Spring-Summer 2023

In April, at the outset of its yearlong Sesquicentennial celebration, Vanderbilt launched a bold giving campaign called Dare to Grow, which aims to empower and support students, advance pathbreaking discoveries and promote radical collaboration across the university. As its volunteer co-chairs, trustees Steven Madden and Mark Mays will help bring the campaign’s goals to life. Read More

In celebration of Vanderbilt’s Sesquicentennial, these pages are part of a story that’s 150 years in the making. It begins in 1873—a pivotal time in our nation’s history—when our visionary founders teamed up to build a great university in a war-torn city in Tennessee. In 2023, the story continues with Vanderbilt today and looks toward our global future together. Read More

Vanderbilt officially launched the yearlong celebration of its 150th anniversary with a full slate of events on March 24 and 25. Among the highlights was a formal ceremony in Langford Auditorium where members of the Vanderbilt community took to the stage in academic regalia to recount details of the university’s founding in 1873 and reflect on key moments in Vanderbilt’s history. Read More

Stronger than at any other time in our history, we are positioned to do more than just meet the challenges of our times. We have what it takes to thrive and lead—to define and become the great university of this century. Read More

Since its founding in 1873, Vanderbilt has stayed true to its roots by breaking new ground in various ways, whether in its capacity to be a more welcoming and inclusive community, or in its pursuit of discoveries that help answer humanity’s most pressing questions. Here we present an illustrated guide to just a few of the many pioneering figures who have helped Vanderbilt dare to grow throughout its history. 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

Books written by alumni that have recently been published Read More

University Archivist Kathleen Smith, University Librarian Jon Shaw and Vice Provost for Arts and Libraries Tracy Denean Sharpley-Whiting offer tips on how to design a time capsule of your own as they design one that will convey a message to the future university community. Read More

An interactive map showing the locations of sculptures around campus and offering accompanying information about each piece is now available to the Vanderbilt community. Read More

"Spring Procession," a poem by Didi Jackson, assistant professor of English, read at Vanderbilt's Sesquicentennial launch in March. Read More

In 2022, as Vanderbilt’s 150th anniversary approached, recent graduates Allen Zeng, BA’23, and Richard Zhang, BA’23, set out to capture the essence of the university by photographing its community members. Collaborating with Professor of Art Vesna Pavlović and librarian Yvonne Boyer, the two developed the “Vanderbilt Self-Portrait” project, supported by a Sesquicentennial Grant from the chancellor’s office and a Buchanan Library Fellowship. 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

The Vanderbilt Fusion Project, an initiative involving 40 undergraduates from 22 majors across three schools, is seeking to build a miniature nuclear fusion reactor—and make history. 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

Carolyn Peck, BA'88, was a standout student-athlete who helped the Commodores beat Pat Summitt’s mighty Lady Vols. She also was the first Black women's basketball coach to win an NCAA Division I women’s basketball national championship—and, at 33, she was the youngest women’s basketball head coach to win a Division I title. These days she can be found behind a microphone for ESPN and the SEC Network. 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

Before Edwin Keeble, BA 1924, cemented his legacy as one of Nashville’s foremost architects, he found himself at a crossroads: Stay within the comfortable confines of the city he’d grown up in or venture to other parts of the globe and widen his worldview. His decision ultimately would have far-reaching consequences—not just for his career and its impact on Nashville, but for something perhaps even more profound in the eyes of every Commodore basketball fan: the curious origins of Memorial Magic. Read More