Summer 2011

Provost Richard McCarty talks with first-year students and parents during move-in day Thanks to the generosity of more than 1,300 donors, Opportunity Vanderbilt has exceeded its initial goal and raised $108.4 million, as of June 30, 2011. Never has our university placed a more urgent need before our alumni, parents… Read More

John Stein, BA’73 (left), and Dr. Jeff Balser, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, sign the beam with patient Dalton Waggoner. The Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt officially launched a $30 million expansion project April 7 with a beam-signing celebration. Read More

As part of a major initiative to recruit and retain outstanding scholars and teachers, Vanderbilt is this year announcing 60 new endowed faculty chair holders. Already 34 of them have been honored in a series of events at the Student Life Center, celebrating the achievements of the chair holders and… Read More

Chairs of the 2010–11 Senior Class Fund student committee present a banner, signed by members of the Class of 2011, to Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos on Senior Day. From left to right are co-chairs Patrick Seamens, BA’11; Aysha Malik, BS’11; Eric Walk, BE’11; and Kate Foster, BS’11, and campaign chair Zach… Read More

On Wednesday, March 7, 2007, I was lying on my bed in the middle of the afternoon, eyes wide open, when my cellphone rang. I hadn’t slept much the night before, or the night before that, for that matter. Although I was utterly exhausted, I knew that sleep would not… Read More

Looking back, I wonder whether we should have been in class that morning. It was just before lunch, and I had already missed a few that semester—classes, never lunch—as, unfortunately, my first midterm grades attested. From our residence in Dyer Hall, the path to food at Sarratt took me and… Read More

When Kathy Hutson came to Big Stone Gap, Va., in the 1960s, she had no peers to help her sort out the parameters of developing and running a school speech therapy program. In the summer of 1963, after my sophomore year in college at Saint Louis University, I came… Read More

Junior linebacker Archibald Barnes makes working out in 90-degree heat look easy during an early August football practice. For schedules, tickets for Vanderbilt’s first season under Head Football Coach James Franklin, and more, go to http://vucommodores.cstv.com. Photo by John Russell. Read More

Professor Oswald T. Avery in his laboratory in the current Medical Center North. The photograph, probably dating to 1948, is inscribed to his associate, Dr. Bertram Sprofkin. Two of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, and perhaps of all time, have worked at Vanderbilt. One performed his last… Read More

Board of Trust Chairman Martha Ingram’s letter to more than 100,000 Vanderbilt alumni and friends in January 2001 announced trustees’ approval of a new fundraising campaign to “turn our aspirations into realities.” Read More

Michael Burry Michael Burry, MD’97, studied economics and premedical training at UCLA before enrolling at Vanderbilt. He continued his medical education as a resident at Stanford University Hospital before leaving after his third residency year to found Scion Capital. Burry’s transition into the world of finance was eased… Read More

Editor GayNelle Doll Art Director and Designer Donna DeVore Pritchett Editorial Associate Editor and Production Manager Phillip B. Tucker Arts & Culture Editor Bonnie Arant Ertelt, BS’81 Class Notes and Sports Editor Nelson Bryan, BA’73 Photography and Imaging Director, Photography Services Daniel… Read More

A few weeks ago I received a telephone call from Frank Beck, BA’81, with an odd request: Could I help him find a photograph of his mother’s legs? It seemed that back when his mother, Jane Padgett Beck, BA’51, was a Vanderbilt sophomore or junior—Frank wasn’t sure which—a photograph involving… 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

The Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board of Directors announces nine new members, from a wide range of class years and professions. All are serving three-year terms, except where noted. Mark D. Arons, BA’80, of Fairfield, Conn., is a partner in the law firm of Millman Arons & Millman in Westport, where… Read More

The body count was piling up fast. Two hit the ground first. Then three, four and five went down in quick succession. Onlookers soon lost count as the heap of squirming uniformed men just kept growing. Read More

In my address to the Class of 2011 in May, welcoming them into the global family of Vanderbilt alumni, I asked them to consider what it means to be a Commodore as they prepare to engage the wider world of commerce, family and society. For me, being a Commodore begins… Read More

Bacteria can influence the sexual behavior of their Nasonia hosts.Like all species of animals and plants, we humans are unwitting hosts to our own set of bacterial travelers. We carry thousands of different species of microbes, which scientists refer to as “the human microbiome.” In fact, only one among every… Read More

Qian Vermund Vanderbilt researchers are partnering with the Chinese government and a large volunteer organization to test combination methods for reducing the spread of HIV—the AIDS virus—among gay men in China. Thirty years into the global HIV pandemic, it is apparent that no single strategy will stop the spread… Read More

Try asking any Monday morning quarterback about blown fourth-down play calls in the NFL and you are guaranteed passionate opinions. In most fourth-down plays, an NFL team will punt or try for a field goal. But occasionally, teams decide to do something that is viewed as risky: attempt a fourth-down… Read More