Publications

Carolyn Peck, BA'88, was a standout student-athlete who helped the Commodores beat Pat Summitt’s mighty Lady Vols. She also was the first Black women's basketball coach to win an NCAA Division I women’s basketball national championship—and, at 33, she was the youngest women’s basketball head coach to win a Division I title. These days she can be found behind a microphone for ESPN and the SEC Network. Read More

Dawn Bennett has found paths to servant leadership throughout her life, but it was decades before she made a leap of faith and enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School. In January 2020, she was ordained by Bishop Kevin Strickland to remain in Nashville and build The Table, a faith collective centered on LGBTQIA+ people and vulnerable identities. Read More

The Pulitzer Prize–winning drama Sweat by Lynn Nottage is being performed on both the Fisk and Vanderbilt campuses in April, thanks to a new arts partnership created by the universities’ theatre departments. The show will take place at Vanderbilt’s Neely Auditorium April 13–15. Read More

By Jenna Somers Richard Welsh Racial inequality in school discipline is a major problem across the United States. Black students experience disproportional office disciplinary referrals and out-of-school suspensions, which lead to greater losses in instructional time. Reducing the use of exclusionary discipline is critical for improving academic achievement and educational… Read More

Michael Quillen, BA'72, took the wheel, literally and figuratively, to deliver ambulances to the front line of the war in Ukraine. The undertaking was launched in spring 2022 when Rotary International raised $15 million in relief funds for Ukraine. Longtime Rotary member Quillen worked with two Rotary districts in Virginia to apply for a $50,000 grant to buy three ambulances. Read More

As she teaches the next generation of nurse-midwives, Vanderbilt School of Nursing faculty member and alumna Stephanie DeVane-Johnson looks at ways to increase the number of Black doulas, who provide emotional and physical support to women in pregnancy, during birth and throughout the postpartum period.  Read More

Before Edwin Keeble, BA 1924, cemented his legacy as one of Nashville’s foremost architects, he found himself at a crossroads: Stay within the comfortable confines of the city he’d grown up in or venture to other parts of the globe and widen his worldview. His decision ultimately would have far-reaching consequences—not just for his career and its impact on Nashville, but for something perhaps even more profound in the eyes of every Commodore basketball fan: the curious origins of Memorial Magic. Read More

Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music’s Blair Big Band placed in the top four among elite college jazz orchestras from across the nation at the third annual Jack Rudin Jazz Championship. The event was held Jan. 14 and 15 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. Read More

W.G. “Tres” Scheibe and his son, Nate, own Scheibe Design, a high-end furniture studio based in Franklin, Tennessee, where they make handcrafted pieces showcasing modernist design and gorgeous woods.  Read More

Blair alumna Krystal Grant Folkestad uses her musical skills to serve multiple audiences while focusing on how life affects art and art influences activism.  Read More

A poem by Cleve Latham, BA’73, EdD’98 Read More

To continue the legacy in education to which Bess Parks owes her own career, she wants to give back to those who need help paying for higher education. Through the establishment of two charitable remainder unitrusts and a retirement plan beneficiary designation, she’s found a way to do that and honor the memory of her mother, also a teacher. Read More

Rabbi Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, a professor of religion at Wheaton College, has written extensively on food rituals and Jewish food for more than 20 years. His book "Gastronomic Judaism as Culinary Midrash" was published in 2018 (Rowman & Littlefield). He defines midrash as “a way of interpreting traditional stories and practices in new ways,” food being one of them. Now, he's turning his attention to Thanksgiving food myths and rituals. Read More

Terrance Dean, assistant professor at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, died Aug. 11 after an illness. He was 53. Read More

William J. Adcock, BE’50, the first Vanderbilt basketball scholarship recipient and a member of the Vanderbilt Athletics Hall of Fame, of Kirkwood, Missouri, died July 29, 2022. Read More

When Jennifer Janes arrived at Vanderbilt Blair School of Music in 1998, she had two career paths in mind—veterinary medicine and teaching piano at the college level. Her abiding interest in horses and veterinary medicine eventually won out. Today, Dr. Janes is an associate professor of veterinary anatomic pathology at the University of Kentucky Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Read More

Alexis Garcia, BA'99, is executive vice president for the film group at Fifth Season, formerly Endeavor Content, the production company behind movies such as Cha Cha Real Smooth, Ambulance, The Peanut Butter Falcon and the Academy Award-recognized The Lost Daughter. Read More

Vanderbilt-related authors will have a strong presence at the 2022 Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word, which takes place at War Memorial Plaza and Nashville Public Library Oct. 14–16. Read More

San Francisco-based venture capital firm Bee Partners now boasts two Vanderbilt graduates among its leadership: Founder Michael Berolzheimer, BS'00, and Kira Noodleman, BA'08, who recently was promoted to partner and now leads the Denver office.    Read More