Class Of 2016

Before Commencement in May, 1,195 members of the Class of 2016 made gifts to the annual Senior Class Fund, representing a record-high 76 percent participation rate. Read More

Class of 2016 graduate Rachel E. King is a recipient of the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship. Funded by the U.S. Department of State, the fellowship prepares students for foreign service careers. Read More

Rani Banjarian is a Harold Stirling Vanderbilt Honor Scholar. (Anne Rayner/Vanderbilt) Rani Banjarian’s short story “Lullabies in Arabic” won the 2016 Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. The award is given annually to the best short story written in the science fiction or… Read More

When Deya Maldas signed up to be a tutor at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Middle Tennessee, she didn’t know she was about to have the most transformative experience of her freshman year. Read More

Sam Reilly does some of his best thinking when he’s out for a run with his Vanderbilt cross-country teammates. It is one of the rare moments in his busy schedule when he can stretch his mind along with his legs. Read More

Sam Hoskins has spent the last four years living on The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons. From his introduction to the residential community as a first-year student in Gillette House to his last three years as a resident adviser in North House, Hoskins says The Ingram Commons has played a significant role in his journey of self-discovery. Read More

Michaela Novakovic’s majors take her from the grand to the microscopic on a daily basis. The Sorrento, Florida, native and Blair School of Music senior is a double major in harp and molecular and cellular biology. Read More

In his four years at Vanderbilt, Connor D. Henderson has become a strong advocate for expanded campus space and resources for student productions. Some of his favorite memories are of cultural showcases by the Vanderbilt performing arts community filled with music, dance and food. Read More

School of Engineering senior Gabrielle Tate—Gabbey to her friends—has the drive it takes to make U.S. automakers take notice. Read More

On Leap Day—Feb. 29—Blair School of Music senior Jack Coen took a leap of faith. That night Coen, a composition and theory major, premiered his capstone project "Folk and Flora"—a song cycle based on flowers and how people relate to them—in Sarratt Cinema to a full house. Read More

Growing up in small-town Kentucky, Safiah Hassan longed to live in a larger city with a diverse population. After coming to Vanderbilt, she made seeking out diverse communities a hallmark of her university experience. Read More

As Commencement and Senior Day approach at Vanderbilt, they bring with them annual traditions such as the chancellor's address to students, The Party and a special speaker for Senior Day. Read More

There’s the Pranjal Gupta dressed in kurta and pyjama, his feet keeping time with an impossibly fast Indian dance tune. And then there’s the Pranjal Gupta in a lab coat, peering through glasses at data on how children with autism integrate sight and sound. Read More

Like many little girls, Eunice Jun was a ballerina growing up. But by the time the Los Angeles native arrived at Vanderbilt four years ago, she had traded in her toe shoes to cultivate twin interests in graphic design and technology, pursuing double majors in cognitive studies at Peabody College and computer science at the School of Engineering. Read More

For Ariel Helms, a genealogy search when she was young revealed a long-kept secret: Her ancestors were Cherokee Native Americans. Read More

For Rani Banjarian, the summer of 2006 was the defining moment of his young life. For a month that summer, artillery and airstrikes were a daily occurrence as the unrest between his home country of Lebanon and neighboring Israel grew into the July War. Read More

This Week on VUCast, Vanderbilt’s online newscast: Moving on Up! Carry some boxes with the class of 2016! Big Dig! A special look at the latest building progress Why is Vanderbilt so happy? [vucastblurb]… Read More