Releases

Butch Baldassari, a Blair School of Music professor who created a cottage industry around his love of mandolin music, died Saturday at a Nashville hospice. He was 56. Read More

With all the focus on the president-elect's views about the Burris appointment and the economic stimulus, we forget that Barack Obama is about to assume responsibility as chief executive of an organization that employs close to 2 million civilian employees. Obama's fortunes as president will depend in large part on his success at taking charge of the machinery of government. Read More

James A. Webb Jr., a three-sport athlete at Vanderbilt University, prominent Nashville banker and an emeritus member of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust and the board of Vanderbilt Medical Center, died Thursday at Vanderbilt. He was 86. Read More

Major Cathy Ryan was named interim police chief at Vanderbilt University, replacing departing Chief Marlon Lynch while a national search is launched for his successor. Lynch resigned his Vanderbilt position effective Feb. 1 to take a job as associate vice president for safety and security at the University of Chicago. Read More

Films from Russia, South Korea, Israel, India, Romania and the United States are in the lineup for the International Lens Film Series this spring at Vanderbilt University. All the films in the series will be free and open to the public. Read More

America's arduous struggle over competing visions of nationhood involving race is a giant step closer to resolution with the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, says Vanderbilt University historian Gary Gerstle. Read More

Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Levering Lewis will speak at Vanderbilt University Jan. 14 about his new book God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe. Read More

Charles McDew, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and its chairman from 1961 to 1964, will deliver the keynote lecture for Vanderbilt University's 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Series. Read More

Vanderbilt University was judged No. 15 as a "best value" university in rankings released by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. Read More

The Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management will host a free workshop for Nashville-area companies to learn how to get the ideal intern for their business. The workshop will be held at the Owen School, Room 218, on Jan. 16 at 8 a.m. Registration starts at 7:30 a.m. The event is free and open to the public. Read More

Vanderbilt won a bowl game for the first time in exactly 53 years after Bryant Hahnfeldt kicked a 45-yard field goal with 3:26 left to beat Boston College 16-14 Wednesday in the Music City Bowl. Read More

For risk-takers and impulsive people, New Year's resolutions often include being more careful, spending more frugally and cutting back on dangerous behavior, such as drug use. But new research from Vanderbilt finds that these individuals—labeled as novelty seekers by psychologists—face an uphill battle in keeping their New Year's resolutions due to the way their brains process dopamine. Read More

Cornelia Heard, professor of music and chair of the strings department of the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, has been named the holder of the newly created Valere Blair Potter Chair. The chair is endowed through a gift to the university by the grandchildren of Valere Blair Potter. Read More

Lauren J. Brisky, who has overseen the financial and administrative operations of Vanderbilt University for the past decade as the university has made spectacular gains in its research, health care and educational endeavors, announced Dec. 26 she will retire Feb. 1, 2009, after 20 years at Vanderbilt. Read More

Space 204, the gallery of the Department of Art at E. Bronson Ingram Studio Arts Center at Vanderbilt University, will debut two new exhibitions with a reception on Thursday, Jan. 8. Read More

Research by Vanderbilt University professors on Chinese architecture and the Trojan War are among grants announced by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Read More

Marlon Lynch, assistant vice chancellor and chief of police at Vanderbilt University, has made Security Magazine's Top 25 Most Influential People in the Security Industry list for 2008. Others on the list include government leaders, industry authors, chief security officers and research pioneers. Read More

Four Vanderbilt faculty members – Daniel Liebler, Charles Sanders, Gary Sulikowski and Michael Waterman – have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed upon them by their peers. Read More

The Susan Gray School, part of Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of education and human development, has achieved national accreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Susan Gray School is one of the first programs in the nation to achieve accreditation under NAEYC new, more extensive and more stringent standards, which were released in the fall of 2006. Read More

For the past several weeks, hundreds of people have entered their names in a drawing at Rand Bookstore for a chance to win Music City Bowl tickets. First-year student Caroline Hadley was the lucky winner on Tuesday, Dec. 16. Read More