Year: 2010

Watch video of a Thinking Out of the Lunchbox discussion with Colin Dayan, professor of English, Robert Penn Warren Professor in Humanities; Jemima Pierre, visiting fellow, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities; and Jane Landers, associate professor of history. Read More

Watch video of Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, two of the nation’s most experienced political reporters, engaging in an evening of political discussion. Read More

A lecture about Google’s effect on culture, commerce and community set for April 15 at Vanderbilt University has been canceled. Read More

Ira Berlin, an American historian and author of The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations (Viking 2010), will speak at Vanderbilt University on April 16. Read More

The White House announced that it plans to appoint Vanderbilt associate professor of law and philosophy Nita Farahany to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Read More

Vanderbilt physicist Joe Hamilton played a key role in the discovery of element 117, a new super-heavy element that has been created and identified by an international scientific team. Discovery of the new element provides new information about the basic organization of matter and strengthens the likelihood that still more massive elements may form an "island of stability": a cluster of stable super-heavy elements that could form novel materials with exotic and as yet unimagined scientific and practical applications. Read More

Billy Ray Caldwell All good things must come to an end. As my term as president of the Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board of Directors comes to a close, I am reminded about exciting changes that have taken place the past couple of years and look forward to the future—of… Read More

A packed house of Vanderbilt alumni, parents and friends gathered to hear an update about the university from Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos at the City Club of San Francisco on Jan. 28. Here the chancellor, left, chats with (clockwise) Meredith Thacker, BS’97; William Linsenmeyer, PhD’72; Doug Asiell, BA’92; Marjorie Sennett,… Read More

Last October alumni members of the Vanderbilt Atlanta Chapter were presented a President’s Volunteer Service Award recognizing the group’s nearly 400 hours of service to the Atlanta Community Food Bank during the previous year. Chapter members have been volunteering for the food bank on a monthly basis since 2007. “We… Read More

As part of a continuing effort to help increase current students’ awareness of, and access to, Vanderbilt’s network of alumni, the Office of Alumni Relations has created “Dores Across Nashville,” a series of small, informal dinner gatherings for students in the homes of Nashville-area alumni. Each gathering centers on a… Read More

I hope there’s a kitchen in heaven. My loved ones know to look for me there. In fact, I expect to go to heaven straight from my own kitchen, leaving behind a freezer full of food and, less likely, clean dishes. I come from a long line of enthusiastic cooks… Read More

Baker is one of six students accepted last year into Vanderbilt’s M.F.A. program in creative writing out of a pool of 374 applicants. One game my best friend and I used to play was this: We were castaways on an island where we were trapped with a horrible monster. We… Read More

Glen Stewart (right) enjoys a pre-earthquake lunch with members of his mission group at the Olafson Hotel in downtown Port-au-Prince. We were going to be late for supper. That thought was uppermost in my mind as I prodded the members of my group to conclude their purchases in the One… Read More

Muhammad Ali whispers to his wife, Lonnie, as she testifies at a U.S. Senate hearing in 2002.   LONNIE WILLIAMS ALI, BA’78 When Lonnie Williams married the world’s most famous athlete in 1986, she knew little about the degenerative neurological condition that was just beginning to grip Muhammad Ali’s… Read More

JIM MORGAN, BA’69 “We believe there’s a greater purpose in life than selling doughnuts,” says Jim Morgan. “During the past two years, we’ve committed to a new mission of taking this incredible product and brand and using it as an instrument through which to touch and enhance lives.” Morgan… Read More

WILLIE GEIST, BA’97 It’s fitting that one of the shows Willie Geist hosts on MSNBC is called Way Too Early. If there’s one gripe he has about his job, it’s the necessity of waking up in the wee hours of the morning. “When the alarm clock goes off at… Read More

Tyler Sanchez, Class of 2010, uses his Nichols Humanitarian Fund award to spend a month working with International Development Enterprises India. Here he demonstrates how to use a treadle pump in the village of Gorakhpur. “Demand things of the world and if they don’t do it, then change the world… Read More

Priscilla Craven (left) surprised Suzanne McGee by flying to Dallas and walking with her friend during part of the Avon 60-Mile Walk for Breast Cancer last year. McGee was the top fundraiser for the event. On the surface, Suzanne Perot McGee and Priscilla Call Craven didn’t have much in common… Read More

Aaron Noll, a sophomore biological sciences major from Fort Mitchell, Ky., is a forward on the basketball team and the current recipient of the Martin F. McNamara Jr. Honor Scholarship. After Martin McNamara Jr. died 26 years ago, his family honored him by establishing the Martin F. McNamara Jr. Honor… Read More