Vanderbilt Magazine

Class of 2023: Read how basketball powerhouse Marnelle Garraud combined her leadership and collaboration skills to thrive in the Owen Graduate School of Management. Read More

Derrick R. Spires, an associate professor of literatures in English at Cornell University, has a talent for making 19th-century newspapers and pamphlets feel as accessible as the latest social media feed. He explores the culture of the early 19th-century Black press in his 2019 book 'The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early United States' (University of Pennsylvania Press), which was recently released in paperback. Read More

Carolyn Peck, BA'88, was a standout student-athlete who helped the Commodores beat Pat Summitt’s mighty Lady Vols. She also was the first Black women's basketball coach to win an NCAA Division I women’s basketball national championship—and, at 33, she was the youngest women’s basketball head coach to win a Division I title. These days she can be found behind a microphone for ESPN and the SEC Network. Read More

Dawn Bennett has found paths to servant leadership throughout her life, but it was decades before she made a leap of faith and enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School. In January 2020, she was ordained by Bishop Kevin Strickland to remain in Nashville and build The Table, a faith collective centered on LGBTQIA+ people and vulnerable identities. Read More

The Pulitzer Prize–winning drama Sweat by Lynn Nottage is being performed on both the Fisk and Vanderbilt campuses in April, thanks to a new arts partnership created by the universities’ theatre departments. The show will take place at Vanderbilt’s Neely Auditorium April 13–15. Read More

Michael Quillen, BA'72, took the wheel, literally and figuratively, to deliver ambulances to the front line of the war in Ukraine. The undertaking was launched in spring 2022 when Rotary International raised $15 million in relief funds for Ukraine. Longtime Rotary member Quillen worked with two Rotary districts in Virginia to apply for a $50,000 grant to buy three ambulances. Read More

As she teaches the next generation of nurse-midwives, Vanderbilt School of Nursing faculty member and alumna Stephanie DeVane-Johnson looks at ways to increase the number of Black doulas, who provide emotional and physical support to women in pregnancy, during birth and throughout the postpartum period.  Read More

A mental health battle with internet addiction and the ruinous effects of unfiltered social media nearly ravaged a talented entrepreneur while she was a student at Vanderbilt. But Larissa May, BA’16, has turned her healing journey into an influential, youth-based digital advocacy and empowerment platform, #HalfTheStory. May returned to Vanderbilt March 4 to speak as part of the Clinton Global Initiative University annual meeting. Read More

Before Edwin Keeble, BA 1924, cemented his legacy as one of Nashville’s foremost architects, he found himself at a crossroads: Stay within the comfortable confines of the city he’d grown up in or venture to other parts of the globe and widen his worldview. His decision ultimately would have far-reaching consequences—not just for his career and its impact on Nashville, but for something perhaps even more profound in the eyes of every Commodore basketball fan: the curious origins of Memorial Magic. Read More

When Somto Dimobi Okoye, BE’19, was growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, her mother would open their home to people who needed help—instilling a philosophy of building strength and community through a tightly woven support system. Okoye continues that philosophy by creating ways to help colleagues and Vanderbilt students realize and exercise their full potential. Read More

On Feb. 3, 2023, President Joe Biden announced his intent to appoint Vanderbilt Board of Trust member Corey Thomas, BE'98, as one of 14 new members of the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Here Thomas shares his thoughts on leadership, success and workplace culture. Read More

Vanderbilt University Theatre will spotlight new works by faculty and students when it presents “Caught in the Act: A New Works Festival” Feb. 10–11 at Neely Auditorium. Read More

In celebration of Black History Month, Vanderbilt Divinity School is hosting the exhibition Culture Commodity, featuring the work of Nashville multidisciplinary artist Elisheba Israel Mrozik, Feb. 3–25. Read More

Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music’s Blair Big Band placed in the top four among elite college jazz orchestras from across the nation at the third annual Jack Rudin Jazz Championship. The event was held Jan. 14 and 15 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. Read More

The Vanderbilt Blair School of Music has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts to receive a Grants for Arts Projects award of $20,000. Led by professor Douglas Shadle, the grant will fund “Florence Price: A Celebration,” a series of performances honoring classical composer Florence Price.  Read More

Major Jackson, professor of English, director of creative writing and holder of the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities, has been named the new host of the celebrated poetry podcast The Slowdown, produced by American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. Read More

W.G. “Tres” Scheibe and his son, Nate, own Scheibe Design, a high-end furniture studio based in Franklin, Tennessee, where they make handcrafted pieces showcasing modernist design and gorgeous woods.  Read More

When Syrian native Musbah Shaheen, BA’17, traveled to the U.S. for the first time to attend Vanderbilt, he had no idea how the university’s cornerstone philosophies of equity, diversity and belonging would stretch him personally or shape his professional future and Ph.D. research. Read More

Blair alumna Krystal Grant Folkestad uses her musical skills to serve multiple audiences while focusing on how life affects art and art influences activism.  Read More

Melanie Hall Morris, BSN’83, MSN’86, found her calling in providing care for others. Obstetrics and women’s health have been her passion ever since she was an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. Now, as an assistant professor at the school, she researches innovative ways of facilitating the health… Read More