Epilogue

David Hercules, Centennial Professor of Chemistry emeritus, who served as the chair of the Department of Chemistry for eight years, died January 20, 2024, after a battle with cancer. He was 91. Read More

John C. Kornblum, distinguished ambassador in residence and writer in residence for the Max Kade Center for European & German Studies, died Dec. 21, 2023, in Nashville. He was 80. Read More

Avery Carpenter Forrey, BA'11, says Vanderbilt was the first place where she felt she could make a career out of writing. With a double major in in English and communications, her latest writing journey has led to the publication of her novel 'Social Engagement' (Mariner, 2023). Read More

Dennis G. Hall, Vanderbilt’s first associate provost and later vice provost for research, dean emeritus of the Graduate School, professor emeritus of physics and professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science, died Jan. 6 in Nashville. Read More

Rich Hull, BA'92, and his wife, Kelly, have created the Vanderbilt In Hollywood Internship Endowment, a need-based scholarship that supports students with cost of living expenses during the ViH summer program.  Read More

Bryan Deaner, MBA’93, has made a multi-layered gift to the Owen Graduate School of Management that includes a bequest to ultimately support the Deaner Creativity Scholarship for students there. His gift also incorporates current-use funding for scholarships at Owen through a matching gift program with his employer for additional support.   Read More

For Victor Czerkasij (pronounced chur’ ka-see) and his wife, Rene, Ukraine was the land of his parents and ancestors, and it was supposed to be the site of their 40th wedding anniversary vacation. Then the war came.   And the effects of that war… Read More

Many families have beloved recipes they pass down from generation to generation. Suzanne Rich Miller, BA'80, and Anne Miller Morris, BS'06, have parlayed a simple salad dressing created by matriarch Anne Arnold Rich (mother to Suzanne and grandmother of Anne) into a growing, woman-owned business.  Read More

Aisha Francis, president and CEO of Boston’s Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology in 2021, is among the Boston Globe’s 50 Tech Power Players for 2023. With graduate degrees from Vanderbilt in English, she sought a path that was “both optimistic and realistic,” that could lead to nontraditional academic roles. Read More

See how Yalun Aaron Feng, BA’18, is using his optimism and passion for the environment to build bridges between business and environmental advocacy. Read More

After long careers designing power generation plants and acute care medical facilities, Scott Johnson, BE'87, made a career leap two years ago to take the top job at the nation’s largest pencil maker, Musgrave Pencil Company.  Read More

School of Engineering alumnus Olatunde Osinaike is one of five winners of the 2022 National Poetry Series. His debut collection, 'Tender Headed,' is being published by Akashic Press in December. He will be on campus for an alumni reading event Oct. 24, co-sponsored by the Vanderbilt Creative Writing Program and the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center. He returns to Nashville Jan. 25, 2024, for a reading with The Porch, a literary nonprofit. Read More

Obituary for Kenneth Lewis “Ken” Roberts, BA’54, JD’59, of Nashville, emeritus member of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust and an active and engaged leader in the Nashville community. Read More

Jane Hughes Coble, BA’64, and Bill Coble, BE’54, contributed to conservation efforts in the 1990s led by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency by allowing the TWRA to use their farm in the Bells Bend area to reintroduce bald eagles to the environment. After a few years of anxious waiting, a pair of mature eagles returned and have raised their young there for 25 years. Read More

Dr. Bob Matthews recently established a planned gift in support of the Rugby Club at Vanderbilt, where he made some of his best friends in life. He hopes to inspire others to consider a planned gift in support of a cause they are passionate about.  Read More

Derrick R. Spires, an associate professor of literatures in English at Cornell University, has a talent for making 19th-century newspapers and pamphlets feel as accessible as the latest social media feed. He explores the culture of the early 19th-century Black press in his 2019 book 'The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early United States' (University of Pennsylvania Press), which was recently released in paperback. Read More

Dawn Bennett has found paths to servant leadership throughout her life, but it was decades before she made a leap of faith and enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School. In January 2020, she was ordained by Bishop Kevin Strickland to remain in Nashville and build The Table, a faith collective centered on LGBTQIA+ people and vulnerable identities. Read More

Michael Quillen, BA'72, took the wheel, literally and figuratively, to deliver ambulances to the front line of the war in Ukraine. The undertaking was launched in spring 2022 when Rotary International raised $15 million in relief funds for Ukraine. Longtime Rotary member Quillen worked with two Rotary districts in Virginia to apply for a $50,000 grant to buy three ambulances. Read More

As she teaches the next generation of nurse-midwives, Vanderbilt School of Nursing faculty member and alumna Stephanie DeVane-Johnson looks at ways to increase the number of Black doulas, who provide emotional and physical support to women in pregnancy, during birth and throughout the postpartum period.  Read More