Fall 2007

After Herschel Gower retired in 1985 as an English professor at Vanderbilt, he figured he’d take it easy and refinish furniture. “I’ve done no refinishing at all,”Gower says.”Working for one’s wife is certainly hazardous.” The two now live in Dallas, where Dona is executive director of the Athena… Read More

Nicotiana tabacum. It’s a lovely plant, really–large, bright green leaves on a central stem that reaches 6 feet or more.Mid-season, a fat cluster of nearly white tube flowers crown the stem. It’s a hardy plant, too, resistant to both heat and drought. Perfect for the land I call home. Read More

We never know when one small incident will change lives. It was reading a National Geographic article one September afternoon during my sophomore year at Vanderbilt that changed mine. Reading the article “Twenty-First Century Slaves” in my dorm room that day, I was horrified and heartbroken to learn there… Read More

The day of the Virginia Tech shootings, I realized that the weather was gorgeous in Nashville– almost as gorgeous as it was on Sept. 11, 2001, in Washington, D.C. There’s something sick in the fact that I made that comparison.Why couldn’t I just focus on the thing in front… Read More

Ever since she graduated from Vanderbilt School of Nursing in 1975 with a master’s degree in psych-mental health nursing, Carol Etherington has been providing care to people grasping at life in the midst of unfathomable tragedy. She has responded to victims of the killing fields of Cambodia, floods in… Read More

On the surface, the group of freshmen who showed up at Vanderbilt in the fall of 1973 didn’t seem that different from any other.They were bright, to be sure. Eager and excited about starting this new adventure called college.And as they unpacked, settled in, and started finding their way… Read More

Women’s Golf: Allen Named Head Coach Greg Allen has joined the Vanderbilt sports community as the new women’s golf coach. He comes to Vanderbilt from the University of Arizona, where he had coached the women’s team since 2000. During his tenure his teams won two Pac-10 conference championships and… Read More

Tate Rich, BA’76, JD’79, still chuckles when reminded of the interception he returned 35 yards for a touchdown against UT-Chattanooga on Sept. 13, 1975.That play ranks in the Vanderbilt record books as one of the top-15 interception returns in school history.”I tell people I was a prototype for Lawrence… Read More

Player of the Year and Coach of the Year honors, Southeastern Conference Tournament and regular-season championships, and a fistful of All-American selections showcased 2007 as the best year for Vanderbilt baseball in the history of the program. The Commodores spent most of the season ranked No. 1 in… Read More

The Vanderbilt defense takes the field and gathers around player number 47. The 6-foot-4, 235-pound middle linebacker sets the defensive formation, and waits for the offensive play to begin and his opportunity to crush it.And when the ball is whistled dead and the bodies are sorted out, number 47,… Read More

A Vanderbilt student group’s love of nature has led to a project that will produce cleaner-burning fuel on campus. The Vanderbilt Biodiesel Initiative, started by participants of Vanderbilt’s Wilskills program, will take used vegetable oil–stuff that cooks fried foods in campus cafeterias– and recycle it into environmentally friendly… Read More

It’s hard not to notice something as big as a dead mall. Changes in consumer buying habits have led to the decline of shopping centers in many cities, leaving space up for lease. Those empty stores can provide a creative solution for a burgeoning medical center like Vanderbilt’s,… Read More

Chemistry Whiz Awarded NSF Fellowship Kristin Glab, BS’07, is one of only 22 chemistry majors in the country this year awarded a National Science Foundation fellowship, which will pay for three years of graduate school. Following graduation from Vanderbilt last May, Glab is studying at the Massachusetts Institute of… Read More

Pregnancy May Help Cut Risks for HIV-Infected Women Women with HIV infection who become pregnant have a lower risk of progression to AIDS and death,Vanderbilt researchers report in the online edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. They suggest that “the complex set of immunologic changes” during pregnancy may… Read More

Virtual Vanderbilt Sam Davidson, MDiv’09, created this Web site to give users easy, practical resources for making a positive impact on their local communities. The “5 Minutes of Caring” section offers daily 99-word articles featuring practical tips and motivation. The “Act Locally” calendar lists meaningful events, from 5K… Read More

One of Vanderbilt’s own jumped into the presidential candidate ring in September, ending months of speculation. Even before he declared his candidacy, Fred Thompson, JD’67, polled third nationally among GOP presidential contenders. The preferred candidate among many conservatives, Thompson has drawn comparisons to Ronald Reagan for his easy manner… Read More

Gone are the days of straight lecturing by instructors and note taking by students. Instead, clickers, which look like small remote controls, are allowing students to become active participants and instructors to gauge how well concepts are sinking in. An instructor using a classroom response system poses multiple-choice… Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing nurse midwives, who typically help birth more than 700 babies each year, have expanded their reach to delivering babies at Nashville General Hospital. The arrangement, begun last summer, is aimed at easing capacity issues in Vanderbilt’s labor and delivery service as well as providing assistance… Read More

Faculty from Vanderbilt and South Africa’s University of Cape Town (UCT) are working together to recruit and train more black scientists in South Africa.Vanderbilt and UCT will be core partners in collaborative research and study across several academic disciplines. The universities have agreed to jointly build an automated telescope… Read More

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore was named a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 12 for his work to combat global warming. The 2007 Nobel was awarded to Gore jointly with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The announcement marks the second time in little… Read More