peabody College, is the kind of student who gives teachers hope that the next generation is in good hands, said Sharon Shields, professor in the practice of human and organizational development. "He embodies the idea that learning should be transformational," Shields said. "And it was for him. But he also transformed those around him."
Vanderbilt engineer changes plans after winning art award
When Noah Walcutt arrived at Vanderbilt to study engineering, he had little or no interest in art. But a chance decision to take an elective course in sculpture led him to create an award-winning design melding his engineering skills, musical interests and new-found artistic creativity into a project that has changed the course of his life after graduation. As the winner of the $25,000 Margaret Wooldridge Hamblett Award in Studio Art, the senior from Cape Cod has put off his search for post-graduation engineering jobs and will spend the next 12-to-18 months traveling the world exploring musical and artistic ideas. His travel will culminate in an exhibition of new art works created over the next year.
Wheelchair-bound graduate heads to Africa to work with AIDS orphans
Palmer Harston was on a spring break trip visiting relatives in Nashville when her family was involved in a terrible car wreck. Eight-year-old Palmer was airlifted to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, where she underwent emergency surgeries to save her life and was a patient for months. Her injuries left her confined to a wheelchair. Years later, her memories of the life-saving treatment she received at Vanderbilt led her to apply for college here. This May, she graduates as a double major in political science and organizational and human development, and then leaves for Africa to spend a year working with AIDS orphans.
Vanderbilt students’ post-graduation plans center on service
La Chureca, the city dump on the outskirts of Managua, Nicaragua, could be the setting for a dreary, futuristic movie. A city of scavengers, many of them orphans, they live in the filthy heaps of refuse at this municipal garbage dump. Clothed in rags, they rummage for food, scrounging out a meager existence by selling the small trinkets or recyclables they find, or sometimes selling their own bodies to survive. A graduating senior at Vanderbilt, Emily Lineberger, plans to dedicate a year following graduation this May to helping these otherwise hopeless orphans through Manna Project International, a humanitarian organization formed by Vanderbilt students to bring hope to some of the poorest communities in the Western Hemisphere.
May Vanderbilt Executive MBA graduates win competition for start-up company concept
A team from Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management has won first place in the MBA Jungle Business Plan Competition held recently in New York City. The team developed a start-up company to improve the preservation and transport of human organs. Team member Ravi Chari, chief of the division of hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplantation at Vanderbilt, said he’s been transformed by the experience of adding a business perspective to his medical training.
Vanderbilt University is a private research university of approximately 6,500 undergraduates and 5,300 graduate and professional students. Founded in 1873, the University comprises 10 schools, a public policy institute, a distinguished medical center and The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center. Vanderbilt, ranked as one of the nation’s top universities, offers undergraduate programs in the liberal arts and sciences, engineering, music, education and human development, and a full range of graduate and professional degrees.
Media contact: Jennifer Johnston, (615) 322-NEWS
jennifer.johnston@vanderbilt.edu