Vanderbilt Magazine

Transformative Literature When Ann Neely, faculty director of the Ingram Scholars program, went to Cape Town, South Africa, last July to visit three of her students involved with a Vanderbilt service-learning project, she never dreamed that she would be inspired to create a new service-learning course of her own. During… Read More

Last fall I had lunch with a friend whose only child is a sophomore at another university that we refer to around here as one of our “peer” schools. “Oh, Ethan seems happy, and his grades are good,” my friend replied when I asked about her son. “But I hate… Read More

Editor GayNelle Doll Art Director and Designer Donna DeVore Pritchett Editorial Associate Editor and Advertising Manager Phillip B. Tucker Arts and Culture Editor Bonnie Arant Ertelt, BS’81 Class Notes and Sports Editor Nelson Bryan, BA’73 Production and Design Assistant Director, Photography Services… Read More

I knew Neil Brake was a remarkably gifted photographer as soon as I saw his portfolio. From the day he came to work at Vanderbilt eight years ago, he dogged the campus like it was his beat and as if he were competing for a front-page hot spot. Years of… Read More

At 1:16 p.m. on an unseasonably warm Middle Tennessee Saturday in late December, the page goes out to the crew of LifeFlight 1, which is based in Lebanon, Tenn.: “ADULT LVL ONE: SCENE: Vanderbilt LifeFlight 1: ETA 10: 18 yom c/c MVA, pt is ett’d poss head inj. BP109/57: HR110:… Read More

“Jenny,” as I’ll call her, came in for a follow-up appointment the other day. You probably don’t know Jenny personally, but you read about her all the time. That’s because Jenny is a statistic, a faceless number. Jenny is an outgoing, always smiling 40-year-old who has been badly crippled with… 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

illustration by liz asher/www.lizasher.com Clarksville, Tenn., a city of 125,000 on the Tennessee–Kentucky border, is best known for its proximity to the sprawling Fort Campbell Army Base. The town takes pride in attracting new industry and bills itself as the “Gateway to the New South.” But Clarksville is also a… Read More

The largest open dump in Latin America, La Chureca was named one of the “20 Horrors of the Modern World” in a contest sponsored by the Spanish magazine Interviu. For outright squalor and heartbreak, the city dump of Managua, Nicaragua, where 1,500 people live daily on rotting scraps, could serve… Read More

It is hard not to feel slightly out of place now that I have returned to Vanderbilt’s campus. War is a difficult reality to face, and the experience brings irreversible changes within a person.  I am a senior in the College of Arts and Science, with a major in… Read More

As Vanderbilt University School of Nursing celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding this year, the nursing profession is struggling to meet the demands of a prolonged and severe nursing and faculty shortage. Alumni from the 1940s can attest that the current shortage is not the nursing profession’s first. In… Read More

 Collaborators in work and in life, Douglas and Lynn Fuchs together have reportedly attracted more federal funding than any other researchers in their field. In 1972, two Johns Hopkins University students started a Saturday school for poor children from their Baltimore neighborhood. With the help of college friends, they created… Read More

Ellen Pearson, second from right, and her family hang themselves out to dry. “Gripes, kudos, inspired ideas for future stories? Put ’em here,” read the Vanderbilt Magazine voluntary subscription card I received in the mail last year. Having long fancied myself an enlightened environmentalist with a throbbing social consciousness, I… Read More

Hundreds of volunteers worked thousands of hours — and Reunion 2008 topped all records. Nearly 7,000 Vanderbilt alumni, family and friends came back to campus in October. And they gave back, too. Reunion gifts added up to more than $41 million—exceptional generosity that’s already making a difference across campus for… Read More

Nashville businessman Rodes Hart has been named chair of Vanderbilt’s Shape the Future campaign. Hart, who graduated from Vanderbilt in 1954, succeeds Monroe Carell Jr., BE’59, who led the ongoing campaign to raise $1.75 billion until his death on June 20. Hart joined the Vanderbilt Board of Trust upon the… Read More

[Smiley Pool/MCT] It seems every time we turn on the news, a disaster has occurred. With all our knowledge, skill and technology, why can’t we do something to prevent them, or at least keep them from causing such devastation? Watch video of Mark Abkowitz discussing risk management Several years… Read More

“Welcome to the greatest university in the world,” proclaimed Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos to first-year students as they arrived on campus in late August with duffle bags, twin-size bed linens and teary-eyed moms in tow. They are the first entering Vanderbilt class to live and learn in The Commons, in… Read More

In the biggest commitment to financial aid in its 133-year history, Vanderbilt on Oct. 1 announced that it will eliminate all need-based loans and replace them with Vanderbilt grants and scholarships for all eligible undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need. Starting in the 2009–2010 academic year, all undergraduate… Read More

Participants in the alumni trip to China in October 2007. Embark on a world of adventure in 2009 with family, friends, fellow alumni, and the Vanderbilt Travel Program. Sponsored by the Vanderbilt Alumni Association, 11 culturally rich destination packages are planned—each featuring a Vanderbilt professor who will offer an exclusive… Read More

The Office of Alumni Relations and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions have consolidated several alumni volunteer programs under one umbrella, Commodore Recruitment Programs—or CoRPs. This allows Vanderbilt to work more efficiently with alumni volunteers around the world. Through CoRPs, alumni are encouraged to register with the admissions office and select… Read More