Issues

L. Hall Hardaway Jr., chairman of the board of Hardaway Construction Co., Vanderbilt School of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus, and an emeritus Vanderbilt trustee, died Sept. 20, 2017, in Nashville. He was 84. Having earned his Vanderbilt degree in civil engineering, he first worked as a field superintendent with… Read More

Will the Count be caught cheating? Will Cherubino really be voted off? And who, exactly, will marry Figaro? Vanderbilt Opera Theatre cast members were filmed by students from the Department of Cinema and Media Arts for webisodes to preface VOT’s Marriage of Figaro, produced at Blair in November as a… Read More

Ann Cook Calhoun (photo by John Russell) Ann Cook Calhoun, Vanderbilt professor of English, emerita—an internationally renowned Shakespeare scholar and a powerful force for making the Bard’s plays accessible to everyone—died Aug. 13, 2017, in Nashville after a brief illness. She was 82. Calhoun held leadership roles in… Read More

Samuel T. McSeveney, professor of history, emeritus, and a Vanderbilt faculty member for nearly 30 years, died Aug. 5 in Nashville. He was 86. McSeveney was an expert on late-19th-century American history—particularly the Gilded Age and political history of New York City and the Northeast—and was the author… Read More

More than 4,000 visitors interested in making everything from wool yarn and origami to robots and supercomputers visited Vanderbilt’s Wond’ry at the Innovation Pavilion on the first weekend in October for the Nashville Mini Maker Faire, the largest in the event’s five-year history. Read More

Vanderbilt faculty are among the many reasons our students have been voted the happiest in the U.S. We all have professors we remember with fondness and admiration. For me, two were life-changing. Professor Robert Birkby was rough, tough, demanding, intimidating—and beloved by his students. He did not suffer… Read More

Michael Quaranta (Photo copyright Mehosh Photography) Touring Nashville’s Standard Candy Co., famous for its century-old Goo Goo Cluster candy bar, a pair of Owen Graduate School of Management classmates had an oddball bolt of inspiration. “Wouldn’t it be great to have something similar for dogs?” recalls Craig O’Sullivan. Read More

Ten years into a high-achieving law career, Heather Hubbard, JD’04, found herself captivated by a promotional brochure for the Tanzania Migration trip with the Vanderbilt Travel program, sponsored by the Alumni Association. Before they could get cold feet, she and her husband paid the deposit. It was life-changing. Read More

Alphabet card, France, early 19th century; from the George Clulow–U.S. Playing Card Co. Gaming Collection, Vanderbilt University Special Collections The George Clulow and United States Playing Card Co. Gaming Collection—one of the world’s premier collections of books about card games, games of chance, playing cards and chess—has been acquired… Read More

Photo by Joe Howell When Mary Cohron, EMBA’88, received her degree from Owen Graduate School of Management, she was one of only eight women in her class of about 50. “Back in 1988 there weren’t that many women in top-tier business schools, and Vanderbilt took a chance on… Read More

Cicely Woodard (Photo by Theresa Montgomery) For students whose hearts race at the thought of coefficients and cube roots, look no further than Cicely Woodard. The mathematics teacher at Metro Nashville’s West End Middle Prep School was named the 2017–18 Tennessee Teacher of the Year in September for… Read More

George-Warren joins other tribes in showing solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux of North Dakota, whose ancestral lands and drinking water are being threatened by the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Photo courtesy of DeLesslin George-Warren) It’s been 53 years since the Catawba language perished with the death of its last… Read More

Known for her encyclopedic command of the law, Florida Senior Assistant Attorney General Sandra Jaggard helped keep some of Miami’s most notorious killers on Death Row. She died unexpectedly Oct. 11, 2016, at age 51. Jaggard was a unique person with a unique job. A one-time engineer who… Read More

Hermann and his BMW on Austria’s Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse, leading to Salzburg (Photo courtesy of John Hermann) John E. Hermann isn’t typical European royalty. He’s not even a citizen of the continent. But the retired real estate appraiser from San Diego has achieved titular glory with his 80 motorcycle… Read More

Cal Turner Jr. (photo by Susan Urmy) Low-income entrepreneurs are receiving much-needed legal support thanks to a recent $2 million investment in Vanderbilt Law School by Cal Turner Jr., BA’62, former chairman and CEO of Dollar General Corp. The Turner Family Community Enterprise Clinic, which was funded from the… Read More

Michael Kurek, associate professor of composition, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Album chart this summer with The Sea Knows, an album that continues his transition to more traditionally melodious music. The Sea Knows, on the Navona label, features a lush, gorgeous sound in the traditional… Read More

Vanderbilt’s newest first-year students will likely remember Aug. 21, 2017, for a long time to come. Not only did the date mark their official welcome to the university, but the approximately 1,600 students also donned safety glasses on The Commons Lawn to witness the total solar eclipse that appeared in Nashville that day—the first time in 538 years that such a sight had been visible in Middle Tennessee. Read More

Last year Tennessee became only the second state to be recognized on the periodic table of chemical elements, and Vanderbilt faculty played a key role. Joseph Hamilton Joseph Hamilton, the Landon C. Garland Distinguished Professor of Physics, captivated alumni with the story of the discovery of superheavy element… Read More

SUPPORT FOR VULNERABILITY With curiosity and gratitude I read about Vanderbilt’s initiatives to offer outreach, dialogue and support for students’ mental health [“Going There,” Campus News, Spring 2017]. In the summer issue, I also read Dr. Paul Berner’s response to this initiative, where he expressed his concerns about… Read More

More than 5,000 alumni returned for Reunion in October, including notables like former Golden State Warriors player Festus Ezeli, BA’12 (top right), and NBC Today host Willie Geist, BA’97 (bottom center). Be sure to save the date for next year’s Reunion, planned for Oct. 11–13. Read More