Vanderbilt Magazine

illustration by liz asher/www.lizasher.com Clarksville, Tenn., a city of 125,000 on the Tennessee–Kentucky border, is best known for its proximity to the sprawling Fort Campbell Army Base. The town takes pride in attracting new industry and bills itself as the “Gateway to the New South.” But Clarksville is also a… Read More

It is hard not to feel slightly out of place now that I have returned to Vanderbilt’s campus. War is a difficult reality to face, and the experience brings irreversible changes within a person.  I am a senior in the College of Arts and Science, with a major in… Read More

 Collaborators in work and in life, Douglas and Lynn Fuchs together have reportedly attracted more federal funding than any other researchers in their field. In 1972, two Johns Hopkins University students started a Saturday school for poor children from their Baltimore neighborhood. With the help of college friends, they created… Read More

As Vanderbilt University School of Nursing celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding this year, the nursing profession is struggling to meet the demands of a prolonged and severe nursing and faculty shortage. Alumni from the 1940s can attest that the current shortage is not the nursing profession’s first. In… Read More

Ellen Pearson, second from right, and her family hang themselves out to dry. “Gripes, kudos, inspired ideas for future stories? Put ’em here,” read the Vanderbilt Magazine voluntary subscription card I received in the mail last year. Having long fancied myself an enlightened environmentalist with a throbbing social consciousness, I… Read More

Hundreds of volunteers worked thousands of hours — and Reunion 2008 topped all records. Nearly 7,000 Vanderbilt alumni, family and friends came back to campus in October. And they gave back, too. Reunion gifts added up to more than $41 million—exceptional generosity that’s already making a difference across campus for… Read More

Nashville businessman Rodes Hart has been named chair of Vanderbilt’s Shape the Future campaign. Hart, who graduated from Vanderbilt in 1954, succeeds Monroe Carell Jr., BE’59, who led the ongoing campaign to raise $1.75 billion until his death on June 20. Hart joined the Vanderbilt Board of Trust upon the… Read More

[Smiley Pool/MCT] It seems every time we turn on the news, a disaster has occurred. With all our knowledge, skill and technology, why can’t we do something to prevent them, or at least keep them from causing such devastation? Watch video of Mark Abkowitz discussing risk management Several years… Read More

“Welcome to the greatest university in the world,” proclaimed Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos to first-year students as they arrived on campus in late August with duffle bags, twin-size bed linens and teary-eyed moms in tow. They are the first entering Vanderbilt class to live and learn in The Commons, in… Read More

In the biggest commitment to financial aid in its 133-year history, Vanderbilt on Oct. 1 announced that it will eliminate all need-based loans and replace them with Vanderbilt grants and scholarships for all eligible undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need. Starting in the 2009–2010 academic year, all undergraduate… Read More

Participants in the alumni trip to China in October 2007. Embark on a world of adventure in 2009 with family, friends, fellow alumni, and the Vanderbilt Travel Program. Sponsored by the Vanderbilt Alumni Association, 11 culturally rich destination packages are planned—each featuring a Vanderbilt professor who will offer an exclusive… Read More

The Office of Alumni Relations and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions have consolidated several alumni volunteer programs under one umbrella, Commodore Recruitment Programs—or CoRPs. This allows Vanderbilt to work more efficiently with alumni volunteers around the world. Through CoRPs, alumni are encouraged to register with the admissions office and select… Read More

Longtime Vanderbilt volunteer Billy Ray Caldwell, BA’85, has been elected to a two-year term as president of the Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board of Directors. He took office July 1. A member of the board since 2004, Caldwell is a former president of the Nashville Vanderbilt Chapter of the Alumni Association. Read More

Ben Hindman, BS’07, and Brody Davis, BA’07 “The best things in life are free … tours.” That’s the favorite quote of Brody Davis and Ben Hindman, entrepreneurs and founders of DC by Foot Tours. Their 90-minute “More than Monuments” tour is entirely tip-based. Former Vanderbilt fraternity brothers Davis, a… Read More

TO: Mick Jagger, Barry Manilow, Joe Namath, Al and Tipper Gore, Tuesday Weld, and the other nearly 3 million Americans turning 65 this year FROM: The Baby Boomers Happy birthday, everyone. (To be frank, the rest of us weren’t sure all of you would make it this far.) Now… Read More

“You must be Catholic.” It’s the most common reaction I hear when someone finds out I’m the youngest of 12 children. (And they’re right—we’re Catholic, raised by the Sisters of Mercy.) The next most common reactions: “Your parents did know what causes pregnancy, didn’t they?” (I guess so—but, really, I… Read More

I was sitting in the Peabody Library last semester when I overheard a conversation between two students that ended with one saying to the other, “Well, I guess public school isn’t for everyone.” This sentiment was spoken with what I judged to be irony aimed at humor. The fact that it… Read More

Toward the end of high school in Margate, Fla., a small strip of suburbia just north of Fort Lauderdale, Daniel Bernard Roumain managed to land two internships that prefigured his future musical career crossbreeding hip-hop and classical music. For a couple of summers in the late 1980s, he worked… Read More

From the time she was arrested at the age of 4 months, Sheryll Cashin's life was shaped by her parents' activism It’s Aug. 11, 1969. Another hot day in Greene County, Ala. I am 7 years old, about to start the second grade. We are here to watch the swearing… Read More

Brecht at the Opera (2008, University of California Press) by Joy Calico, associate professor of musicology. Calico’s book analyzes the German playwright’s lifelong ambivalent engagement with opera, arguing that Brecht’s simultaneous work on opera and Lehrstück (or “learning play”) in the 1920s generated the new concept of… Read More