Summer 2011

Millions of 13-year cicadas emerged in Nashville in May, emitting sound levels at 85 to 88 decibels and clogging up cooling systems all over campus.And on the subject of bugs—Nashville’s largest brood of cicadas emerged in May and hung around for five or six weeks, blanketing the campus like thousands… Read More

Targets for a new class of insect repellent could include backyard bugs and agricultural pests, says researcher Patrick Jones. Imagine an insect repellent that not only is thousands of times more effective than DEET—the active ingredient in most commercial mosquito repellents—but also works against all types of insects, including… Read More

The well-known bronze statue of university founder Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, sculpted by Giuseppe Moretti of New York, has had four homes. Planned for four years, the statue was completed and brought to Nashville in 1897 and was first displayed near the Parthenon replica in what is now Centennial Park during… Read More

Shipping magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was no stranger to travel, but this is an odd journey indeed. What’s being done with the Commodore statue in this 1986 photograph? Go here to find out if you’re right. Read More

JUSTIN MILLER, BS’09 NICK GORDON, BE’09 Justin Miller (left), Nick Gordon (right) and Michael—a CARE for AIDS client in Kamirithu, Kenya, whom fellow clients call “The Chairman”—help build a chicken coop for a church. A contractor by trade, Michael organized a group of clients to start a craft-making business and… Read More

ANDREA BOUCHEY YOUNG, BA’00 “Horses and the jockeys who ride them are some of the most remarkable athletes I’ve encountered in my career,” says Andréa Bouchey Young, president and COO of Sam Houston Race Park in Houston. Young, a lifelong sports fan, has seen some great athletes. Before joining Sam… Read More

Lazarus Alumnus Heads NBC Sports Group Mark Lazarus, BA’86, formerly president of NBC Sports Cable Group, was named the new chairman of NBC Sports Group in May. Lazarus replaces Dick Ebersol, one of the most powerful figures in television sports. Lazarus is a 19-year cable industry veteran. As former Turner… Read More

“We live in a world where resources are finite. Unless all of us accept [responsibility], we shall not prevent conflict over land, minerals, water and forests.” — Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, speaking at Senior Day on May 12… Read More

Jonathan Haines, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Human Genetics Research Vanderbilt researchers, who helped organize a consortium including the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and the Boston University School of Medicine, have identified four new genes linked to Alzheimer’s… Read More

Onlookers cheered on the morning of Saturday, May 7, as a shattering champagne bottle christened the delivery of a $5 million, 7.5-ton magnet to Vanderbilt. The magnet is the main part of an ultra-high field, 900-megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer that will help researchers solve the mysteries of cancer,… Read More

Vanderbilt received an “A” rating and was among the top five universities recognized in a recently released analysis of environmental and social sustainability transparency. Using data collected during the spring of 2010 from university websites and other voluntary reporting initiatives, the Roberts Environmental Center (REC) at Claremont McKenna College analyzed… Read More

Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management is partnering with three other leading graduate business schools in North and South America to offer a master of business administration program for international executives starting this August. Called the Americas MBA for Executives, the two-year degree program provides students with the opportunity to… Read More

Drs. Charles Phillips and Lara Hershcovitch married in May. Members of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine’s Class of 2011 ushered in a new curriculum and worked to help improve it—all while being noted for their collegiality and for the unprecedented number of them who wound up as couples. Of… Read More

Kissam College Halls Construction is set to begin on the next phase of the university’s residential college system, College Halls at Vanderbilt. The university will break ground in May 2012 on Kissam College Halls, two colleges that will each house about 330 upperclass students—a mixture of sophomores, juniors and… Read More

Several years ago Martha Ingram made a trip to New York City with what was a fairly typical itinerary for her: meetings of the Business Committee for the Arts, a New York Philharmonic black-tie opening night gala with an all-Dvořák program that included Yo-Yo Ma playing the Cello Concerto, cocktails before the concert and dinner after. Read More

Autumn Reading List As summer turns to fall, even those of us long out of school seem to feel a familiar urge to hit the books. The promise of cooler days makes us want to curl up with a good read, and Vanderbilt alumni and faculty offer up several possibilities… Read More

PavlovićThe explorations of Vesna Pavlović into our motivations for taking photographs and how we experience them are showcased in a major exhibit that opened in June at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. The exhibit, Projected Histories, ran through Sept. 11. Pavlović, assistant professor of art at… Read More

Richards In The Seawall, a short film that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival this year, a young boy begins an emotional journey from his home in Guyana, South America, to a new life in Brooklyn. It’s a journey that filmmaker Mason Richards himself made when he was 7 years… Read More

Evan Mack’s opera, Angel of the Amazon, was given its world premiere by Encompass New Opera Theatre in May at the Jerome Robbins Theater of Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City. With serendipitous timing, two Blair alumni are making their marks on the Boston opera scene this year. Heidi… Read More

In predicting when and how America’s financial collapse would occur, my focus was on the growing importance of the housing sector, the actions of our government, and the response of the private sector. Read More