1,000 Words

Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos goes crowd surfing with first-year students before the home football game against Northwestern University on Sept. 4. Northwestern squeaked by Vanderbilt 23–21 in the season opener. PHOTO BY JOHN RUSSELL… Read More

Vanderbilt students pitch in to excavate a water-damaged home after floodwaters ravaged parts of Middle Tennessee May 1–2. The homes of about 70 Vanderbilt employees were completely destroyed, about 300 reported their homes were uninhabitable but salvageable, and more than 500 others reported damage exceeding $5,000. Many employees and… Read More

In February, Vanderbilt students and other volunteers completed “Food Fight,” a large mural in Rand Hall that depicts an epic battle between junk and healthy food. Read More

Wayne Coyne, frontman for The Flaming Lips, works the crowd from inside his signature plastic bubble during the psychedelic rock band’s headliner performance at Rites of Spring. “I did not feel like I was standing on Alumni Lawn sandwiched between Alumni and Tolman halls. Rather, I felt like I was… Read More

Talk about pent-up demand—Commodore fans have been waiting 53 years for a scene like this. Head Football Coach Bobby Johnson gets a dousing during the final moments of a nail-biting Music City Bowl game on New Year’s Eve. The 16–14 win over Boston College capped Vanderbilt’s first post-season football… Read More

Vanderbilt’s football team rocketed to No. 13 in national rankings—no, that’s not a misprint—after beating Auburn University 14-13 on Oct. 4. The game marked the Commodores’ fifth straight win this year and its first win against the Tigers since 1955, giving Vanderbilt a 5-0 season for the first time… Read More

It took 5,000 pounds of sweet, ripe Driscoll strawberries to feed the masses at Vanderbilt’s Commencement on May 9. More than 3,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students received their degrees, and thousands more family and friends joined them at the Strawberries and Champagne Celebration following graduation exercises.   Photo by… Read More

    Sandy Besser, BA’58, shares his Santa Fe home with thousands of works of art, including Koi Neng Liew’s “One Pretty Flower for Mr. Rabbit Man,” shown here. “There’s a story behind every single piece in this house, and I don’t have favorites,” Besser says. “They are all… Read More

Just before plunging into their studies, medical students of the Class of 2011 cool off at an orientation party. The 104 incoming first-year medical students come from 30 U.S. states, Canada, Ethiopia, India, Republic of Korea, Poland, Taiwan and Thailand. Photo by Anne Rayser. Read More