Spring 2009

Stitchery by Ethel Wright Mohamed (1906–1992)/Courtesy of Hazel L. Wilson and the Ethel Wright Mohamed Stitchery Museum, Belzoni, Miss. For most of my adult life, I have been fascinated by the old Southern style of shape-note singing—even though for many years I actually knew little about it and certainly never… Read More

On football game days, you can find Don Orr, BE’56, at the same place he was some 50 years ago—overlooking Dudley Field and looking for a Vanderbilt victory. Orr led the Commodores to their first bowl game and first bowl win in the 1955 Gator Bowl with a 25–13 win over Auburn.  “It… Read More

Bobby Johnson: “Rather than having just a few talented star players, we’re pretty good at each position now.” The man responsible for leading the Commodore football team to its first postseason win since Sputnik orbited the earth is not necessarily doing the things one might expect after such a feat. He’s not… Read More

Preeg, Blatt. Photo credits: Daniel Dubois Women’s Tennis: Preeg, Blatt Undefeated in Fall Classic The women’s team closed out the fall season with six out of eight singles wins at the SEC Fall Coaches Classic held at the University of Alabama. Freshman Chelsea Preeg and junior Hannah Blatt won their respective brackets… Read More

 www.istockphoto.com Musicians really do think differently than the rest of us. Vanderbilt psychologists have found that professionally trained musicians more effectively use a creative technique called divergent thinking, and use both the left and right sides of their frontal cortex more heavily than the average person. Previous studies of creativity… Read More

  © MCT/TIM LEE Each year some 10 million American households borrow money through payday loans. Payday lenders now have more storefronts than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined. But a recent study shows that payday-loan applicants who received the quick cash after their first application were significantly more likely to file… Read More

Children born four months before the peak of cold and flu season have a greater risk of developing childhood asthma than those born at other times of year, according to new research from Vanderbilt. In the Tennessee Asthma Bronchiolitis Study, which involved an analysis of the birth and medical… Read More

Earth is protected from the onslaught of solar wind by the magnetosphere, an invisible shield of magnetic fields and electrically charged particles that surrounds our planet. The northern and southern polar lights—the aurora borealis and aurora australis, respectively—are the only visible parts of the magnetosphere, but it is a critical… Read More

Why do some bone cells knit together neatly following a fracture or amputation, while others grow wildly into soft tissue that can limit range of motion and cause problems with prosthetics? Dr. Erika Mitchell, assistant professor of orthopaedic trauma, has won a $1.3 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Read More

Fortune Magazine’s annual ranking of the 100 best places to work in the United States includes Vanderbilt this year, marking the first time a university has made the list. The No. 98 ranking represents approximately 21,000 employees at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The rankings are determined… Read More

Vanderbilt researchers now have access to 15 times more bandwidth, thanks to a new 10-gigabit-per-second circuit that began routing new traffic in December. The previous circuit allowed 662 megabits of data to be transferred per second. “The new 10-gigabit-per-second circuit connects to Southern Crossing in Atlanta,” says Matthew Hall,… Read More

High-profile role models are one driver of improved academic performance for African Americans. The presidential run of Barack Obama has made a strong positive impact on the test-taking achievement of African Americans, according to research by Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management Professor Ray Friedman. Documenting what Friedman and his… Read More

Eddie Adcock demonstrates the improvement in his essential tremor after deep brain stimulation surgery. It was a Nashville moment if there ever was one—a patient playing banjo while undergoing brain surgery at Vanderbilt. Legendary bluegrass performer Eddie Adcock had been shaving left-handed, writing like a doctor, and hitting some sour… Read More

“You can do anything with fishing line, a needle, a knife and ketamine.” ~ Dr. Bill Frist during a talk titled “Health Care as a Currency for Peace,” delivered as part of the Nursing Centennial Lecture Series last October. The former U.S. Senate majority leader has created a class at… Read More

Dr. James Berry and Dr. Leland Lancaster have developed a recycling system that collects and reuses anesthesiology gases.  More than 500,000 gallons of anesthetic are released into the atmosphere in the United States each year at a huge cost both financially and environmentally. What if you could collect the air… Read More

 A Vanderbilt research team provides strong evidence that new, or atypical, antipsychotic drugs carry the same cardiovascular risk as older, or typical, antipsychotic drugs. Their findings appeared in the Jan. 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The atypical antipsychotics have one important advantage over their older counterpart:… Read More

New research from Vanderbilt reveals that children learn the solution to a problem best when they explain it to their mom. “We knew that children learn well with their moms or with a peer, but we did not know if that was because they were getting feedback and help,” says… Read More

Natalie Gossum, R.N., attends to Silas Roberson, 24 days old, in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Without mechanical ventilation, many premature infants would die—but its use can damage tiny, immature lungs. A study published in Pediatrics suggests that early Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) might be a… Read More

Students with intellectual disabilities have few options when it comes to postsecondary education opportunities. Nationwide, approximately 121 postsecondary programs are available for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) is launching the first such postsecondary program in the state of Tennessee, aided… Read More

    Now in its seventh year, the Vanderbilt Dance Marathon is the biggest student-run philanthropy on campus. This year’s 14-hour event, held Feb. 13–14, raised more than $146,000 for Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital. Read More