Summer 2010

By Rob Simbeck After a year of hard work on a doctoral thesis suggested by his adviser, Ken Catania made a fateful decision. “It was clear that his first love was the star-nosed mole,” remembers Glenn Northcutt, his adviser at the University of California-San Diego, “and he came to meRead More

Flood stories are community stories. They bring us connection with our neighbors (broadly speaking); we share those stories with one another in hallways, on sidewalks, in checkout lines, through Facebook and email, or over a nice dinner. They link us to the people around us through a sense of shared experience,Read More

Feb. 19, 1932, was the worst day in Vanderbilt history. Wesley Hall, the largest and most versatile building on campus, burned. It had housed the divinity school, the divinity library, a cafeteria, and rooms and apartments for graduate students and faculty. The fire occurred just as the economy moved intoRead More

A few years ago, ohana—for me—basically meant my mom, my dad and my brother. Since losing my mother to a rare form of cancer, ohana has come to mean much more. As a child I was constantly afraid that one day I would wake up and my mom would beRead More

My Vanderbilt University education has been such a blessing to me for four decades that I’ve never really been able to put it into words. But I had lots of opportunities to reflect about it last October when my wife, Carla, and I attended my 40-year reunion. It was aRead More