The Vanderbilt Story

Long before there was a Student Recreation Center or any of the adjacent outdoor facilities, Sam Hirt was doing what he could to promote sports activities on campus, initially as Vanderbilt’s first full-time intramural director and then as head of the physical education department. In short, Hirt was Campus Recreation before there was even such a thing. Read More

What would you do if you were out with your family one day and suddenly you found yourself in the middle of a personal horror and an international news story? Where would you be, physically and reflectively, nine months later? Kevin White, MBA’10, can tell you. Read More

As Lolita Olivo carefully feeds the Vanderbilt T-shirt through her sewing machine, she dreams about building a decent house for her elderly father and three small children. Her dream soon may come true, thanks to the efforts of Joseph “Joe” Bozich. Read More

I’m leaving Africa with a heavy heart and a monumental task before me. When saying goodbyes at the Center for the Rehabilitation of Child Soldiers, Edna [not her real name]—an 18-year-old who was abducted by Ugandan rebels at the age of 12—asked me to promise her two things. First, not to forget the experiences and lives of the women I had been working with for the past year. Second, that I would use my voice to create positive change. Read More

A framed photograph, roughly 3 feet wide, hangs above the couches in the Lims’ living room. Within the frame, more than 1,000 tiny figures clad in light yellow T-shirts stand in a formation resembling the number 2012 — the graduating year of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons’ inaugural class. The… Read More

Moving away from friends and familiar faces. New classrooms, new campus, new city. A whirlwind of introductions and different student groups to join. For most students, these sensations only hit once: at the beginning of freshman year. But for transfer students, a new school means navigating the same set of… Read More

Jae Lee, a senior majoring in political science and philosophy, may at first glance look like any other student at Vanderbilt. But at 24 years old, he has job experience that few other seniors can claim: two years of service in the South Korean military. Read More

Vandy’s supporting role in hit show Nashville Who is that with actor Alan Alda? And the sound of music for the Mighty Sky   All this and more in VUCast, Vanderbilt’s online newscast. Watch now.   [vucastblurb]… Read More

The Vanderbilt chapter of GlobeMed was founded three years ago to pursue the national organization’s goal of global health equity. With 35 current members, the group works to provide health care services to a local clinic in Paracas, Peru. GlobeMed requires each university chapter to partner with a unique organization. Read More

On Oct. 14, Vanderbilt students will finally join neighboring universities like Belmont and MTSU in providing opportunities for students to gain experience in the commercial music industry. Founded under the umbrella of Vanderbilt Student Communications is a new media enterprise: RVU Records, a record label and recording studio that will… Read More

What began in 2000 as an effort to fuse community service and academics has now evolved into a popular course in the Spanish department: Spanish for Oral Communication through Cultural Topics. To date, 695 undergraduates have taken Senior Lecturer Elena Olazagasti-Segovia’s Spanish 202 course, which focuses on connecting students to… Read More

If Kristen Findley had gotten her wish, she might never have set foot on a track, or at least not to compete. Growing up near the snow-capped mountains of Boise, Idaho, she dreamt of becoming a downhill skier one day. She was so taken with the idea, just about the… Read More

Will Tarnell is a junior economics and history major from Westwood, Mass. This excerpt is from his short story “Pig and Plume,” his entry competing for the 2013 Dell Magazines Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. He won honorable mention. Read More

The process of applying to college is memorable for many reasons — filling out pages and pages of applications, nervously waiting to hear back from admissions offices, making difficult decisions — but for freshman Bryan Stromer, there was an added layer: He blogged about his experience for one of the… Read More

Drive about 20 miles west of Nashville on I-40, wind around on some country roads, turn up the shady lane marked Aden Branch Farm, pass the two-room, pre-Civil War-era log cabin and pull up at the barn. This is where Lola Chambless, M.D., ’05, trades her blue cotton scrubs for… Read More

Forty years after Atari’s digital table tennis game Pong bleeped onto the scene and made video games mainstream entertainment, we’ve become a nation of video gamers. We’re playing games on phones, tablets, computers, game consoles, social networks, and even TVs connected directly to the Internet. Read More

Although Crystal Finley, BS’13, entered Vanderbilt with a clear plan for success, her life mission would soon change when she became a volunteer mentor with Next Steps at Vanderbilt, a postsecondary program for students with intellectual or other disabilities. Read More

We remember the footsteps of those who have left their mark on our country and world. Choose your own path and watch the 2013 Vanderbilt institutional spot. Read More

They came from all over the country and the world to move into The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons. Watch as Vanderbilt's first-year students move in to start their living-learning experience. Check out tweets and images from Move In Day. Read More

Skadden Fellowships kick-start careers in the public interest Terry Maroney’s enthusiasm for the Skadden Foundation Fellowship is rooted in her own experience. After earning her law degree at NYU and clerking on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Maroney spent two years in New York working at the Urban Justice… Read More