Vanderbilt Magazine

Babies Learn Best from Parents Troseth Research from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia finds that infants learn little to nothing from popular educational videos and learn most from face-to-face interactions with their parents and other familiar figures. The research is in press at the journal Psychological Science. “After… Read More

“To point the finger at teachers and say it’s all your fault is something you won’t see me doing. There are places where we want to engage and we will disagree, but it won’t be about saying that teachers are at fault.” —Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, speaking Jan. 26… Read More

Vanderbilt participants in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey are, from left: David Weintraub, Leslie Hebb, Andreas Berlind, Trey Mack, Keivan Stassun and Kelly Holley-Bockelmann. Imagine a picture of the sky so big that it would take 500,000 high-definition TVs to view it at full resolution. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey… Read More

Dr. Jeffrey Sosman, Dr. William Pao and Dr. Cindy Vnencak-Jones gather in the Molecular Genetics Lab for the launch of the new Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center’s Personalized Cancer Medicine Initiative.Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has become the first cancer center in the Southeast and one of the first in the nation to offer… Read More

ClintonThe top three priorities for Tennessee’s elected officials should be the economy, education and health care, according to a new poll launched by Vanderbilt. A majority of respondents rated the state’s economic condition as “fairly bad” or “very bad.” The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions undertook its first… Read More

A surgeon at Vanderbilt holds his index finger against a fetus’ hand in utero during surgery With the conclusion of a landmark seven-year study showing clear benefits for babies who undergo fetal surgery to treat spina bifida, Vanderbilt has begun offering the delicate procedure, which repairs a baby’s spine while… Read More

Jean Heard was a graduate of the Juilliard School and an active studio musician in Nashville. During the past few days as I was thinking about these words to honor Jean Heard, a still, small voice in the back of my mind kept repeating something the fifth chancellor of Vanderbilt… Read More

“Nobody writes letters much anymore,” goes a common lament among alumni magazine editors. Who doesn’t like to receive letters? And who doesn’t enjoy reading a fat, juicy letters section? It’s often the first thing I turn to when I open a magazine, especially when I’m reading a publication I’ve never… Read More

Franklin with the team at this year’s first practice in full pads “Isn’t this awesome?” “Really, where else would you rather be?” “Does it get any better than this?” The enthusiastic words rolled across the practice field and over Vanderbilt’s returning football players at the close of their first spring… Read More

Cornelius Vanderbilt was a hard man. Unsentimental, he earned a national reputation for taking care of himself. When the Civil War began, no one imagined he would turn out to be a selfless patriot. Read More

Editor GayNelle Doll Art Director and Designer Donna DeVore Pritchett Editorial Associate Editor and Advertising 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

High-Heel Neil I loved Ridley Wills’ story about Neil Cargile [Fall 2011, Southern Journal, “High Flyer”]. Neil and I were Sigma Alpha Epsilon brothers at Vanderbilt. As far as I know, neither I nor any other SAE member was crazy enough to fly with him. But he could dance… Read More

T.J. Stiles T.J. Stiles won the 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for his book The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Stiles, who is also the author of Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, served as… Read More

A week after the March tsunami that devastated Japan, students gathered for a candlelight vigil in Benton Chapel. The Asian American Student Association, Asian American Christian Fellowship, Korean Undergraduate Student Association, Vanderbilt University Chinese Association and Vanderbilt Hillel organized the event. PHOTO BY MARY DONALDSON… Read More

News You Can Use http://news.vanderbilt.edu/research Wondering how NASA would care for a sick astronaut during a manned mission to Mars? Curious about whether eating more curry could help prevent tumor development? Then look no further than Research News @ Vanderbilt. With the aim of making science more… Read More

Three Receive NSF Awards Dickerson Three junior faculty members—Assistant Professor of Physics James Dickerson, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Hak-Joon Sung, and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Robert J. Webster III—have been awarded the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development grants. Dickerson has pioneered methods for making freestanding, transportable… Read More

A blooming star magnolia tree softens the straight lines of the Annette & Irwin Eskind Biomedical Library in the background. Photo by Mary Donaldson… Read More

A new view of Vanderbilt University—its people, places and events—is being showcased each day in 2011 on 365@VU, a new stream on the photo-sharing website Flickr. The project features a new photo by Vanderbilt’s photography services team each day. Photographers share their perspectives on the life of… Read More

Helping to foster children’s learning and readiness for school through the federal Head Start program is the goal of a new National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning, created last fall with a $40 million grant from the Office of Head Start. Peabody College is one of… Read More

Vanderbilt is proud to announce the birth of a healthy, happy, parent-friendly endeavor: Baby Time, an iPhone application for expectant parents. The free app, brainchild of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Medical Center’s Department of Strategic Marketing, is designed to help expectant… Read More