Vanderbilt Magazine

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    Open Secrets: How views of public and private life have shifted in America

    In an age of Cambridge Analytica, uncanny Facebook algorithms and NSA wiretapping, it seems every time we turn around, there is a new assault on that once most precious of commodities: our privacy. In reality, however, what we choose to reveal and what we keep private has long been a source of debate. Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

  • photo of David Williams on football field

    The Goldfather: With David Williams’ retirement, a golden era of Commodore athletics ends

    As 70-year-old Williams nears the end of a 15-year run leading Vanderbilt athletics—and his 27th year as a senior administrator in higher education—he is ready to hand over leadership of a department that has made enormous strides during his tenure. Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    ‘We Remember’: Preserving the memory of Holocaust survivors

    John Pregulman, BA’80, has spent the past five years taking photographs of Holocaust survivors. To date, he has photographed 679 survivors in 33 cities in the U.S., as well as in Krakow, Prague and Tokyo. Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

  • photo of Dollar General sign installation

    The Value of a Dollar: How a simple pricing idea launched the retail giant Dollar General

    In this excerpt from his memoir, Cal Turner Jr., a 1962 Vanderbilt graduate who was Dollar General’s CEO from 1965 to 2003, discusses the breakthrough concept that helped launch a small-town family business toward national success. Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

  • photo of Jan Hildebrandt in a swimming pool

    Return to Form: Jan Hildebrandt, BE’79

    Hildebrandt retired from competitive swimming the day her senior season ended at Vanderbilt. Or so she thought. Nearly 40 years later, she found herself competing in the U.S. Masters Swimming Nationals, a long-course pool meet featuring the best amateur adult swimmers from across the country. Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    Record Highs: Q&A with Mitch Glazier, JD’91

    Glazier discusses the evolving business model of the music industry—one that’s gone from selling tens of millions of CDs in thousands of stores to now getting billions of streams from just a handful of companies—and what music listeners can expect on the horizon. Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

  • Vanderbilt University

    Mind’s Eye: New Perspective

    Works by Middle Eastern women artists build bridges of understanding Mother, by Emirati artist Maitha Demithan, was created by the process of scanography, using digital scanners to generate images and then collaging the images together. In the exhibit catalog the artist states that the piece depicts a mother as… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    Transforming Community: Nyree Ramsey, BS’97, MEd’00, and Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, BS’96

    Ecclesiastes, left, and Ramsey are working together to rejuvenate and transform a long-neglected, 25-block New Orleans corridor that stands in the shadow of an elevated expressway constructed more than 50 years ago. Photo by Greg Miles When Nyree Ramsey visited New Orleans in 1995, three words came to… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

  • photo of Robert Kennedy at a podium

    Hope Shattered: Memories of a brief encounter with Robert Kennedy on campus

    A little more than two months after he spoke to nearly 11,000 people at Vanderbilt’s 1968 student-led Impact Symposium, presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy was assassinated in California. Frye Gaillard writes about serveing as Impact’s chairman and Kennedy’s host at Vanderbilt. Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    From Conspiracy to Conservation: Television News Archive marks 50th anniversary

    Although legal and copyright issues continue to hinder access, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive—a repository of television news recordings from the past 50 years—is a national archival treasure. Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

  • Vanderbilt University

    Bailey Spaulding, JD’09, Something’s Brewing

    Photo by Ashley Hylbert Shortly after graduating from law school, Bailey Spaulding got a harebrained idea: She’d open a brewery and name it the Jackalope Brewing Co., after the mythical rabbit–antelope hybrid that she believed in as a kid. Seven years after the business was launched in Nashville’s… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

  • photo of Chancellor Zeppos, Rodes Hart and Bruce Evans at the awards ceremony

    Top Tribute: H. Rodes Hart named Vanderbilt Distinguished Alumnus

    The Vanderbilt Alumni Association has named H. Rodes Hart, BA’54, the recipient of the 2018 Vanderbilt University Distinguished Alumnus Award. Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    Accolade

    Photo by Tomas Loewy Dean Whiteside, BMus’10, of Miami—shown conducting that city’s New World Symphony PULSE concert—is the 2017–18 winner of the American Prize in Conducting in the Professional Orchestra division. After earning his undergraduate degree at Blair, the New York City native trained in Vienna at the… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    A Family Legacy Inspires Students

    Natalie Vlach, BMus’18. Photo by Joe Howell As a young girl, Natalie Vlach, BMus’18, fell in love with her electronic keyboard. Unlike some childhood infatuations, however, Vlach’s passion for piano endured and deepened, leading eventually to her winning the Linde B. Wilson Scholarship at the Blair School. “Blair… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    Poetry to Expand the World: M.F.A. candidate Joshua Moore hosts an innovative storytelling podcast

    Joshua Moore is the voice of the Versify podcast. Photo by Anne Rayner When listeners tune in to Nashville Public Radio’s Versify podcast, they’re greeted by the voice of host Joshua Moore, a second-year master of fine arts candidate in Vanderbilt’s creative writing program. Versify—which can be found… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    Rediscovered: Concert Celebrates the Music of Florence Price

    courtesy of AETN.com Florence Price was the first African American woman to have her music performed by a major symphony orchestra—in 1933. Bringing together the European classical tradition in which she was trained and the haunting melodies of African American spirituals and folk tunes, Price’s music has experienced… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    Impression

    Photo by Philip Franck In October, Vanderbilt University Theatre opened its 2018–19 season with The Language Archive by Julia Cho, a comedy that explores what is lost and found in the gaps between what is meant and what is said. “One of the most interesting aspects… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    Garrett Spiegel, BE’10, Systems-Level Thinker

    Photo by Shia Levitt Garrett Spiegel long intended to make the design of custom-fabricated orthotics and prosthetics easier and quicker, especially in parts of the world with limited medical resources and high need. His company, Standard Cyborg, which he co-founded in 2015 with Jeffrey Huber, now has a… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

  • Vanderbilt University

    Ronald Hoffman, BA’64, American History as Sacred Trust

    Ronald Hoffman, former director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and professor of history at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., died Sept. 4. He was 77. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1969 and joined the history department at… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018

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    Jo Ann Eddy Somers, BE’67, Singular Engineer

    The only female member of the School of Engineering’s 1967 graduating class, Jo Ann Eddy Somers of Huntsville, Alabama, died July 11, 2018. She was struck by lightning while inspecting a seawall under construction in Huntsville’s Hampton Cove neighborhood and died two weeks later. Somers, 73, was a… Read More

    Nov 19, 2018