Fall2010

  • 60,000 Discounts for Alumni

    60,000 Discounts for Alumni

    The Vanderbilt Alumni Association has partnered with Abenity Inc. to offer alumni more than 60,000 local and national discounts at hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, retailers, florists, car dealers, theme parks, national attractions, and concerts and other events. To register, go to www.abenity.com/VanderbiltAlumni. Once you have registered, you will… Read More

    Dec 6, 2010

  • Mr. C Wants to See the World

    Mr. C Wants to See the World

    Mr. Commodore has a heart for adventure and wants to travel the world—with you! Take his picture at favorite locations in your hometown or iconic landmarks around the world. Upload your photos to http://www.flickr.com (tag “travelingcommodore”), and they will be added to photos taken by other Vanderbilt alumni… Read More

    Dec 6, 2010

  • The President’s Corner

    The President’s Corner

    When the new Alumni Association bylaws went into effect July 1, the leadership structure of your organization was transformed overnight, from a largely honorary board of 46 members to a much smaller, working board of 22. Terms of office were reduced from four years to three, and board rotation was… Read More

    Dec 6, 2010

  • Zero-Proof 21st Birthday

    Zero-Proof 21st Birthday

    Think back to a day you may or may not remember so well: your 21st birthday. For most, it’s a day celebrated with a drink. About a month before my Sept. 8 birthday, I was already thinking about “drinking” on my birthday—but not in the way you might think. For… Read More

    Dec 6, 2010

  • Recent Books

    Recent Books

    They Came to Nashville (2010, Vanderbilt University Press and Country Music Foundation Press) by Marshall Chapman, BA’71 Singer-songwriter Marshall Chapman interviews 15 Music City legends in her latest book, which she describes as her “love book to Nashville.” Starting with Kris Kristofferson and ending with Willie Nelson, Chapman’s… Read More

    Dec 6, 2010

  • Country Music as a Bridge to History

    Country Music as a Bridge to History

    George Hamilton IV, a 50-year veteran of the Grand Ole Opry, gazed out across the faces of 200 students who had gathered for Vanderbilt’s History of Country Music course this fall. Now in its third year, the class has proven to be one of the university’s most popular electives, thanks… Read More

    Dec 6, 2010

  • Music: The Power to Connect

    Music: The Power to Connect

    Liza Barley, BMus’05, always knew she wanted to do something with her music that would bring people together. She never dreamed that would mean starting an arts center in the East Africa nation of Tanzania. “I went to the arts high school in inner-city Pittsburgh and was greatly influenced by… Read More

    Dec 6, 2010

  • Fine Arts Gallery Digitizing Collection

    Fine Arts Gallery Digitizing Collection

    The Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery is digitizing its permanent collection to make it accessible to researchers and the general public. Visitors to the gallery website now can link to the collection’s database and browse the collection. Photographs of 25 percent of the collection’s 5,500 objects have been added so… Read More

    Dec 6, 2010

  • Visual Art: Poetry of the Visual Kind

    Visual Art: Poetry of the Visual Kind

    Lisa Wainwright, BA’82, can recall the precise moment when she embraced art history and education as her life’s work. An English major at Vanderbilt at the time, Wainwright was taking an art history class with Milan Mihal (now professor of fine arts, emeritus). “His class made me realize I… Read More

    Dec 3, 2010

  • Photography: In the Moment

    Photography: In the Moment

    The little girl in Stacey Irvin’s photograph is laughing. Her head tilts to one side, and her hand is at her chin. Either she wants to ask the photographer something, or she’s just eaten some of the grapes she holds in her other hand. Her eyes invite a conversation, and… Read More

    Dec 3, 2010

  • The ’60s at 50

    The ’60s at 50

    Connie Vinita Dowell, Vanderbilt’s dean of libraries, is kicking off the Heard Library’s new exhibits program with a bang—or maybe with a Frug. “We have a fabulous collection of ’60s materials on many topics,” Dowell says. “Now’s a good time to let people see it.” Cases exhibit everything from the… Read More

    Dec 3, 2010

  • Open House

    Open House

    Libraries can be intimidating places. The young James Baldwin thought so. Read More

    Dec 2, 2010

  • Acts of Faith

    Acts of Faith

    Divinity grads aim to compensate for the chaos in contemporary society. Read More

    Dec 2, 2010

  • Blending Back In

    Blending Back In

    Freak accidents sever limbs. Tumors disfigure faces. And reconstructive plastic surgeons team up for their toughest challenges. Read More

    Dec 2, 2010

  • Not Self, But Country

    Not Self, But Country

    When she was studying Shakespeare and Milton at Vanderbilt in the late 1970s, Nora Wingfield Tyson never dreamed she’d be making history one day. But last July in a cavernous aircraft-carrier hangar in Norfolk, Va., Rear Adm. Tyson did just that when she became the first woman in U.S. Navy… Read More

    Dec 2, 2010

  • Quality Instruction Aids Preschool Learning

    Quality Instruction Aids Preschool Learning

    A collaboration between Vanderbilt and Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools on an Early Reading First project for preschool children has yielded “spectacular” results in a preliminary study, according to project leaders. “The big picture is that high-quality language and literacy instruction in pre-K can make a big difference,” says Deborah Rowe,… Read More

    Dec 2, 2010

  • 50 Ways to Sniff a Human

    50 Ways to Sniff a Human

    In this corner, weighing in at 150 pounds: Homo sapiens, creator of the bug zapper, the citronella candle, the rolled-up newspaper and Deep Woods Off! And in the opposite corner, weighing in at less than 5 milligrams: Anopheles gambiae, transmitter of 250 million new cases of malaria each year, possessing… Read More

    Dec 1, 2010

  • Surgeon Shortage Has Global Implications

    Surgeon Shortage Has Global Implications

    U.S. health care exacts a heavy toll not only in terms of dollars, but also in the demand we exert on the world’s supply of surgeons. A decline in the number of international medical graduates practicing general surgery in the United States is contributing to a “crisis of urgency” as… Read More

    Dec 1, 2010

  • For Crying Out Loud, Turn That Thing Down

    For Crying Out Loud, Turn That Thing Down

    Hearing loss now affects nearly 20 percent of U.S. adolescents age 12 to 19, a rise of 5 percent during the past 15 years, according to a new Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study co-led by Dr. Ron Eavey, director of the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center and the… Read More

    Dec 1, 2010

  • Airborne Toxins Damage Soldiers’ Lungs

    Airborne Toxins Damage Soldiers’ Lungs

    Between 2003 and 2005, Vanderbilt physicians treated more than 50 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division based in Fort Campbell, Ky., with a common complaint. Each soldier had a history of shortness of breath, and each one—a former supremely fit soldier—was having trouble passing a running test. They also shared… Read More

    Dec 1, 2010