The Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board has announced the 2025 recipients of its annual alumni awards. The honorees will be celebrated during Reunion and Homecoming Weekend Nov. 6–9.
Nancy Oliver Gray, BA’73, is the 2025 recipient of the Alumni Professional Achievement Award, which recognizes Vanderbilt alumni who have distinguished themselves through professional accomplishments and whose contributions honor the legacy of excellence at Vanderbilt.
Gray has more than 30 years of exceptional performance in higher education leadership, having served as president of two colleges—Hollins University and Converse College. During her first term of service at Hollins from 2005 to 2017, Gray led the implementation of two five-year strategic plans and worked to eliminate all debt. She guided the university through the largest comprehensive fundraising campaign in school history, which led to a doubling of the endowment. At that time, the campaign was also the largest ever undertaken by a women’s college in the South. After her retirement from Hollins University, Gray was called back to the institution to become interim president during a search for a new chief executive. A few months later, in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a global crisis. She and her staff quickly responded to meet the needs of students and the campus.
TaCara Harris, BA’10, JD’13, has been selected to receive the Early Career Professional Achievement Award. The award recognizes alumni, age 40 and younger, for their significant record of career achievement and promise for professional success.
Harris is the sole Black female partner in the King & Spalding LLP flagship Atlanta office. She is heavily committed to pro bono work, community service and philanthropy and diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. She serves on King & Spalding’s Diversity Committee, co-chairs the firm’s African American Affinity Group and mentors minority law students through the Leadership Counsel on Legal Diversity and the Atlanta Bar Association. Harris was recognized in Georgia as a “Rising Star” in product liability litigation by Super Lawyers and as a “Top 40 Under 40” lawyer for National Black Lawyers.
Christian Ketel, DNP’14, and Carrie Plummer, MSN’05, have been honored with the Service and Community Leadership Award, which recognizes alumni who have distinguished themselves through service to their community, country or society.
Ketel and Plummer are co-founders of the Vanderbilt Mobile Vaccination Program. For their work, the pair were co-recipients of the Vanderbilt Martin Luther King Jr. Award and an American Association of Nurse Practitioners award. They were also honored as Nurse Heroes by the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s College of Nursing that year. Ketel was a panelist for “Public Health in the COVID Era: Community-Driven Response + Equity-Driven Changes,” hosted by the Vanderbilt Alumni Association, and both spoke at “COVID Perspectives, Values and Vaccination Hesitancy,” presented by the VUSN Diversity & Inclusion Committee. Plummer was honored with the 2021 VUSN Alma Gault Alumni Award for Public Service, nominated by alumni.
Chad Gervich, BA’96, and Rich Hull, BA’92, have been awarded the Vanderbilt Way Award, which recognizes alumni for outstanding recent volunteer service to Vanderbilt schools, alumni groups and other university areas. The Vanderbilt Way embodies the university’s motto, Crescere aude, Latin for “dare to grow”—always growing together to fulfill our highest potential in service to society and our vibrant global Vanderbilt community.
Gervich and Hull are co-founders of the Vandy-in-Hollywood Internship Program. The ViH summer internship program and alumni network has earned a reputation among industry leaders for providing exceptional student interns to various entertainment enterprises while providing an opportunity for students to make connections and gain real-world experience.
ViH places approximately 30 students per year at some of Hollywood’s top studios, agencies, distributors and production companies. Participants also gain access to guest lecturers, pre-release film screenings and premieres, studio tours and other special events presented by Vanderbilt alumni.
