Obituary

Ava Foster Sellers, who in her nearly 50 years at Vanderbilt helped transform the university’s job placement office into a full-scale career planning service with a holistic approach for preparing students for the working world, died Nov. 25 in Nashville. Read More

Robert D. Collins, M.D., professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, Emeritus, died Nov. 28. He was 85. Read More

Joseph “Clyde” Walker Jr., associate director of the Office of Student Financial Aid and Undergraduate Scholarships at Vanderbilt, died suddenly Sept. 23 after suffering from cardiac arrest. He was 59. A resident of Franklin, Tenn., Walker had worked in Vanderbilt’s student financial aid office since August 2000, except for… Read More

Jean Bethke Elshtain, a renowned interdisciplinary scholar who was the first woman to hold an endowed professorship at Vanderbilt University, died Aug. 11 at the age of 72. Read More

James R. Surface, who was instrumental in planning the expansion of Vanderbilt’s Graduate School of Management in its early years and helping the school gain a more secure financial base, died Aug. 1. Read More

Ernest Campbell, who was instrumental in revitalizing Vanderbilt's Department of Sociology and Anthropology and known nationally for his research in race relations, desegregation and education, died July 28. Read More

Jim Foglesong, a key figure in the rise of many country music stars including Garth Brooks and Barbara Mandrell who went on to build a second career as a beloved educator, died July 9. Read More

Robert W. Blanning, whose global experience combined the worlds of academia and business, died June 25. Read More

A memorial service for Leon W. Cunningham, Ph.D., professor emeritus and former chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, June 13, at Calvary United Methodist Church at 3701 Hillsboro Road in Nashville. Read More

Charles S. Kahane, professor of mathematics, emeritus, died May 23 as the result of injuries he sustained in a single-vehicle car crash along Interstate 65 in Hardin County, Ky. His wife, Claire R. Kahane, also was killed in the crash. Read More

Donald H. Evans, a Vanderbilt University professor of art and art history, emeritus, who developed a national reputation for ambitious and interdisciplinary work that often included epic-scaled events, died May 6. Read More

Longtime Vanderbilt Spanish professor and administrator John L. Bingham died May 2 at 93. Read More

Douglas S. Hall, professor of physics and astronomy, emeritus, died March 16 after a brief illness. Hall was a distinguished astronomer and scientist credited with several significant discoveries. Read More

Robert Bayuzick, who had experiments conducted on three separate flights of the space shuttle Columbia while he was a professor of chemical engineering and director of materials science at Vanderbilt University, died Feb. 8 in Nashville. Read More

William W. Featheringill, a Vanderbilt University Board of Trust member, alumnus and entrepreneur for whom Vanderbilt’s Featheringill Hall is named, died Sunday, Dec. 9. He was 70. A memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 13, at Independent Presbyterian Church, 3100 Highland Ave. S., Birmingham,… Read More

Longtime Vanderbilt Law School professor Donald J. Hall died Nov. 29. He spent his entire academic career at Vanderbilt, starting in 1970 and retiring in 2007. Read More

Longtime Vanderbilt faculty member S. Julian Gibbs, DDS, Ph.D., professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Emeritus, died Oct. 25. He was 80. Read More

Tomlinson Fort (Vanderbilt University) A memorial service for Tomlinson Fort Jr., Centennial Professor of Chemical Engineering, Emeritus, will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 23, in Vanderbilt’s Benton Chapel. Visitation with the family will follow at 3 p.m. Fort, 80, died Sept. 13 in Franklin, Tenn. Fort joined… Read More

Alyne Massey Alyne Queener Armistead Massey, philanthropist, community leader and longtime member of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust, died Sept. 11 at her home in Nashville. Elected to the Vanderbilt Board in 1977, she was named trustee emerita in 2003. She made a significant impact on the university through… Read More

Dieter H.O. Sevin, professor of German and former chair of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages at Vanderbilt, died July 29 after a nearly yearlong battle with cancer. Sevin taught German language and literature at Vanderbilt for more than 44 years. Read More