Vanderbilt Magazine

Bob Whaley, known throughout the financial world as developer of the Market Volatility Index (“Fear Index”), returned in 2006 to the Vanderbilt Owen School faculty, where he had begun his teaching career 28 years earlier. By Rob Simbeck Bob Whaley gets excited about the place where research and the marketplace… Read More

Michael Greshko blogged about his college selection process for The New York Times. During the spring of my senior year of high school, as I sallied forth ready to do battle with everything life threw my way, one herculean task remained: my college choice. I had been admitted to Yale… Read More

Situated on what is now Alumni Lawn, the original Kissam Hall was the first large, “modern” dormitory on campus. Crowned with two cupolas, the impressive building was funded by William Kissam Vanderbilt and finished in 1900. It served the university 57 years. When Vanderbilt opened its doors in 1875, there… Read More

Dr. Kyla Terhune walks briskly along the corridors of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, dashing between her last surgery of the day in the O.R. and her first afternoon patient in The Vanderbilt Clinic. With long curly hair pulled back in a ponytail, the tall, slender surgeon still wears her… Read More

Engineering professor Sankaran Mahadevan and his colleagues develop computer models that can predict whether complex structures and systems will fail, when failure is likely to occur, and how to prevent such failure. When you take a plane trip, drive across a bridge, or ride the commuter train to work, you… Read More

The struggle against juvenile crime may come down to one simple question: Do we want revenge, or do we want results? If we want results, says Christopher Slobogin, the Milton Underwood Professor of Law at Vanderbilt, we should reform the system dramatically to stress community-based treatment over incarceration. “The bottom… Read More

Provost Richard McCarty talks with first-year students and parents during move-in day Thanks to the generosity of more than 1,300 donors, Opportunity Vanderbilt has exceeded its initial goal and raised $108.4 million, as of June 30, 2011. Never has our university placed a more urgent need before our alumni, parents… Read More

John Stein, BA’73 (left), and Dr. Jeff Balser, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, sign the beam with patient Dalton Waggoner. The Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt officially launched a $30 million expansion project April 7 with a beam-signing celebration. Read More

As part of a major initiative to recruit and retain outstanding scholars and teachers, Vanderbilt is this year announcing 60 new endowed faculty chair holders. Already 34 of them have been honored in a series of events at the Student Life Center, celebrating the achievements of the chair holders and… Read More

Chairs of the 2010–11 Senior Class Fund student committee present a banner, signed by members of the Class of 2011, to Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos on Senior Day. From left to right are co-chairs Patrick Seamens, BA’11; Aysha Malik, BS’11; Eric Walk, BE’11; and Kate Foster, BS’11, and campaign chair Zach… Read More

On Wednesday, March 7, 2007, I was lying on my bed in the middle of the afternoon, eyes wide open, when my cellphone rang. I hadn’t slept much the night before, or the night before that, for that matter. Although I was utterly exhausted, I knew that sleep would not… Read More

Looking back, I wonder whether we should have been in class that morning. It was just before lunch, and I had already missed a few that semester—classes, never lunch—as, unfortunately, my first midterm grades attested. From our residence in Dyer Hall, the path to food at Sarratt took me and… Read More

When Kathy Hutson came to Big Stone Gap, Va., in the 1960s, she had no peers to help her sort out the parameters of developing and running a school speech therapy program. In the summer of 1963, after my sophomore year in college at Saint Louis University, I came… Read More

Junior linebacker Archibald Barnes makes working out in 90-degree heat look easy during an early August football practice. For schedules, tickets for Vanderbilt’s first season under Head Football Coach James Franklin, and more, go to http://vucommodores.cstv.com. Photo by John Russell. Read More

Professor Oswald T. Avery in his laboratory in the current Medical Center North. The photograph, probably dating to 1948, is inscribed to his associate, Dr. Bertram Sprofkin. Two of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, and perhaps of all time, have worked at Vanderbilt. One performed his last… Read More

Board of Trust Chairman Martha Ingram’s letter to more than 100,000 Vanderbilt alumni and friends in January 2001 announced trustees’ approval of a new fundraising campaign to “turn our aspirations into realities.” Read More

Michael Burry Michael Burry, MD’97, studied economics and premedical training at UCLA before enrolling at Vanderbilt. He continued his medical education as a resident at Stanford University Hospital before leaving after his third residency year to found Scion Capital. Burry’s transition into the world of finance was eased… Read More

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

A few weeks ago I received a telephone call from Frank Beck, BA’81, with an odd request: Could I help him find a photograph of his mother’s legs? It seemed that back when his mother, Jane Padgett Beck, BA’51, was a Vanderbilt sophomore or junior—Frank wasn’t sure which—a photograph involving… Read More

The Week That Lasts a Lifetime Alternative Spring Break was an incredibly meaningful experience for me as a student. Now that I am a professor [of informatics at the University of California, Irvine], I love watching our students get the same experience, and I am so glad ASB has… Read More