Epilogue

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

JaHyne “JJ” Johnson, BA’23, came to Vanderbilt as a QuestBridge Scholar, ready to “do the work” and come out with a solid career path. What the chemistry major didn’t realize then was that the opportunities he pursued through classes, activities and Immersion Vanderbilt would allow him to write poetry, conduct research, dance in a ballet, launch a podcast and more. 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

Blair alumna Krystal Grant Folkestad uses her musical skills to serve multiple audiences while focusing on how life affects art and art influences activism.  Read More

To continue the legacy in education to which Bess Parks owes her own career, she wants to give back to those who need help paying for higher education. Through the establishment of two charitable remainder unitrusts and a retirement plan beneficiary designation, she’s found a way to do that and honor the memory of her mother, also a teacher. Read More

Terrance Dean, assistant professor at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, died Aug. 11 after an illness. He was 53. Read More

William J. Adcock, BE’50, the first Vanderbilt basketball scholarship recipient and a member of the Vanderbilt Athletics Hall of Fame, of Kirkwood, Missouri, died July 29, 2022. Read More

When Jennifer Janes arrived at Vanderbilt Blair School of Music in 1998, she had two career paths in mind—veterinary medicine and teaching piano at the college level. Her abiding interest in horses and veterinary medicine eventually won out. Today, Dr. Janes is an associate professor of veterinary anatomic pathology at the University of Kentucky Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Read More

Anighya Crocker, BMus’21, came to Vanderbilt as a multiracial, first-generation college student with big dreams to serve the community through public office and music. His Vanderbilt experience as a double major in Law, History and Society and music performance has helped him to hone both of those dreams. Read More

Tommy Oswalt, BA’20, did not come to Vanderbilt with a mapped-out plan for his major. That initially made him nervous, but the first-generation college student jumped in with an open mind and a passion for building community—paving the way for a successful career. Read More

San Francisco-based venture capital firm Bee Partners now boasts two Vanderbilt graduates among its leadership: Founder Michael Berolzheimer, BS'00, and Kira Noodleman, BA'08, who recently was promoted to partner and now leads the Denver office.    Read More

Jim Schifman, BS'90, and his wife, Melissa, launched Project Hive Pet Company last year, selling dog toys and treats that directly contribute to rebuilding bee habitats. Their beehive-themed dog toys are sustainably manufactured in the United States and the company donates 1 percent of gross sales to the Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund, which works with private, public and corporate partners to help establish and manage pollinator habitats on their lands. Read More

Chris Webb, BE'90, is the CEO and co-founder of Foresight Augmented Reality, a cutting-edge technology that allows those with visual impairments to live more independently. Read More