Society And Culture

Maria A. Ressa, an internationally acclaimed journalist who has endured political threats and government arrests for her commitment to truth and democracy, will receive Vanderbilt University’s prestigious Nichols-Chancellor’s Medal when she speaks to the university’s graduating students and their families during 2023 Commencement activities. Read More

For the past 20 years, Vanderbilt and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center have collaborated to cultivate new audiences for the arts downtown through a series of programs aimed at attracting constituents interested in exploring the arts. Read More

A Lab-to-Table Conversation on Monday, Feb. 27, will discuss some of the challenges that Black trainees and faculty face in their STEM fields of study and the strategies they've used to be successful in the face of these challenges.  Read More

Today, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs named Vanderbilt University a Fulbright Top Producing Institution for U.S. Students. Read More

The University of Mississippi teamed with Vanderbilt to host a debate exhibition on Feb. 3. The free event, part of an effort to increase civic engagement on Vanderbilt’s campus, drew an audience from the higher ed and Nashville communities.  Read More

In partnership with Vanderbilt’s Department of English and MFA Program in Creative Writing, the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy is soliciting poems from students currently enrolled in any Tennessee college or university. Students may submit a poem in the style of their choosing that explores what unity through American democracy means to them. Read More

The Medieval Academy of America has elected William Caferro, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History, to its 2023 Class of Fellows. Read More

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy will host CBS Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett and David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, to discuss their book, The Big Truth: Upholding Democracy in the Age of the Big Lie, on Tuesday, Jan. 31, at 11 a.m. at the Scarritt Bennett Center. Read More

The Vanderbilt Blair School of Music has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts to receive a Grants for Arts Projects award of $20,000. Led by professor Douglas Shadle, the grant will fund “Florence Price: A Celebration,” a series of performances honoring classical composer Florence Price.  Read More

Major Jackson, professor of English, director of creative writing and holder of the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities, has been named the new host of the celebrated poetry podcast The Slowdown, produced by American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. Read More

Emmy Award–winning journalist Byron Pitts, co-host of ABC’s Nightline, will be the keynote speaker for Vanderbilt’s 2023 Martin Luther King Jr. Day commemorative event on Monday, Jan. 16, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Blair School of Music’s Ingram Hall. Other activities planned for VU’s commemoration include a Joint Day of Service on Saturday, Jan. 14, and the Nashville MLK Day March and Convocation on Monday morning. Read More

The humanities, creative expression and artistic inquiry at Vanderbilt are poised to see new engagement, reach and impact spurred by increased investments through the university-wide Discovery Vanderbilt initiative. Read More

Allison Schachter, associate professor of Jewish studies and English, was awarded the Fenia and Yaakov Leviant Memorial Prize in Yiddish Studies from the Modern Language Association of America. Read More

Tennessee Republicans favor Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over former President Donald Trump to be the party’s presidential nominee in 2024 by double digits, according to the latest statewide Vanderbilt Poll, which also found shifting public attitudes around access to abortion. Read More

A new co-edited volume by Vanderbilt researchers is a tribute to the late Katie Geneva Cannon, who in 1974 became the first African American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church. Cannon’s work lays the groundwork for continued discussions on moral thought among scholars today.   Read More

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recently appointed Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development Lisa Fazio as a member of the Committee on Understanding and Addressing Misinformation about Science. Read More

Vanderbilt Blair School of Music’s Blair Big Band is among 10 outstanding college jazz orchestras from across the nation invited to participate in the third annual Jack Rudin Jazz Championship. The event, which will be Jan. 14 and 15 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, will include workshops, performances and a high-level collegiate competition. Read More

A $700,000 grant awarded to institutions that collaborate to administer the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice program in Tennessee is designed to allow advancement of the program’s reach and enhance the visibility of the arts in Nashville and across the state. Read More

Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor and associate professor of ethics and society, has edited and published Religion, Race, and COVID-19: Confronting White Supremacy in the Pandemic, an anthology exploring the countless challenges, racially charged acts, setbacks, triumphs and newfound hope through the eyes of individuals living through one of the most pressing, perplexing social crises in recent memory—the global COVID-19 pandemic.  Read More

At the coffee shop, we are asked to pay more, sometimes a lot more, for “quality.” But how do we determine the quality of a sensory experience? Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Anthropology Ted Fischer’s research examines the quest for quality among always-changing tastes. He discusses it in this Q&A—just in time for International Coffee Day on Oct. 1. Read More