From Our Readers

Easy Money, Hard Lessons This is the best article [“Missteps to Mayhem,” Summer 2011] I have read concerning our current financial situation and the hard choices that must be made. Human nature ignores the truth when it involves hard decisions and sacrifice, but Dr. Burry… Read More

The Week That Lasts a Lifetime Alternative Spring Break was an incredibly meaningful experience for me as a student. Now that I am a professor [of informatics at the University of California, Irvine], I love watching our students get the same experience, and I am so glad ASB has… Read More

High-Heel Neil I loved Ridley Wills’ story about Neil Cargile [Fall 2011, Southern Journal, “High Flyer”]. Neil and I were Sigma Alpha Epsilon brothers at Vanderbilt. As far as I know, neither I nor any other SAE member was crazy enough to fly with him. But he could dance… Read More

Major League Writers Please add to your list of accomplished Vanderbilt sports writers [Summer 2010, “Shooting from the Lip”] the name of my good friend and Alpha Epsilon Pi brother Henry Hecht, BA’69. Henry was the major league baseball beat writer for The New York Post during the tumultuous… Read More

Food Equality and Obesity I was disappointed that “Flood Tide in Tennessee” [Spring 2010] didn’t discuss the causes of childhood obesity. One off-hand reference to “food inequality” does not do the issue justice. Fast food and other highly processed foods provide the greatest caloric density for families with… Read More

Alexander Heard’s Legacy Thank you for publishing the article [Fall 2009, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”] about this man for all seasons whom only a small (and now shrinking) portion of the Vanderbilt family experienced directly. I was a beneficiary of the leadership of the late G. Alexander Heard… Read More

Deodorant: It’s a Good Thing What were you thinking? It’s one thing to praise Luke Boehne for his environmental efforts [Summer 2009, “Big Ideas for a Small Planet”] and, perhaps, for his frugality—but do we need to know that he eschews deodorant? I teach two-year college students who all… Read More

Health Care, Society and Personal Responsibility I very much enjoyed reading “Invisible Nation” by Dr. John Sergent, BA’63, MD’66 [Spring 2009 issue, VJournal]. The doctor argues that “decent health care is a right of citizenship” and compares, as moral equivalents, segregation based on race with denial of… Read More

Nocturnal Naughtiness Regarding Vanderbilt panty raids, I disagree with Paul Conkin’s statement [Fall 2008 issue, Collective Memory, “Boys Gone Wild”] in his final paragraph: “Never again would such a raid take place at Vanderbilt. The last panty raid [occurred] in 1959 … .” In reality, pages 34–35 of… Read More

Family Ties First, I want to say a word about how much I am enjoying the magazine. The Spring 2008 issue with the Holocaust memories [“In the Face of Destruction”] was very personal because of the real Vanderbilt people involved. The story of Montgomery Bell [Southern Journal, “… Read More

Echoes from the Holocaust I especially appreciated “In the Face of Destruction” by Lisa Robbins [Spring 2008 issue]. Harry Kahn, his wife Hannah Westfield, Erich Westfield, Ernest Freudenthal and others were classmates and friends of mine. Through them I learned about a world far beyond my small… Read More

Thumbs Up for Residential Education I read with great interest Whitney Weeks’ piece on the College Halls initiative [Fall 2007 issue, “Common Ground,” p. 52]. The article was informative and gave me a good overview of the entire College Halls vision. In particular, the sentence “Disengaged students… Read More

Spring Accolades In the most recent issue of Vanderbilt Magazine was an article about the undergraduate admissions process [Spring 2007 issue, “Getting In,” p. 28]. I read it with interest–as I have a rising high school senior and took a “college road trip” with her earlier in the summer–and have… Read More