Collective Memory

Few people in the university’s history have been as loyal to Vanderbilt as long and as selflessly as Stella Scott Vaughn. She grew up on campus and was one of Vanderbilt’s earliest woman graduates. She served as the university’s first female physical-education instructor and coach, working her first nine years without pay. She also took on the unofficial role as dean of women students. Read More

As the chairmen of the first five Impact sym­posia, we are delighted when articles about this important and unique Vanderbilt institution are published, most recently the “Speak Up” article written by Andrew Maraniss in the Spring 2017 issue. Read More

Emily Manchester Townes, BA’50, has preserved her brother’s war letters by compiling them into a family history. A portrait of John Manchester hangs behind her. (DANIEL DUBOIS)   When John Speier Manchester left Vanderbilt halfway through his sophomore year in December 1942 to enlist in the U.S. Navy, he… Read More

Vanderbilt celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Impact Symposium, an event that will always be remembered as one of the signature moments in the university’s history. Read More

No doubt Bear Bryant is the most legendary figure ever to walk the sidelines at Dudley Field as a Vanderbilt assistant, but the list of former assistants includes a number of impressive names, notable for their achievements in college and professional football. Read More

In part because much of their work remains classified even after 70 years, the contributions of a group of young Vanderbilt physicists to the Manhattan Project have never received the level of recognition they deserve. Read More

World War I marked the beginning of a great adventure that took Harvie Branscomb and Oliver Carmichael from Oxford, England, to Belgium, where they played a vital role in the largest hunger-relief effort the world had ever known. Read More

In 1897 two Vanderbilt students summering just south of Nashville on the Cumberland Plateau made an accidental discovery that eventually would draw millions of Americans to a vast subterranean world during much of the 20th century. Read More

Kathleen Smith, associate director of special collections for Vanderbilt’s Jean and Alexander Heard Library system, and her team occasionally find themselves on the receiving end of unique objects that have been passed along to the university, from vintage movie posters to—as in the case of items highlighted here—armaments and other war-themed matériel. Read More

Founded for the education of young men, Vanderbilt from its earliest days allowed a handful of women to attend classes as “listeners.” In 1879, 20-year-old Kate Lupton silently broke the gender barrier when she received her diploma in private for a master of arts degree. Read More

Named in honor of Vanderbilt University, the 455-foot SS Vanderbilt Victorywas launched April 11, 1945. Read More

The man sitting next to me on the night of Dec. 3, 2014, was Perry Wallace, and many of the 400 people approaching him were fellow Vanderbilt alumni, including members of Wallace’s Class of 1970. It was an exhilarating and emotional scene at the Nashville Public Library, the official launch of my biography of Wallace (Strong Inside), the first African American basketball player in the Southeastern Conference. Read More

In 1960, a brazen thief stole a prized meteorite on display at Vanderbilt's observatory and then replaced it with a painted clay replica. The thief was apprehended, but the meteorite has yet to be returned. Read More

Much of the tranquil beauty that imbues today’s campus was engendered by architect Edward Durell Stone's plan. Read More

When Sidney DeLair, BA'75, arrived home for his father's funeral, his mother pulled out a worn silver pocket watch and handed it to him. He already had been told the story behind the watch many times, and he loved what it represented. Read More

When Blair Academy of Music first opened its doors in the fall of 1964, I was a violin student of Wilda Tinsley [MMus’43], having lessons in a beautiful old house on West End Avenue. I still remember my first lesson with Miss Tinsley at the new school on 18th Avenue. Read More

It was the 9-degree, molar-rattling middle of January in North Georgia, and I was on my way to visit the Chattooga River, 57 miles of fierce backcountry water and etched stone where the film of my father’s first novel, Deliverance, was shot in the summer of 1971. Read More

Credit: U.S. NAVAL HISTORICAL FOUNDATION By Brenda Ellis On April 10, 1963, the nuclear submarine USS Thresher departed Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, headed for a rendezvous with the submarine rescue ship USS Skylark, which would accompany it during deep-dive tests. Designed to hunt and destroy… Read More

Credit: LAUREN SIMKIN BERKE BY JOANNE LAMPHERE BECKHAM, BA’62 Nearly 50 years ago Robert J. Moore watched the countryside pass by his window during a long bus ride from Richmond, Va., to Nashville. As he traveled west, Moore wondered how he would be received as one of… Read More

BY ROB HAMMOND, BA’71 ABOVE PHOTO: President John F. Kennedy reads the program for Vanderbilt's 90th anniversary convocation in 1963. (Photo by Cecil Stoughton) When I was in sixth grade, John F. Kennedy became one of my boyhood heroes. During his 1960 campaign he came to my hometown of LaGrange, Ga.,… Read More