The brassy timbre of trumpets rolled through the tents on Vanderbilt’s Alumni Lawn, ushering in the Sesquicentennial Ceremony and Celebration of the university opening its doors on Oct. 3–4, 1875. It was a moment of both reverential reflection and a hopeful vision for the future, as Chancellor Daniel Diermeier remarked: “The ‘Great University of the South’ is now one of the great universities of America.”
An audience made up of the Board of Trust, Vanderbilt leadership, deans, faculty, staff and students gathered on the afternoon of Oct. 3, as Vice Chancellor for People, Culture and Belonging Sydney Savion opened the ceremony, welcoming Sen. Lamar Alexander, BA’62, to the podium.
Alexander took the audience back to his time at Vanderbilt, recounting the tumultuous battle over desegregation at the university that included a young Rev. James Lawson and then-Chancellor Bennett Harvie Branscomb. After faculty resignations and a heated campus debate, the Vanderbilt Board of Trust voted to admit all qualified students without regard to race or creed in the spring of 1962.
It was an example, he said, of Vanderbilt’s wisdom during trying moments. “In today’s turbulent times, worried friends ask me, ‘Can we survive this?’ I remind them that Americans have asked this question ever since our country’s founding in times tougher than today’s—through wars, economic panics and social upheaval,” Alexander said. “And I tell them that Vanderbilt still seems to know what to do in times of turmoil … expose students to ideas—even controversial ones—help them learn how to examine and discuss those ideas, with the hope that students will have ideas of their own that will help them know what to do to build and strengthen the American republic.”
Following Alexander’s remarks, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell took the stage and reflected on the city’s enduring relationship with the university, working together to accomplish major projects. “One hundred and fifty years in, I’m excited to join you on this campus—an arboretum within itself—that bridges ivory towers to city halls and links the city through cross-sector collaboration,” O’Connell said.
Among those projects: a 10-year relationship to provide technology and planning solutions for our transit challenges, most recently through the “Choose How You Move” initiative. O’Connell also noted the university’s involvement in the city’s housing fund and its role on the steering committee of the Nashville Innovation Alliance, from which a collaboration with the city and state’s office of economic and community development resulted in a Vanderbilt-incubated company getting foreign direct investment for a center of excellence on campus.
Chancellor Diermeier concluded the ceremony with a few words on the symbolic nature of the university’s founding as an institution that would strengthen ties across the country on the very land that a Union army line of fortification had cut through during the Civil War. In the 150 years since opening, Vanderbilt is living up to that promise, he said, expanding the university’s reach to bring its mission of transformative education and pathbreaking research to cities around the U.S. and the world.
“Now, as then, our university is a source of hope and possibility in tumultuous times, with its greatest triumphs ahead,” Diermeier said. “So today we recommit: To honoring our founders’ vision. To living by our enduring values. And to rising to meet our own moment in history, whatever it asks of us.”
The chancellor’s address was followed by a performance of the Alma Mater by Riley Eddins, BMus’25, and the celebratory rain of black and gold streamers from cannons to the sounds of the Spirit of Gold marching band. Guests in attendance enjoyed a complimentary lunch from various food trucks gathered at the event.
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