Jon Meacham

Bestselling authors Peter Baker and Susan Glasser will join Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian Jon Meacham for an evening of discussion Dec. 7 surrounding the legacy of the Trump presidency and the midterm elections’ potential impact on our country’s fractured politics. Read More

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy is launching a series of conversations and interviews this summer featuring experts on the important issues facing America today. Guests include New York Times national political correspondent Jonathan Martin, American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Yuval Levin, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and more. Read More

Nearly 200 alumni and parent volunteers returned to campus April 1–2 for the annual Volunteer Leadership Weekend. The weekend’s theme, Vanderbilt in Classroom, Community and Conversation, was designed to give university volunteer leaders an inside view of changes underway at Vanderbilt and to provide firsthand insights from university leaders, faculty and students about how these initiatives improve the educational experience.   Read More

The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham discussed the complex intersection of religion and politics in American democracy on Jan. 13 as part of a virtual event hosted by the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy and Vanderbilt Divinity School. Read More

The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham will discuss the intersection of religion and politics in the U.S. during a Jan. 13 discussion hosted by the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy and Vanderbilt Divinity School. Read More

Jon Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Professor of American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, was formally installed as Canon Historian of the Washington National Cathedral on Nov. 7. Read More

In remembrance of the 20th anniversary of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy will host a virtual discussion, “9/11: Two Decades Later,” on Friday, Sept. 10, at noon CT. The event will feature faculty historians and legal scholars Jon Meacham, Samar Ali and Ganesh Sitaraman. Read More

Vanderbilt University joined Nashville community leaders to pay tribute to the life and Nashville legacy of U.S. Rep. John Lewis with the formal dedication of Rep. John Lewis Way and a public celebration at Ryman Auditorium. Read More

Vanderbilt University will join with many community partners to pay tribute to the life and Nashville legacy of Rep. John Lewis on July 16 and 17 with the formal dedication of Rep. John Lewis Way and a public celebration at Ryman Auditorium. Read More

Nicholas S. Zeppos, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chancellor Emeritus, credits the university’s dedication to holding in-person classes last fall—and his students’ adherence to health and safety protocols—for his successful transition to full-time professor during an unprecedented year. Read More

The Aspen Institute’s Socrates Program will host a virtual conversation, “Is National Unity Possible?” on Thursday, April 1, at 1 p.m. CT featuring the co-chairs of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy: former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and Vanderbilt faculty members Samar Ali and Jon Meacham. Read More

Prominent scholars, journalists, historians and activists gathered virtually for a daylong symposium discussing the fight for equity. “Racial Justice, Freedom and Activism in Nashville and Beyond: Then and Now” was hosted by Vanderbilt University on March 26.  Read More

Vanderbilt University announced today that alumni Carolyn Thomas Rogers, BA’75, and Robert Moss Rogers, BA’75, have made a $5 million gift to establish the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Center for the American Presidency in the College of Arts and Science. Read More

The co-chairs of The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy appeared on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" Feb. 4 to discuss the university’s nonpartisan initiative that aims to elevate research and evidence-based reasoning in the national discourse. Read More

On the heels of the launch of The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, several Vanderbilt University faculty have been tapped for their expertise relevant to the Biden administration’s transition, the presidential inaugural address and the predominant theme of unity in America. Read More

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy debuted an exclusive conversation series featuring a tone-setting discussion on the redemptive power of reason and evidence in American politics with former vice president Al Gore and presidential historian Jon Meacham, followed by a dialogue between Meacham and Condoleezza Rice, the 66th Secretary of State, on the project’s first case study. Read More

Former Vice President Al Gore and the 66th Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice each will provide timely conversations with Vanderbilt’s Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian and biographer, on Thursday, Jan. 14, to support the debut of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy. Read More

After months of exploring how higher education could play a meaningful and active role in bridging longstanding partisan fissures, Vanderbilt University today launched the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, which aims to strengthen the nation’s democratic institutions by advancing evidence-based research in the national discourse on unity. Read More

Former U.S. Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Gen. Colin Powell called for a return to civility, communication and compromise in domestic politics and foreign relations during the Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Lecture on Nov. 16. Read More

Madeleine K. Albright and Colin L. Powell—the 64th and 65th United States secretaries of state, respectively—will discuss the future of U.S. global relations as part of Vanderbilt University’s first Chancellor’s Lecture Series event of the 2020-21 season. Read More