Vanderbilt Magazine

Leslie Lava on the court with her doubles partner, a San Quentin State Prison inmate. Leslie Lava, BA’78 San Quentin State Prison. Opened in 1852, it’s California’s oldest prison and the stuff of legend. Overlooking San Francisco Bay on 275 acres of waterfront property, the prison is home to 5,400… Read More

Dr. Alexis Rodriguez with Dr. Liliana Belskus, another volunteer, after a successful emergency C-section. Dr. Alexis Rodriguez, BA’05 Dr. Alexis Rodriguez had just earned his medical degree from the University of Illinois when he headed to the Guatemalan highlands last fall for three months’ work as a volunteer physician at… Read More

Anna Curry with her father, Ashley, at the summit. Anna Curry, BA’02 In January 2007, Anna Curry stunned friends and family when she announced her intentions to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the world’s highest freestanding mountain. Curry has osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, a genetic disorder characterized by fragile bones. 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 Dubois Photographers… Read More

C.F. Payne C.F. Payne’s artwork has graced the covers of Time, Reader’s Digest, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times Magazine, MAD Magazine, Der Spiegel, U.S. News & World Report, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly and more. He has been commissioned to paint countless politicians, authors and entertainers and has illustrated 10… Read More

Food Equality and Obesity I was disappointed that “Flood Tide in Tennessee” [Spring 2010] didn’t discuss the causes of childhood obesity. One off-hand reference to “food inequality” does not do the issue justice. Fast food and other highly processed foods provide the greatest caloric density for families with… Read More

The rain began in the early morning hours of Saturday, May 1, cleansing a layer of spring pollen from car windshields as students slept or crammed for finals. By the time most Nashvillians stirred, the rain was falling in great unrelenting sheets. I had planned to spend the weekend with… Read More

“Culture is an open palm. A closed culture becomes a closed fist.” —Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, during an April 12 Project Dialogue lecture sponsored by Vanderbilt Hillel and the Office of Religious Life… Read More

Dalton The Vanderbilt University Board of Trust has unanimously elected New York businessman Mark F. Dalton as its chairman-elect, to succeed Martha R. Ingram. A 1975 graduate of Vanderbilt Law School, Dalton is co-chairman and CEO of Tudor Investment Corp. and its affiliates. Before joining Tudor in 1988, Dalton spent nine years with Kidder, Peabody… Read More

Billy Ray Caldwell All good things must come to an end. As my term as president of the Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board of Directors comes to a close, I am reminded about exciting changes that have taken place the past couple of years and look forward to the future—of… Read More

A packed house of Vanderbilt alumni, parents and friends gathered to hear an update about the university from Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos at the City Club of San Francisco on Jan. 28. Here the chancellor, left, chats with (clockwise) Meredith Thacker, BS’97; William Linsenmeyer, PhD’72; Doug Asiell, BA’92; Marjorie Sennett,… Read More

Last October alumni members of the Vanderbilt Atlanta Chapter were presented a President’s Volunteer Service Award recognizing the group’s nearly 400 hours of service to the Atlanta Community Food Bank during the previous year. Chapter members have been volunteering for the food bank on a monthly basis since 2007. “We… Read More

As part of a continuing effort to help increase current students’ awareness of, and access to, Vanderbilt’s network of alumni, the Office of Alumni Relations has created “Dores Across Nashville,” a series of small, informal dinner gatherings for students in the homes of Nashville-area alumni. Each gathering centers on a… Read More

I hope there’s a kitchen in heaven. My loved ones know to look for me there. In fact, I expect to go to heaven straight from my own kitchen, leaving behind a freezer full of food and, less likely, clean dishes. I come from a long line of enthusiastic cooks… Read More

Muhammad Ali whispers to his wife, Lonnie, as she testifies at a U.S. Senate hearing in 2002.   LONNIE WILLIAMS ALI, BA’78 When Lonnie Williams married the world’s most famous athlete in 1986, she knew little about the degenerative neurological condition that was just beginning to grip Muhammad Ali’s… Read More

Glen Stewart (right) enjoys a pre-earthquake lunch with members of his mission group at the Olafson Hotel in downtown Port-au-Prince. We were going to be late for supper. That thought was uppermost in my mind as I prodded the members of my group to conclude their purchases in the One… Read More

Baker is one of six students accepted last year into Vanderbilt’s M.F.A. program in creative writing out of a pool of 374 applicants. One game my best friend and I used to play was this: We were castaways on an island where we were trapped with a horrible monster. We… Read More

Tyler Sanchez, Class of 2010, uses his Nichols Humanitarian Fund award to spend a month working with International Development Enterprises India. Here he demonstrates how to use a treadle pump in the village of Gorakhpur. “Demand things of the world and if they don’t do it, then change the world… Read More

JIM MORGAN, BA’69 “We believe there’s a greater purpose in life than selling doughnuts,” says Jim Morgan. “During the past two years, we’ve committed to a new mission of taking this incredible product and brand and using it as an instrument through which to touch and enhance lives.” Morgan… Read More