The Greater Good

Patti White, BA'76, and her husband, George, recently funded the Black Box Theater in Rothschild College to honor their children, Frances White, BA'11, and George A. White, BA'19. Read More

To honor the legacy of Mary Churchwell and Robert Churchwell Sr., their son Kevin Churchwell, MD’87, and his wife, Gloria Respress-Churchwell, established the Robert Sr. and Mary Churchwell Undergraduate Scholarship, a fund that will provide generations of students with the gift his parents valued most of all: a Vanderbilt education. 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

Blair Wilson, BA’74, whose family has deep ties to Vanderbilt University and its Blair School of Music, has endowed the Mark Wait Piano Scholarship to support students studying piano performance at the Blair School. The merit-based scholarship is named in honor of Dean Emeritus Mark Wait, who led Blair from 1993 to 2020.    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

At the beginning of 2022, the School of Medicine launched a $5 million Dean’s Scholarship Challenge to help ensure that tomorrow’s leaders in medicine are educated at Vanderbilt. The success of the early months of the effort has prompted the university to boost the available matching funds by $5 million. Read More

Vanderbilt University has received a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help Vanderbilt Divinity School establish a project focused on educating pastoral leaders who are exploring alternative pathways in ministry, today and the future. Read More

The School of Medicine has launched a $5 million Dean’s Scholarship Challenge to help ensure that tomorrow’s leaders in medicine are educated at Vanderbilt. Through a combination of donor contributions and a university match, the school hopes to raise a total of $10 million. Read More

Al Hubbard, BA’69, and his wife, Kathy Hubbard, have made a $2 million gift to endow the Hubbard Family Chair in the Department of Economics at the College of Arts and Science.  Read More

The Martha Rivers Ingram Dean’s Chair, endowed in 2005 to support the position of the dean at the Blair School of Music, has been renamed the Mark Wait Dean’s Chair to honor the former dean and professor of music, who was at Blair from 1993 to 2020. Read More

Warren Haviland, JD’69, and Karen Heffron funded a charitable remainder unitrust that will eventually establish the Warren E. Haviland and Karen M. Heffron Summer Stipend. The stipend will provide financial support to students at Vanderbilt Law School who are pursuing public interest careers. Read More

Thomas Peterffy of Interactive Brokers, whose philanthropic support endowed the Financial Markets Research Center in 2003, recently renamed it the Hans Stoll Financial Markets Research Center in memory of its founder. Stoll, a pioneer in the field and longtime director of the center who passed away in 2020, was emeritus professor of finance and former holder of the Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker Jr. Chair of Finance at Owen. Read More

More than 7,600 members of the Vanderbilt community, including alumni, students, faculty, staff, parents and friends, joined together on Giving Day, April 7, to donate more than $5 million to help advance the university’s mission of education, discovery and leadership. Read More

Kim Wolensky, BS'79, MBA'80, has documented her intent to establish the Kim E. Lazarus Scholarship to provide need-based financial support for deserving students at Owen by designating Vanderbilt as the beneficiary of an individual retirement account to endow the scholarship, with a separate portion directed to her sorority Alpha Delta Pi–Zeta Rho chapter. Read More

The inaugural Vanderbilt Changemakers event featured a discussion with Owen Graduate School of Management alumni Nat Robinson, MBA’07, JD’18, and Tori Samples, BMus’12, MBA’18, about the company they created to provide virtual banking services to refugees and migrants. Read More

A tradition of giving in her first year at Vanderbilt has led Julie Babbage to continue giving back to her alma mater in a myriad of ways. Read More

David Potts and his wife, Frances Candi Potts, recently documented their intent to establish the Potts Scholarship to provide financial support for undergraduate students studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics at the College of Arts and Science or the School of Engineering. Read More

Even at 104 years old, Helen Sterling, BA’36, MA’38, handled aging with optimism and grace. Her affection for her alma mater motivated her to include the university in her estate plans. Thanks to her $1.6 million bequest for unrestricted support at Peabody College and the College of Arts and Science, her legacy at Vanderbilt endures. Read More