Spring 2009

I knew Neil Brake was a remarkably gifted photographer as soon as I saw his portfolio. From the day he came to work at Vanderbilt eight years ago, he dogged the campus like it was his beat and as if he were competing for a front-page hot spot. Years of… Read More

At 1:16 p.m. on an unseasonably warm Middle Tennessee Saturday in late December, the page goes out to the crew of LifeFlight 1, which is based in Lebanon, Tenn.: “ADULT LVL ONE: SCENE: Vanderbilt LifeFlight 1: ETA 10: 18 yom c/c MVA, pt is ett’d poss head inj. BP109/57: HR110:… Read More

illustration by liz asher/www.lizasher.com Clarksville, Tenn., a city of 125,000 on the Tennessee–Kentucky border, is best known for its proximity to the sprawling Fort Campbell Army Base. The town takes pride in attracting new industry and bills itself as the “Gateway to the New South.” But Clarksville is also a… Read More

“Jenny,” as I’ll call her, came in for a follow-up appointment the other day. You probably don’t know Jenny personally, but you read about her all the time. That’s because Jenny is a statistic, a faceless number. Jenny is an outgoing, always smiling 40-year-old who has been badly crippled with… Read More

The largest open dump in Latin America, La Chureca was named one of the “20 Horrors of the Modern World” in a contest sponsored by the Spanish magazine Interviu. For outright squalor and heartbreak, the city dump of Managua, Nicaragua, where 1,500 people live daily on rotting scraps, could serve… Read More

Talk about pent-up demand—Commodore fans have been waiting 53 years for a scene like this. Head Football Coach Bobby Johnson gets a dousing during the final moments of a nail-biting Music City Bowl game on New Year’s Eve. The 16–14 win over Boston College capped Vanderbilt’s first post-season football… Read More

Ellen Pearson, second from right, and her family hang themselves out to dry. “Gripes, kudos, inspired ideas for future stories? Put ’em here,” read the Vanderbilt Magazine voluntary subscription card I received in the mail last year. Having long fancied myself an enlightened environmentalist with a throbbing social consciousness, I… Read More

As Vanderbilt University School of Nursing celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding this year, the nursing profession is struggling to meet the demands of a prolonged and severe nursing and faculty shortage. Alumni from the 1940s can attest that the current shortage is not the nursing profession’s first. In… Read More

 Collaborators in work and in life, Douglas and Lynn Fuchs together have reportedly attracted more federal funding than any other researchers in their field. In 1972, two Johns Hopkins University students started a Saturday school for poor children from their Baltimore neighborhood. With the help of college friends, they created… Read More

It is hard not to feel slightly out of place now that I have returned to Vanderbilt’s campus. War is a difficult reality to face, and the experience brings irreversible changes within a person.  I am a senior in the College of Arts and Science, with a major in… Read More

Hundreds of volunteers worked thousands of hours — and Reunion 2008 topped all records. Nearly 7,000 Vanderbilt alumni, family and friends came back to campus in October. And they gave back, too. Reunion gifts added up to more than $41 million—exceptional generosity that’s already making a difference across campus for… Read More