Author: Jim Patterson
Luke Gregory, MA’81, Children’s Hospital Leader
Feb. 17, 2020—Luke Gregory, CEO of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and senior vice president for business development, died Oct. 18, 2019, after a courageous battle with lymphoma. He was 63. The embodiment of a servant leader, Gregory joined Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2007 as senior vice president and chief business development officer. He...
Memphis Vanderbilt Chapter Screens “Triumph” and Shares Perspectives
Feb. 17, 2020—For Jessie Wallace Jackson, the trailblazing experience of her brother Perry Wallace, BE’71, is a story of love and hope for the future. A recent Memphis Vanderbilt Chapter Commodore Classroom expanded his inspiring message. On Dec. 9, more than 60 alumni and friends gathered at the National Civil Rights Museum for a screening of Triumph—The...
Recent Books, Fall 2019
Nov. 25, 2019—Seventh Flag: A Novel (2019, SparkPress) by Sid Balman Jr., BA’80. No place is immune from radicalism, including the small West Texas town of Dell City, where four generations of an iconic American family and a Syrian Muslim family carve a farming empire out of the unforgiving high desert. Their partnership is as unlikely as...
Lauren Mandel, BA’15: The Art of the Possible
Nov. 7, 2019—Like many people her age, Lauren Mandel developed her funny bone to the antics of comedians like Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph on Saturday Night Live. That Mandel, an aspiring entertainer since childhood, would one day work behind the scenes at that iconic sketch show—first as a page and then as the writers’...
Tom Mulder, BMus’12: Musician and Mentor
Nov. 7, 2019—Look no further than Tom Mulder to sing the praises of ArtSmart, a nonprofit begun three years ago in which classical musicians provide free individualized music lessons to high school students in underserved communities. “There’s a power in that one-on-one relationship between a teacher and a student,” says Mulder, a tenor who currently is performing—in...
Amanda Iovino, BA’08: Pushing for Positive Change
Nov. 7, 2019—Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in June 1919, and the amendment became law Aug. 26, 1920, giving American women the right to vote after a decades-long fight. This year, the centennial of women gaining the right to vote, a record number of women are serving in the U.S. Congress, many elected...
Mind’s Eye: Vanderbilt performing arts groups put on a show for first-year students
Nov. 7, 2019—During their first week at Vanderbilt, first-year students are met with an overwhelming number of organizations vying for their attention. However, the Vanderbilt Performing Arts Community grabs the interest of new students the old-fashioned, time-tested way: They put on a show. VPAC has been producing the Spotlight Showcase for several years to demonstrate the breadth...
‘Borne Back’: Richard Webb provides evidence for Gatsby’s locale in Connecticut
Nov. 7, 2019—As a boy in Westport, Connecticut, Richard Webb, BA’85, was haunted by the ghosts of artists. His affluent waterfront town, about 50 miles from New York City, had once been a rural haven for Jazz Age creatives; in fact, Webb grew up near a summer cottage where F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald honeymooned for five...
In Tandem: Alumni Evan Mack and Joshua McGuire have discovered the perfect formula for writing great opera
Nov. 7, 2019—Many of history’s greatest musical collaborators have pursued a creative approach perhaps best described as “you wash, I’ll dry.” Mozart was more than happy to let his librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, write all the words, while he focused solely on the score. Gilbert and Sullivan, George and Ira Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hammerstein adhered to...
Accolade: Mel Chin named ‘genius’ artist
Nov. 7, 2019—Visionary artist Mel Chin, BA’75, was named Sept. 25 among the class of 26 MacArthur Fellows for 2019. Given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and known colloquially as the “genius” grant, the fellowship honors “extraordinary originality” and comes with a no-strings-attached grant of $625,000, to be distributed over five years. Chin,...
Accolades
Nov. 7, 2019—Michael Alec Rose, associate professor of composition, had the premiere of his musical drama, Lolly Willowes, based on the novel by Sylvia Townsend Warner, in April at the MATCH–Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston. In July he was interviewed about the work and his life as a composer by Nashville Public Radio. His Seventh String...
Message from the Alumni Association President
Nov. 7, 2019—Vanderbilt Alumni Impact the World One of my great pleasures as president of the Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board is to highlight some of the Commodores who are leading positive change in the lives of people around the world. When Justin Miller, BS’09, was a student at Vanderbilt, he witnessed firsthand the grim reality for AIDS...