Vanderbilt Magazine
A Stronger Voice: As the new head of the NCAA’s inclusion efforts, Derrick Gragg aims to amplify opportunities for student-athletes
Dec. 7, 2020—Derrick Gragg, a former student-athlete on the Vanderbilt football team, is the NCAA's new senior vice president for inclusion, education and community engagement.
Lunch Date: Students find new ways to connect amid COVID-19 safety protocols
Oct. 29, 2020—As students returned to campus amid numerous COVID-19 safety protocols, they found new ways to connect. Here, students enjoy a physically distant lunch together in front of the newly opened Nicholas S. Zeppos College.
Head of the Class: Vanderbilt welcomes a new cohort of educators and researchers to its distinguished faculty
Oct. 29, 2020—In 2020–21, Vanderbilt is welcoming an impressive group of educators and researchers to its faculty, including 26 full-time, tenure-track and tenured faculty members across nine of the schools and colleges.
In the Running: For five alumni who competed in the 2020 Olympic Marathon Team Trials, just getting to the starting line was a long journey
Oct. 29, 2020—On Feb. 29, the best distance runners in the country were in Atlanta to compete in the 2020 United States Olympic Marathon Team Trials. Of the 691 elite men and women runners who came from all corners of the nation to compete, five were Vanderbilt alumni.
Deliverance Revisited: Its relevance to modern American culture is enough to give alumnus James Dickey’s acclaimed novel another look
Oct. 29, 2020—Fifty years later, finally it may be time to give this novel another chance. Deliverance offers too much relevance to contemporary American culture to let it slip past us, out of print.
Steady Hand: Gov. Andy Beshear, BA’00, seeks the ‘why’ in governing as he guides Kentucky through the pandemic and political divide
Oct. 27, 2020—Beshear, the first-term Democratic governor of Kentucky, was elected last November by a margin as thin as a surgical mask, just in time to steer his largely Republican state through a runaway pandemic, the resulting economic damage, and America’s most consequential reckoning with racial injustice since the 1960s.
Creating Our Proudest Moment: Vanderbilt’s spirit of collaboration and compassion shines through amid historic circumstances
Oct. 26, 2020—As we continue to navigate a fall semester like no other, and as I embark on my first academic year as Vanderbilt’s chancellor, I am increasingly impressed by the strength of our university community.
Washington Insiders: Vanderbilt alumni in CNN’s Washington Bureau are playing key roles in the network’s around-the-clock political coverage
Oct. 22, 2020—This election night, Sam Feist, BA’91, will perform one of his more unusual duties as head of CNN’s Washington Bureau. Assuming the results are clear-cut, he will—in consultation with CNN’s statisticians and political scientists—call the winner of the presidential race for the network. It is a responsibility he has held since 2004, and one that he does not take lightly.
New faculty Maizie Zhou: Unlocking genetic disorders through Big Data
Oct. 13, 2020—Maizie Zhou, a new assistant professor of biomedical engineering, blends bioinformatics, computational genomics, neuroscience and machine-learning techniques to understand how the brain enables us to behave intelligently and how specific genomic mutations can alter that process.
New faculty Julie Barroso: Removing the stigma of HIV
Oct. 12, 2020—Julie Barroso, a new professor at the School of Nursing, has made the care of people living with HIV the focus of her research career.
New faculty Kelly Slay: Access and equity for the underserved
Oct. 7, 2020—New Peabody College assistant professor Kelly Slay's experiences as a college readiness coach for Chicago public high school students serve as the foundation for her scholarship focused on issues of race, access, diversity and equity in higher education.
New faculty Raheleh Filsoofi: A bridge between cultures
Oct. 3, 2020—Raheleh Filsoofi, a new assistant professor in the Department of Art, draws on her childhood in Iran and the U.S. immigration experience as themes in her work.