Vanderbilt University
Encyclopedia
Vanderbilt University is a private
research university located in Nashville
, Tennessee
, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping
and rail
magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt
, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the South
. The Commodore
hoped that his gift and the greater work of the university would help to heal the sectional wounds inflicted by the Civil War
.
Today Vanderbilt enrolls approximately 12,000 students from all 50 U.S. state
s and over 90 foreign countries in four undergraduate
and six graduate and professional schools. Several research centers and institutes are affiliated with the university, including the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, Freedom Forum
First Amendment Center
, Dyer Observatory
, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center
, the only Level I trauma center in Middle Tennessee. With the exception of the off-campus observatory
and satellite medical clinics, all of university's facilities are situated on its 330 acres (1.3 km²) campus in the heart of Nashville, only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from downtown. Despite its urban
surroundings, the campus itself is a national arboretum
and features over 300 different species of trees and shrubs.
Notable alumni and affiliates include two Vice Presidents of the United States, 25 Rhodes Scholars, seven Nobel Prize
laureates, Pulitzer Prize
winners, and Academy Award winners.
In its 2011 ranking of universities, U.S. News & World Report
placed Vanderbilt 17th among national universities, and the schools of education, law, medicine, and nursing were ranked among the top 20 in the country. The Academic Ranking of World Universities
listed Vanderbilt as 41st in the world in its 2009 ranking. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings
2010-11 has listed Vanderbilt as the 51st best university in the world. QS World University Rankings
named Vanderbilt 131st among 500 worldwide universities for 2011-12. The university is among the top 10 recipients of federal research funding with $444.3 million in 2008.
In the years prior to the American Civil War, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South
was considering creating a regional university for the training of ministers located centrally for the congregations of the church. After lobbying by Nashville bishop Holland McTyeire, church leaders voted to create "Central University" in Nashville in 1872. However, lack of funds and the war-ravaged state of the South delayed the opening of the college.
The following year, McTyeire stayed at the New York City
residence of Cornelius Vanderbilt
, whose second wife was the cousin of McTyeire's wife. Vanderbilt was the wealthiest man in America at the time, and he was considering philanthropy
as he was at an advanced age. He was planning to establish a university on Staten Island
, New York, in honor of his mother. McTyeire convinced him to donate $500,000 to endow Central University in order to "contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all sections of our common country."
The endowment was eventually increased to $1 million (equal to $17,697,692 in 2009) and would be only one of two philanthropic causes financially supported by Vanderbilt. The Commodore never expressed any desire that the university be named after himself, but McTyeire and his fellow trustees rechristened the school "Vanderbilt University." Vanderbilt died in 1877 without seeing the school named after him.
In the fall of 1875, about 200 students enrolled at Vanderbilt, and in October the university was dedicated. Bishop McTyeire was named chairman of the Board of Trust for life by Vanderbilt as a stipulation of his endowment. McTyeire named Landon Garland
, his mentor
from Randolph-Macon College
in Virginia
and then-Chancellor
of the University of Mississippi
, as chancellor. Garland shaped the school's structure and hired the school's faculty, many of whom were renowned scholars in their respective fields. However, most of this crop of star faculty left after disputes with Bishop McTyeire.
During the first 40 years, the Board of Trust, and therefore the university, was under the control of the General Conference
(the governing body) of the Methodist Episcopal Church
, South. Tension grew between the university administration and the Conference over the future of the school, particularly over the methods by which members of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust would be chosen, and the extent that non-Methodists could teach at the school.
Conflicts escalated after James H. Kirkland
was appointed chancellor in 1893. Then the Southern Methodist Church congregations raised just $50,000 in a campaign to raise $300,000.
In 1905, the Board of Trust voted to limit Methodist representation on the board to just five bishops. Former faculty member and bishop Elijah Hoss led a group attempting to assert Methodist control. In 1910, the Board refused to seat three Methodist bishops. The Methodist Church took the issue to court and won at the local level. On March 21, 1914, the Tennessee Supreme Court
ruled that the Commodore, and not the Methodist Church, was the university's founder and that the board could therefore seat whomever it wished. The General Conference in 1914 voted 151 to 140 to sever its ties with Vanderbilt; it also voted to establish a new university, Southern Methodist University
, and to greatly expand Emory University
.
. During the same period, Ernest William Goodpasture
and his colleagues in the School of Medicine
invented methods for cultivating virus
es and rickettsiae in fertilized chicken eggs. This work made possible the production of vaccine
s against chicken pox, smallpox
, yellow fever
, typhus
, Rocky mountain spotted fever
and other diseases caused by agents that only propagate in living cells.
, Vanderbilt was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
became a hotbed of the emerging civil rights movement
, and the university expelled
one of the movement's leaders, James Lawson
. In 2005, Lawson was re-hired as a Distinguished University Professor for the 2006–07 academic year, and named a Distinguished Alumnus for his achievements.
The university drew national attention in 1966 when it recruited Perry Wallace
, the first African American
athlete in the Southeastern Conference. Wallace, from Nashville, played varsity basketball for Vanderbilt from 1967–1970, and faced considerable opposition from segregationists when playing at other SEC venues. In 2004, a student-led drive to retire Wallace's jersey finally succeeded. Harold Stirling Vanderbilt
was chairman of the Board of Trust between 1955 and 1968 when racial integration
was a prominent topic at the school. Today, a statue of him in front of Buttrick Hall memorial
izes his efforts.
In 1966, the Oberlin
Graduate School of Theology moved from Ohio to Nashville, and merged with the Vanderbilt Divinity School. In 1979, Vanderbilt absorbed its neighbor, Peabody College
.
History, race, and civil rights issues came to the forefront on the campus in 2002, when the university decided to rename Confederate Memorial Hall, a residence hall on the Peabody campus as Memorial Hall. Nationwide attention resulted, in part due to a lawsuit by the Tennessee chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy
, who had helped pay for the building's construction in 1933 with a $50,000 contribution.
The Davidson County Chancery Court dismissed the lawsuit in 2003, but the Tennessee Court of Appeals
ruled in May 2005 that the university must pay damages based on the present value of the United Daughters of the Confederacy's contribution if the inscription bearing the name "Confederate Memorial Hall" was removed from the building or altered.
In late July 2005, the university announced that although it had officially renamed the building and all university publications and offices will refer to it solely as Memorial Hall, the university would neither appeal the matter further, nor remove the inscription and pay damages.
Vanderbilt University, as a private corporation, is wholly governed by an independent, self-perpetuating Board of Trust. The board comprises 45 regular members (plus any number of trustees emeriti) and the chancellor, the university's chief executive officer
. Each trustee serves a five-year term (except for four recently-graduated alumni, who serve two two-year terms). Mark Dalton
is the board's chairman.
Nicholas S. Zeppos
currently serves as chancellor of Vanderbilt University. He was appointed interim chancellor after the departure of Gordon Gee
, who left to reassume the presidency of Ohio State University
on August 1, 2007, and was named chancellor in his own right on March 1, 2008.
in September of that year examining the spending of college and university executives used Gee and Vanderbilt as an example of the lax oversight common to higher education. The Board of Trust has since established a committee to monitor more closely the spending by the chancellor's office.
Since the opening of the university in 1875, only six other individuals have served as chancellor. Landon Garland was the university's first chancellor, serving from 1875 to 1893. Garland organized the university and hired its first faculty. Garland Hall, an academic building on campus, is named in his honor.
The next chancellor was James Kirkland
—serving from 1893 to 1937, he had the longest tenure of any Vanderbilt chancellor. He was responsible for severing the university's ties with the Methodist Church and relocating the medical school to the main campus. Vanderbilt's Main Building was renamed Kirkland Hall after Kirkland left in 1937.
The longest-tenured chancellor was followed by one of the shortest-tenured. Oliver Carmichael
served Vanderbilt for just nine years, 1937 to 1946. Carmichael developed the graduate school, and established the Joint University Libraries for Vanderbilt, Peabody, and Scarritt College. Carmichael Towers, a set of high-rise dormitories on the northern edge of campus, were named for Chancellor Carmichael.
Carmichael's successor was Harvie Branscomb
. Branscomb presided over a period of major growth and improvement at the university that lasted from 1946 until 1963. He was responsible for opening the admissions policy to all races. Branscomb Quadrangle is a residence hall complex named for the chancellor.
Alexander Heard
, for whom the campus's 10-library system (with 3.3 million total volumes) is named, served as chancellor from 1963 to 1982. During his 20-year tenure, the Owen Graduate School of Management
was founded, and Vanderbilt's merger with Peabody College was negotiated. He also survived calls for his ouster because of his accommodating stance on desegregation.
Joe B. Wyatt
was the chancellor who served immediately before Gee, from 1982 until 2000. Wyatt oversaw a great increase in the university's endowment, an increase in student diversity, and the renovation of many campus buildings. Wyatt placed great emphasis on improving the quality faculty and instruction, and during his tenure Vanderbilt rose to the top 25 in the U.S. News & World Reports annual rankings for the first time. The Wyatt Center on Peabody's campus is named for Wyatt and his wife.
is a vital component of the university and is the only Level I Trauma Center in Middle Tennessee. VUMC comprises the following units: Vanderbilt University Hospital, Monroe Carell, Jr., Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital, Vanderbilt Clinic, Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center, Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital, Eskind Biomedical Library, Vanderbilt Sports Medicine, Dayani Human Performance Center, Vanderbilt Page Campbell Heart Institute, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
, and Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
.
With over 21,500 employees (including 2,876 full-time faculty), Vanderbilt is the largest private employer in Middle Tennessee and the second largest in the state (after FedEx
, headquartered in Memphis
). Approximately 74% of the university's faculty and staff are employed by the Medical Center. In 2008, the medical center was placed on the Honor Roll of U.S. News & World Reports annual rating of the nation's best hospitals for the third time, ranking 15th overall in the country, and 17 of the faculty were members of one of the National Academies
. In 2004, the university reported that 24.1% of non-Medical Center faculty were women, while 14.4% were of a racial or ethnic minority.
Vanderbilt offers undergraduates the chance to pursue 70 majors
, or the chance to create their own, in its four undergraduate schools and colleges: the College of Arts and Science
, the School of Engineering
, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, and Blair School of Music
. The university also has six graduate and professional schools, including the Divinity School, Graduate School
, Law School
, School of Medicine
, School of Nursing
, and Owen Graduate School of Management.
The university's undergraduate programs are highly selective: in 2010, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions accepted 16.3% of applicants. In its most recent annual comparison of admissions selectivity, The Princeton Review
gave Vanderbilt a rating of 99 out of 99. The freshmen in the Class of 2013 had standardized test scores that were well above average: the interquartile range (25th percentile-75th percentile) of SAT
scores was 1440-1540 under the old scale, while the interquartile range of ACT
scores was 31-34.
, housed in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is the largest such academic facility in the world.
Among its more unusual activities, the university has institutes devoted to the study of coffee and of bridge
. Indeed, the modern form of the latter was developed by Harold Stirling Vanderbilt
, a former president of the university's Board of Trust and a great-grandson of the Commodore. In addition, in mid-2004 it was announced that Vanderbilt's chemical biology
research may have serendipitously opened the door to the breeding of a blue rose
, something that has long been coveted by horticulturalists
and rose lovers.
Vanderbilt's research record is blemished, however, by a study university researchers, in conjunction with the Tennessee Department of Health, conducted on iron
metabolism
during pregnancy
in the 1940s. Between 1945 and 1949, over 800 pregnant women were given radioactive iron. Standards of informed consent
for research subjects were not rigorously enforced at that time, and many of the women were not informed of the potential risks. The injections were later suspected to have caused cancer in at least three of the children who were born to these mothers. In 1998, the university settled a class action lawsuit
with the mothers and surviving children for $10.3 million.
Exploration is the university's online research magazine. It publishes multimedia stories that explain campus research projects ranging from archeology to zoology
, probe the motives of the explorers that perform these studies, and describe the experiences of Vanderbilt students who become involved in scientific research. Vanderbilt undergraduates also publish a journal of original research. Vanderbilt is a member of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities
and the Universities Space Research Association
.
, among all national universities. Most notably, in the same publication's 2010 and 2011 graduate program rankings, the Peabody College of Education was ranked first in the nation among schools of education. In addition, the Vanderbilt Law School was listed at 16th, the School of Medicine was listed at 15th among research-oriented medical school
s, the School of Nursing was listed at 15th, the School of Engineering was listed at 37th, and the Owen Graduate School of Management was listed at 28th among business schools. Additionally, Vanderbilt is ranked first in the nation in the fields of special education
, audiology
, and education administration. The Wall Street Journal ranked Owen second among "smaller" business schools in 2004. In 2008, Owen was ranked #30 by BusinessWeek
. In The Times Higher Education Supplement
2011, Vanderbilt is ranked 31st in North America and 51st worldwide. The Academic Ranking of World Universities
ranks Vanderbilt as the 53rd best university in the globe. In 2011 QS World University Rankings
ranked Vanderbilt university 131st in the world. Human Resources & Labor Review, a national human competitiveness index & analysis, ranked the university as one of 50 Best World Universities in 2011. The 2007 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index
, a measure of the scholarly output of the faculty of nearly 7,300 doctoral programs around the United States, ranked Vanderbilt 8th among large research universities, and 1st in the areas of comparative literature
, educational leadership, pharmacology
, Portuguese
, Spanish
, and special education. Poets & Writers
ranked Vanderbilt's English Department's MFA Program in Creative Writing 18th among the top 50 writing programs in the United States in 2010 and 14th in the United States in 2011. Fortune
magazine ranked Vanderbilt among the top 100 places to work in the United States, the only university on their list.
The Vanderbilt campus is located approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southwest of downtown in the West End neighborhood of midtown Nashville. It has an area of 330 acres (1.3 km²), though this figure includes large tracts of sparsely used land in the southwest part of the main campus, as well as the Medical Center. The historical core of campus encompasses approximately 30 acre (0.1214058 km²). The Vanderbilt campus is roughly fan-shaped (with the point at the corner of West End and 21st Avenues) and reflects the university's gradual expansion to the south and to the west. The campus is relatively compact, however, and the farthest distance on campus takes about 25 minutes to walk.
The oldest part of the Vanderbilt campus is known for its abundance of trees and green space, which stand in contrast to the surrounding cityscape of urban Nashville. The campus was designated as a national arboretum in 1988 by the Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, and over 300 species of trees and shrubs can be found on campus, including one of every species of tree that is indigenous to the state of Tennessee. One tree, the Bicentennial Oak between Rand Hall and Garland Hall, is certified to have lived during the American Revolution
and is the oldest living thing on the campus.
In the northeast corner of the campus (the base of the fan) is the original campus. The first college buildings, including Kirkland Hall, were erected here in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. This section stretches from West End Avenue south to the Stevenson Center and west from 21st Avenue to Alumni Lawn. The majority of the buildings of the arts and humanities departments of the College of Arts and Science, as well as the facilities of the Law School, Owen Graduate School of Management, and the Divinity School, are located in the original campus. Additionally, the Heard Central Library and Sarratt Student Center/Rand Hall can be found on the original campus.
Flanking the original campus to the south are the Stevenson Center for Science and Mathematics and the School of Engineering complex (Jacobs Hall-Featheringill Hall). Housing the Science Library, the School of Engineering, and all the science and math departments of the College of Arts and Science, this complex sits between the original campus and the Medical Center. The Vanderbilt University Medical Center itself takes up the southeastern part of the campus. Besides the various associated hospitals and clinics and the facilities of the Schools of Medicine and Nursing, the medical center also houses many major research facilities.
West of the original campus and the Medical Center, Greek Row and the bulk of the Vanderbilt residence halls are found. From north to south, Carmichael Towers, Greek Row, Branscomb Quadrangle, and Highland Quadrangle house the vast majority of on-campus residents in facilities ranging from the double-occupancy shared-bathroom dorms in Branscomb and Towers to the apartments and lodges in Highland Quadrangle. This part of campus is newer than the others; Vanderbilt's westward growth did not start until the 1950s. This portion of campus was built by tearing down small single family houses and duplexes dating from the early 20th century, and so the area has significantly less green space than the arboretum on the original campus and is more indicative of the university's urban locale.
Memorial Gymnasium
, Vanderbilt Stadium
, Hawkins Field
, McGugin Center, and all the other varsity athletic fields and facilities are to be found in the extreme west of campus. The Student Recreation Center and its associated intramural fields are located south of the varsity facilities.
style of the University of Virginia
. The campus is home not only to Peabody College but also to The Commons, where all freshmen live together as part of the College Halls plan. While freshman are now residents of The Commons, it was first inhabited by sophomores before being transformed into a center for first-year living.
. There are also more than 50 service organizations on campus, including the Vanderbilt-founded Alternative Spring Break, giving students the opportunity to perform community service across the country and around the world.
Despite the lack of an organized journalism curriculum, no less than ten editorially-independent media outlets are produced and controlled by students. In addition, a sportswriting scholarship, named for Vanderbilt alumni Fred Russell
and Grantland Rice
, is awarded each year to an entering Vanderbilt freshman who intends to pursue a career in sportswriting. Vanderbilt Student Communications, Inc., (VSC) owns eight print publications, a broadcast radio station, and a closed-circuit television station. One publication, The Vanderbilt Hustler, was established in 1888 and is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Nashville (the newspaper's name references another nickname for the Commodore based on his cutthroat business practices, i.e., that he "hustled" people out of their money). The on-campus radio station, WRVU
, represents the student body by playing a range of music from bluegrass to choral, with a focus on non-mainstream music, and students may also have their own talk radio show, while the campus television station, Vanderbilt Television (VTV), showcases student-produced films, skits, and news and entertainment-based shows.
VSC was formed as a not-for-profit corporation in 1967 to insulate the university from potential liability and to maintain journalistic independence after a series of controversial articles published by The Hustler. During the 1970s, VSC funded a visiting journalist position to provide advice and counsel to its various operating units. Initially, the directors of VSC included a faculty chairman of the board of directors, several student directors, and an outside journalist director. Among the earlier journalist directors was John Seigenthaler
, the then-president, publisher, and editor of The Tennessean
, who also played an instrumental role in the creation of USA Today
.
Additional student publications include those published by the Vanderbilt University Law School, which publishes three law review
s; the flagship journal is the Vanderbilt Law Review
.
Greeks are an active part of the social scene on and off campus, and the university is home to 14 fraternities and 10 sororities as of Spring 2011. As of 2006–2007, 35% of men were members of fraternities and 49% of women were members of sororities, or 42% of the total undergraduate population.
In 2011, four Christian student organizations were placed on probation due to non-compliance with the university's 'nondiscrimination policy', which states that groups may not require their leaders to share the "beliefs, goals and values" embodied in the group.
As a part of their first act together as a class, each Vanderbilt class meets together at the Honor Code Signing Ceremony, where every member of the class pledges their honor and signs the code. The signature pages are then hung in Sarratt Student Center. The ceremony is one of only two occasions where a class will be congregated in a single place at the same time (the other being Commencement).
The Undergraduate Honor Council was formed to help enforce and protect the tradition of the Honor Code. Today, the Honor Council serves two simultaneous aims: to enforce and protect the Honor Code and to inform members of the Vanderbilt community about the Honor System.
All undergraduate students not living with relatives in Davidson County
are required to live on campus all four years to the extent that on-campus student housing facilities can accommodate them. In practice, though, approximately 83% of undergraduates—freshmen, sophomores, nearly all juniors and most seniors—currently live on campus. The remaining undergraduates join graduate and professional students in living off-campus. Student life at Vanderbilt is consequently heavily intertwined with campus life.
However, the on-campus residential system is currently undergoing a radical change. The new system, announced by the administration in 2002, would change the current structure of quadrangle-based residence halls to a new system of residential colleges, to be called "College Halls". Similar to the residential structures at Caltech
, Cornell
, Harvard
, Rice
, and Yale
, the new College Halls system would create residence halls where students and faculty would live together in a self-contained environment, complete with study rooms, cafeterias, laundry facilities, and stores. This project is now underway and is scheduled to be completed within the next 20 years.
The first step in the College Halls system is The Commons, a collection of ten residential halls on the Peabody campus that houses all first-year students. It is hoped that The Commons will give first-year students a unified (and unifying) living-learning experience. Vanderbilt renovated five existing residence halls on Peabody and built five new halls to complement them. Two of the new residence halls have received LEED
silver certification and the new Commons Dining Center has received gold certification, making Vanderbilt the only university in the state to be recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council
. The university expects all five of the new residence halls and one renovated residence hall to eventually receive LEED recognition. The total cost of The Commons construction project is expected to be over $150 million.
With the addition of these new residence halls, the university will be able to house all undergraduate students on campus. Since university policy requires undergraduates to live on campus when possible, Vanderbilt's Office of Housing and Residential Education does not grant students permission to live off campus. Many current students who came to Vanderbilt with the understanding that seniors were generally allowed to live off campus are now disappointed that they must live on campus all four years. However, university administrators believe the undergraduate community receives the greatest benefit from living in on-campus residence halls, citing increased interaction with faculty, better academic performance, and stronger interpersonal relationships.
The university will break ground in May 2012 on Kissam College Halls, two colleges that will each house about 330 upperclass students–a mixture of sophomores, juniors and seniors–and be led by faculty directors in residence. Each college will also be divided into two halls led by a graduate fellow. The six existing Kissam Quadrangle buildings, located near the intersection of West End Avenue and 21st Avenue South, will be demolished to make way for the two colleges that will be connected by a shared facility providing gathering space, “grab-and-go” dining options, a classroom, offices and meeting rooms.
The $115 million project, a top initiative of Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos, is expected to be complete in fall 2014. Funding for the project will be provided entirely through philanthropy and internal resources.
Vanderbilt is a charter member of the Southeastern Conference
and is the conference's only private school. The university fields six men's and nine women's intercollegiate teams. With fewer than 6,600 undergraduates, the school is also the smallest in the conference; the SEC's next-smallest school, the University of Mississippi, has nearly twice as many undergraduate students. Additionally, the school is a member of the American Lacrosse Conference
for women's lacrosse
, as the SEC does not sponsor that sport. Conversely, Vanderbilt is the only league school not to field teams in softball
and volleyball
, but has discussed adding either or both sports in the future.
Men's and women's tennis
and men's
and women's basketball
are traditionally Vanderbilt's strongest sports. Both teams play in quirky Memorial Gym, built in 1952. Memorial Gym is noted for the location of the team benches on the baselines, the four separate sections of stands on the four sides of the court, the distance of the stands from the court and the elevation of the court above the first few rows of seats on each sideline. The homecourt advantage Vanderbilt has enjoyed has been nicknamed "Memorial Magic". The more recently founded women's lacrosse
and bowling
programs as well as the long-standing men's baseball
program are also experiencing moderate national success. After enjoying success in the first half of the 20th century, the football program
has generally struggled in more recent times. However, the 2008 Commodore football team finished with its first winning season in over 25 years and with its first postseason win
in over 50 years.
In September 2003, Vanderbilt earned national attention when it announced that it was eliminating its athletic department. Then-Chancellor Gee called Vanderbilt's varsity athletes "isolated", and insisted that student-athletes would perform better if they were integrated into the rest of the student body. So rather than administer athletics separately from student life, Gee folded the university's varsity teams into the Office of Student Life, the same group that oversees all student organizations. The university is unique in Division I in this regard. Despite fears that Vanderbilt would lose coaches and recruits or would be forced out of the SEC, the university has experienced considerable success since the change; 2006–07 was one of the best in the school's athletic history. At one point, seven of Vanderbilt's 16 teams were concurrently ranked in the Top 25 of their respective sports. Women's bowling won the NCAA championship, bringing the university its first and only team championship since the advent of the NCAA. The baseball team qualified for the NCAA Super Regionals in 2004, had the nation's top recruiting class in 2005 according to Baseball America
, made the NCAA field again in 2006, and won the 2007 SEC regular-season and tournament championships. Vanderbilt was ranked first in most polls for a large portion of the 2007 season, and the team secured the top seed in the 2007 NCAA tournament
.
The term commodore
was used by the Navy
during the mid-to-late 19th century. A commodore was the commanding officer of a task force of ships, and therefore higher in rank than a captain but lower in rank than an admiral. The rank is still used by the British Royal Navy and other Commonwealth countries, but the equivalent modern-day rank in the U.S. Navy is rear admiral lower-half
. Since the term was used most during the 19th century, Vanderbilt's mascot, "Mr. C", is usually portrayed as a naval officer from the late 19th century, complete with mutton chops
, cutlass
, and uniform.
Vanderbilt has approximately 114,000 living alumni, with 31 alumni clubs established worldwide. Many Vanderbilt alumni have gone on to make significant contributions in politics, in the arts, and in the sciences. Michael Burry
(M.D.) is founder of the Scion Capital LLC hedge fund and one of the first investors in the world to recognize and invest in the impending subprime mortgage crisis. Lamar Alexander
(B.A.
1962) is a former Governor of Tennessee and a current U.S. senator; he filled the seat left vacant by the retirement of Fred Thompson
(J.D. 1971). Two U.S. vice presidents
, John Nance Garner
and Al Gore
, attended the university, but did not graduate. However, Gore's ex-wife, Tipper
, is herself an alumna, receiving a master's degree
from Peabody in 1975. Other alumni who are or have been involved in politics include former United States Supreme Court Associate Justice James Clark McReynolds
(B.S. 1882); Congressmen Steve Cohen
(B.A. 1971) and Ric Keller
(J.D. 1992); David Boaz
(B.A. 1975), Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute
; and John R. Steelman
(M.A. 1924), former White House Chief of Staff
. In addition, Senator Theodore Bilbo
attended both Peabody College and the Law School. Bill Frist
, a cardiothoracic surgeon and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, is a faculty member at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
. The Prime Minister of Somalia
, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali
, (M.A. 1988) is an alumnus of Peabody College. Alain Connes
, Fields Medalist, is a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics.
Given the university's location in Nashville, it is not surprising that many of its alumni become involved in the music industry. Dinah Shore
(B.A. 1938), Rosanne Cash
(B.A. 1979), Amy Grant
(B.A. 1982), and Dierks Bentley
(B.A. 1997) are all alumni. Shore later went on to star in a variety of films; other Vanderbilt alumni with Hollywood connections include Academy Award-winners Delbert Mann
(B.A. 1941) and Tom Schulman
(B.A. 1972) and actors Molly Sims
(B.S. 1995) and Joe Bob Briggs
(B.A. 1974).
In addition, the university has a rich literary and journalistic legacy. Most notably, the Southern Agrarians
were a group of influential American writers and poets in the 1920s and 1930s based at Vanderbilt. Three U.S. Poets Laureate
are Vanderbilt alums: Allen Tate
(B.A. 1922), Robert Penn Warren
(B.A. 1925), and Randall Jarrell
(M.A. 1938). Warren later went on to the win the Pulitzer Prize
. Novelists James Dickey
(B.A. 1949) and James Patterson
(M.A. 1970) also graduated from Vanderbilt. Famed ethics
philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre
, author of After Virtue
, taught there in 1982 and 1985. Bestselling economics writer Ravi Batra
, author of The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism
, taught there in 1981. Two well-known sportswriters, Grantland Rice (B.A. 1901) and Fred Russell (B.A. 1927), have a scholarship named after them at the university, and Buster Olney
(B.A. 1988) writes for ESPN.com and The New York Times
. Journalist David Brinkley
attended briefly. Skip Bayless
(B.A. 1974) of ESPN First Take
attended Vanderbilt as a recipient of the Russell-Rice scholarship. Willie Geist
(B.A. 1997) is a host of MSNBC
's Morning Joe
.
Current Chicago Bears
quarterback Jay Cutler
(B.S. 2005) is also a Vanderbilt alum and was drafted in the first round of the 2006 NFL Draft
by the Denver Broncos
. Offensive tackle Chris Williams
(B.S. 2008) was a first round pick by the Chicago Bears
in 2008. Vanderbilt also produced the first overall draft pick of Major League Baseball in 2007 with David Price
and the second overall draft pick of Major League Baseball in 2008 with Pedro Alvarez
. Price and Alvarez were drafted by the then-named Tampa Bay Devil Rays
and the Pittsburgh Pirates
, respectively. ESPN basketball analyst Carolyn Peck
was a standout member of the Commodores' basketball program from 1985–1988, eventually becoming a head coach and leading the Purdue Boilermakers women's basketball
team to a national championship in 1999.
Three alumni, biochemist Stanford Moore
(B.A. 1935), economist and microcredit
pioneer Muhammad Yunus
(Ph.D.
1971), and former Vice President Al Gore have won the Nobel Prize
. Four current or former members of the faculty also share that distinction: biochemist Stanley Cohen
, physiologist Earl Sutherland, and pioneer molecular biologist Max Delbrück
. Nobel laureate and neuroscientist Paul Greengard
was a visiting scholar. Yunus was also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
in 2009.
Private university
Private universities are universities not operated by governments, although many receive public subsidies, especially in the form of tax breaks and public student loans and grants. Depending on their location, private universities may be subject to government regulation. Private universities are...
research university located in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping
Ship transport
Ship transport is watercraft carrying people or goods . Sea transport has been the largest carrier of freight throughout recorded history. Although the importance of sea travel for passengers has decreased due to aviation, it is effective for short trips and pleasure cruises...
and rail
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...
, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. The Commodore
Commodore (rank)
Commodore is a military rank used in many navies that is superior to a navy captain, but below a rear admiral. Non-English-speaking nations often use the rank of flotilla admiral or counter admiral as an equivalent .It is often regarded as a one-star rank with a NATO code of OF-6, but is not always...
hoped that his gift and the greater work of the university would help to heal the sectional wounds inflicted by the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
Today Vanderbilt enrolls approximately 12,000 students from all 50 U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
s and over 90 foreign countries in four undergraduate
Undergraduate education
Undergraduate education is an education level taken prior to gaining a first degree . Hence, in many subjects in many educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a bachelor's degree, such as in the United States, where a university entry level is...
and six graduate and professional schools. Several research centers and institutes are affiliated with the university, including the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, Freedom Forum
Freedom Forum
The Freedom Forum was created in 1991 under the direction of Al Neuharth, former publisher of USA Today newspaper. Funding was provided by a foundation started by publisher Frank E. Gannett in 1935, called the Gannett Foundation...
First Amendment Center
First Amendment Center
The First Amendment Center is an advocacy group in the United States that works to preserve and protect First Amendment freedoms through information and education. The Center serves as a forum for the study and exploration of free-expression issues, including freedom of speech, of the press and of...
, Dyer Observatory
Dyer Observatory
The Dyer Observatory, also known as the Arthur J. Dyer Observatory, is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Vanderbilt University. Built in 1953, it is located in Brentwood, Tennessee, and is the only university facility not located on the main campus in Nashville. The observatory is...
, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center is a collection of several hospitals and clinics, as well as the schools of medicine and nursing associated with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.It comprises the following units:...
, the only Level I trauma center in Middle Tennessee. With the exception of the off-campus observatory
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed...
and satellite medical clinics, all of university's facilities are situated on its 330 acres (1.3 km²) campus in the heart of Nashville, only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from downtown. Despite its urban
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
surroundings, the campus itself is a national arboretum
Arboretum
An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...
and features over 300 different species of trees and shrubs.
Notable alumni and affiliates include two Vice Presidents of the United States, 25 Rhodes Scholars, seven Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
laureates, Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winners, and Academy Award winners.
In its 2011 ranking of universities, U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
placed Vanderbilt 17th among national universities, and the schools of education, law, medicine, and nursing were ranked among the top 20 in the country. The Academic Ranking of World Universities
Academic Ranking of World Universities
The Academic Ranking of World Universities , commonly known as the Shanghai ranking, is a publication that was founded and compiled by the Shanghai Jiaotong University to rank universities globally. The rankings have been conducted since 2003 and updated annually...
listed Vanderbilt as 41st in the world in its 2009 ranking. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings is an international ranking of universities published by the British magazine Times Higher Education in partnership with Thomson Reuters, which provided citation database information...
2010-11 has listed Vanderbilt as the 51st best university in the world. QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....
named Vanderbilt 131st among 500 worldwide universities for 2011-12. The university is among the top 10 recipients of federal research funding with $444.3 million in 2008.
Founding and early years
Methodist Episcopal Church, South
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, or Methodist Episcopal Church South, was the so-called "Southern Methodist Church" resulting from the split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church which had been brewing over several years until it came out into the open at a conference...
was considering creating a regional university for the training of ministers located centrally for the congregations of the church. After lobbying by Nashville bishop Holland McTyeire, church leaders voted to create "Central University" in Nashville in 1872. However, lack of funds and the war-ravaged state of the South delayed the opening of the college.
The following year, McTyeire stayed at the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
residence of Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...
, whose second wife was the cousin of McTyeire's wife. Vanderbilt was the wealthiest man in America at the time, and he was considering philanthropy
Philanthropy
Philanthropy etymologically means "the love of humanity"—love in the sense of caring for, nourishing, developing, or enhancing; humanity in the sense of "what it is to be human," or "human potential." In modern practical terms, it is "private initiatives for public good, focusing on quality of...
as he was at an advanced age. He was planning to establish a university on Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
, New York, in honor of his mother. McTyeire convinced him to donate $500,000 to endow Central University in order to "contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all sections of our common country."
The endowment was eventually increased to $1 million (equal to $17,697,692 in 2009) and would be only one of two philanthropic causes financially supported by Vanderbilt. The Commodore never expressed any desire that the university be named after himself, but McTyeire and his fellow trustees rechristened the school "Vanderbilt University." Vanderbilt died in 1877 without seeing the school named after him.
In the fall of 1875, about 200 students enrolled at Vanderbilt, and in October the university was dedicated. Bishop McTyeire was named chairman of the Board of Trust for life by Vanderbilt as a stipulation of his endowment. McTyeire named Landon Garland
Landon Garland
-Biography:He graduated with first honors from Hampden-Sydney College in 1829. He taught chemistry and natural philosophy at Washington College , c1829-1830, and taught chemistry and natural history at Randolph-Macon College, 1833-1834, eventually being elected chair of the department. In 1837, he...
, his mentor
Mentor
In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcimus or Anchialus. In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus' foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus' palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.When Athena visited Telemachus she...
from Randolph-Macon College
Randolph-Macon College
Randolph–Macon College is a private, co-educational liberal arts college located in Ashland, Virginia, United States, near the capital city of Richmond. Founded in 1830, the school has an enrollment of over 1,200 students...
in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
and then-Chancellor
Chancellor (education)
A chancellor or vice-chancellor is the chief executive of a university. Other titles are sometimes used, such as president or rector....
of the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
, as chancellor. Garland shaped the school's structure and hired the school's faculty, many of whom were renowned scholars in their respective fields. However, most of this crop of star faculty left after disputes with Bishop McTyeire.
Split with the Methodist Church
General conference (United Methodist Church)
The General Conference of The United Methodist Church is the denomination's top legislative body for all matters affecting the United Methodist connection...
(the governing body) of the Methodist Episcopal Church
Methodist Episcopal Church
The Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of...
, South. Tension grew between the university administration and the Conference over the future of the school, particularly over the methods by which members of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust would be chosen, and the extent that non-Methodists could teach at the school.
Conflicts escalated after James H. Kirkland
James Hampton Kirkland
James Hampton Kirkland was the second chancellor of Vanderbilt University. He was elected chancellor at the age of 33 and remained in this function until 1937, thus becoming one of the longest-serving university administrators in U.S. history...
was appointed chancellor in 1893. Then the Southern Methodist Church congregations raised just $50,000 in a campaign to raise $300,000.
In 1905, the Board of Trust voted to limit Methodist representation on the board to just five bishops. Former faculty member and bishop Elijah Hoss led a group attempting to assert Methodist control. In 1910, the Board refused to seat three Methodist bishops. The Methodist Church took the issue to court and won at the local level. On March 21, 1914, the Tennessee Supreme Court
Tennessee Supreme Court
The Tennessee Supreme Court is the state supreme court of the state of Tennessee. Cornelia Clark is the current Chief Justice.Unlike other states, in which the state attorney general is directly elected or appointed by the governor or state legislature, the Tennessee Supreme Court appoints the...
ruled that the Commodore, and not the Methodist Church, was the university's founder and that the board could therefore seat whomever it wished. The General Conference in 1914 voted 151 to 140 to sever its ties with Vanderbilt; it also voted to establish a new university, Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University is a private university in Dallas, Texas, United States. Founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, SMU operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Taos, New Mexico. SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church...
, and to greatly expand Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
.
1920s and 1930s
Vanderbilt enjoyed early intellectual influence during the 1920s and 1930s when it hosted two partly overlapping groups of scholars who had a large impact on American thought and letters: the Fugitives and the AgrariansSouthern Agrarians
The Southern Agrarians were a group of twelve American writers, poets, essayists, and novelists, all with roots in the Southern United States, who joined together to write a pro-Southern agrarian manifesto, a...
. During the same period, Ernest William Goodpasture
Ernest William Goodpasture
Dr. Ernest William Goodpasture was an American pathologist and physician. Goodpasture advanced the scientific understanding of the pathogenesis of infectious diseases, parasitism, and a variety of rickettsial and viral infections...
and his colleagues in the School of Medicine
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is a medical school located in Nashville, TN. Currently ranked 15th out of 126 accredited medical schools in the U.S News & World Report 2010 rankings, the school of medicine has a reputation as a center of research and high-quality clinical care. Vanderbilt...
invented methods for cultivating virus
Virus
A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...
es and rickettsiae in fertilized chicken eggs. This work made possible the production of vaccine
Vaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...
s against chicken pox, smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
, Rocky mountain spotted fever
Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Rocky Mountain spotted fever is the most lethal and most frequently reported rickettsial illness in the United States. It has been diagnosed throughout the Americas. Some synonyms for Rocky Mountain spotted fever in other countries include “tick typhus,” “Tobia fever” , “São Paulo fever” or “febre...
and other diseases caused by agents that only propagate in living cells.
World War II
During World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Vanderbilt was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Civil Rights movement
In the late 1950s, the Vanderbilt Divinity SchoolVanderbilt Divinity School
The Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion is an interdenominational divinity school at Vanderbilt University, a major research university located in Nashville, Tennessee...
became a hotbed of the emerging civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, and the university expelled
Expulsion (academia)
Expulsion or exclusion refers to the permanent removal of a student from a school system or university for violating that institution's rules. Laws and procedures regarding expulsion vary between countries and states.-State sector:...
one of the movement's leaders, James Lawson
James Lawson
James Morris Lawson, Jr. was a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the American Civil Rights Movement. He continues to be active in training activists in nonviolence.-Background:...
. In 2005, Lawson was re-hired as a Distinguished University Professor for the 2006–07 academic year, and named a Distinguished Alumnus for his achievements.
The university drew national attention in 1966 when it recruited Perry Wallace
Perry Wallace
Perry Wallace is a professor of law at Washington College of Law. He was the first African American varsity athlete in the Southeastern Conference, playing basketball for Vanderbilt University.-Education:...
, the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
athlete in the Southeastern Conference. Wallace, from Nashville, played varsity basketball for Vanderbilt from 1967–1970, and faced considerable opposition from segregationists when playing at other SEC venues. In 2004, a student-led drive to retire Wallace's jersey finally succeeded. Harold Stirling Vanderbilt
Harold Stirling Vanderbilt
Harold Stirling Vanderbilt was an American railroad executive, a champion yachtsman, a champion bridge player and a member of the Vanderbilt family.-Background:...
was chairman of the Board of Trust between 1955 and 1968 when racial integration
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
was a prominent topic at the school. Today, a statue of him in front of Buttrick Hall memorial
Memorial
A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, and even entire parks....
izes his efforts.
In 1966, the Oberlin
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
Graduate School of Theology moved from Ohio to Nashville, and merged with the Vanderbilt Divinity School. In 1979, Vanderbilt absorbed its neighbor, Peabody College
Peabody College
Peabody College of Education and Human Development was founded in 1875 when the University of Nashville, located in Nashville, Tennessee, split into two separate educational institutions...
.
History, race, and civil rights issues came to the forefront on the campus in 2002, when the university decided to rename Confederate Memorial Hall, a residence hall on the Peabody campus as Memorial Hall. Nationwide attention resulted, in part due to a lawsuit by the Tennessee chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy
United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy is a women's heritage association dedicated to honoring the memory of those who served in the military and died in service to the Confederate States of America . UDC began as the National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy, organized in 1894 by...
, who had helped pay for the building's construction in 1933 with a $50,000 contribution.
The Davidson County Chancery Court dismissed the lawsuit in 2003, but the Tennessee Court of Appeals
Tennessee Court of Appeals
The Tennessee Court of Appeals was created in 1925 by the Tennessee General Assembly as an intermediate appellate court to hear appeals in civil cases from the Tennessee state trial courts....
ruled in May 2005 that the university must pay damages based on the present value of the United Daughters of the Confederacy's contribution if the inscription bearing the name "Confederate Memorial Hall" was removed from the building or altered.
In late July 2005, the university announced that although it had officially renamed the building and all university publications and offices will refer to it solely as Memorial Hall, the university would neither appeal the matter further, nor remove the inscription and pay damages.
Organization and administration
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
. Each trustee serves a five-year term (except for four recently-graduated alumni, who serve two two-year terms). Mark Dalton
Mark Dalton (businessman)
Mark Dalton is an American businessman. He is the CEO of the Tudor Investment Corporation. In June 2011, he became the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Vanderbilt University.-Biography:...
is the board's chairman.
Nicholas S. Zeppos
Nicholas S. Zeppos
Nicholas S. Zeppos is the eighth Chancellor of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.-Biography:Zeppos received both his B.A. in history and his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Prior to joining the faculty of the Vanderbilt Law School in 1987, he was a practicing attorney in...
currently serves as chancellor of Vanderbilt University. He was appointed interim chancellor after the departure of Gordon Gee
Gordon Gee
Elwood Gordon Gee is an American academic. He is in his second term as the president of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio; he was previously president from 1990 to 1998....
, who left to reassume the presidency of Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
on August 1, 2007, and was named chancellor in his own right on March 1, 2008.
Administration history
Gee had been appointed chancellor by the Board of Trust in February 2000. Controversy arose in 2006 over Gee's spending during his tenure at Vanderbilt, including the over $6 million spent on remodeling his university-owned house. An article in The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
in September of that year examining the spending of college and university executives used Gee and Vanderbilt as an example of the lax oversight common to higher education. The Board of Trust has since established a committee to monitor more closely the spending by the chancellor's office.
Since the opening of the university in 1875, only six other individuals have served as chancellor. Landon Garland was the university's first chancellor, serving from 1875 to 1893. Garland organized the university and hired its first faculty. Garland Hall, an academic building on campus, is named in his honor.
The next chancellor was James Kirkland
James Hampton Kirkland
James Hampton Kirkland was the second chancellor of Vanderbilt University. He was elected chancellor at the age of 33 and remained in this function until 1937, thus becoming one of the longest-serving university administrators in U.S. history...
—serving from 1893 to 1937, he had the longest tenure of any Vanderbilt chancellor. He was responsible for severing the university's ties with the Methodist Church and relocating the medical school to the main campus. Vanderbilt's Main Building was renamed Kirkland Hall after Kirkland left in 1937.
The longest-tenured chancellor was followed by one of the shortest-tenured. Oliver Carmichael
Oliver Carmichael
Oliver Cromwell Carmichael served as the third chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 1937 to 1946.-Biography:...
served Vanderbilt for just nine years, 1937 to 1946. Carmichael developed the graduate school, and established the Joint University Libraries for Vanderbilt, Peabody, and Scarritt College. Carmichael Towers, a set of high-rise dormitories on the northern edge of campus, were named for Chancellor Carmichael.
Harvie Branscomb
Bennett Harvie Branscomb served as the fourth chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 1946 to 1963.-Biography:...
. Branscomb presided over a period of major growth and improvement at the university that lasted from 1946 until 1963. He was responsible for opening the admissions policy to all races. Branscomb Quadrangle is a residence hall complex named for the chancellor.
Alexander Heard
G. Alexander Heard
George Alexander Heard was chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 1963 to 1982. He was also a political scientist and adviser to U.S...
, for whom the campus's 10-library system (with 3.3 million total volumes) is named, served as chancellor from 1963 to 1982. During his 20-year tenure, the Owen Graduate School of Management
Owen Graduate School of Management
The Owen Graduate School of Management is the graduate business school of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1969, Owen awards six degrees: a standard 2-year Master of Business Administration , an Executive MBA, a master's of finance, a master's of accountancy, a HealthCare...
was founded, and Vanderbilt's merger with Peabody College was negotiated. He also survived calls for his ouster because of his accommodating stance on desegregation.
Joe B. Wyatt
Joe B. Wyatt
Joe B. Wyatt served as the sixth chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 1982 to 2000.-Biography:A native of Texas, he received degrees in mathematics from Texas Christian University and the University of Texas. In 1956 he worked as a computer scientist for General Dynamics Corporation...
was the chancellor who served immediately before Gee, from 1982 until 2000. Wyatt oversaw a great increase in the university's endowment, an increase in student diversity, and the renovation of many campus buildings. Wyatt placed great emphasis on improving the quality faculty and instruction, and during his tenure Vanderbilt rose to the top 25 in the U.S. News & World Reports annual rankings for the first time. The Wyatt Center on Peabody's campus is named for Wyatt and his wife.
Medical Center
The Vanderbilt University Medical CenterVanderbilt University Medical Center
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center is a collection of several hospitals and clinics, as well as the schools of medicine and nursing associated with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.It comprises the following units:...
is a vital component of the university and is the only Level I Trauma Center in Middle Tennessee. VUMC comprises the following units: Vanderbilt University Hospital, Monroe Carell, Jr., Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital, Vanderbilt Clinic, Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center, Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital, Eskind Biomedical Library, Vanderbilt Sports Medicine, Dayani Human Performance Center, Vanderbilt Page Campbell Heart Institute, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is a medical school located in Nashville, TN. Currently ranked 15th out of 126 accredited medical schools in the U.S News & World Report 2010 rankings, the school of medicine has a reputation as a center of research and high-quality clinical care. Vanderbilt...
, and Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing is one of the graduate schools of Vanderbilt University, located in Nashville, Tennessee. VUSN is continuous with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which is known for its highly acclaimed teaching hospital and its groundbreaking efforts in...
.
With over 21,500 employees (including 2,876 full-time faculty), Vanderbilt is the largest private employer in Middle Tennessee and the second largest in the state (after FedEx
FedEx
FedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee...
, headquartered in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
). Approximately 74% of the university's faculty and staff are employed by the Medical Center. In 2008, the medical center was placed on the Honor Roll of U.S. News & World Reports annual rating of the nation's best hospitals for the third time, ranking 15th overall in the country, and 17 of the faculty were members of one of the National Academies
United States National Academies
The United States National Academies comprises four organizations:* National Academy of Sciences * National Academy of Engineering * Institute of Medicine * National Research Council...
. In 2004, the university reported that 24.1% of non-Medical Center faculty were women, while 14.4% were of a racial or ethnic minority.
Students and faculty
Profile
As of December 2009, Vanderbilt had an enrollment of 6,794 undergraduate and 5,720 graduate and professional students. Students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries attend Vanderbilt, with 60% of the total student body coming from outside the Southeast; 8% of students are from outside the United States. Moreover, 24% of the undergraduate class of 2010 was non-Caucasian, while roughly half were women.Vanderbilt offers undergraduates the chance to pursue 70 majors
Academic major
In the United States and Canada, an academic major or major concentration is the academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits....
, or the chance to create their own, in its four undergraduate schools and colleges: the College of Arts and Science
Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science
The College of Arts and Science is a liberal arts college at Vanderbilt University located in Nashville, Tennessee. The College confers the Bachelor of Arts degree on undergraduates, and, in conjunction with the Graduate School, the Master of Arts, Master of Science, and the Doctor of Philosophy...
, the School of Engineering
Vanderbilt University School of Engineering
The School of Engineering provides undergraduate and graduate education in engineering and the engineering sciences at Vanderbilt University, a major research university located in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1879, the Vanderbilt School of Engineering is the oldest private school of...
, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, and Blair School of Music
Blair School of Music
The Blair School of Music provides undergraduate conservatory-style education in music performance, theory, and history at Vanderbilt University, a major research university located in Nashville, Tennessee...
. The university also has six graduate and professional schools, including the Divinity School, Graduate School
Vanderbilt University Graduate School
The Graduate School manages many of the advanced degree programs of Vanderbilt University, a major research university located in Nashville, Tennessee. While the Graduate School exists as a standalone institution within Vanderbilt, it awards degrees in conjunction with Vanderbilt's other...
, Law School
Vanderbilt University Law School
Vanderbilt University Law School is a graduate school of Vanderbilt University. Established in 1874, it is one of the oldest law schools in the southern United States. Vanderbilt Law has consistently ranked among the top 20 law schools in the nation, and is currently ranked 16th in the 2012...
, School of Medicine
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is a medical school located in Nashville, TN. Currently ranked 15th out of 126 accredited medical schools in the U.S News & World Report 2010 rankings, the school of medicine has a reputation as a center of research and high-quality clinical care. Vanderbilt...
, School of Nursing
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing is one of the graduate schools of Vanderbilt University, located in Nashville, Tennessee. VUSN is continuous with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which is known for its highly acclaimed teaching hospital and its groundbreaking efforts in...
, and Owen Graduate School of Management.
The university's undergraduate programs are highly selective: in 2010, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions accepted 16.3% of applicants. In its most recent annual comparison of admissions selectivity, The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review is an American-based standardized test preparation and admissions consulting company. The Princeton Review operates in 41 states and 22 countries across the globe. It offers test preparation for standardized aptitude tests such as the SAT and advice regarding college...
gave Vanderbilt a rating of 99 out of 99. The freshmen in the Class of 2013 had standardized test scores that were well above average: the interquartile range (25th percentile-75th percentile) of SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
scores was 1440-1540 under the old scale, while the interquartile range of ACT
ACT (examination)
The ACT is a standardized test for high school achievement and college admissions in the United States produced by ACT, Inc. It was first administered in November 1959 by Everett Franklin Lindquist as a competitor to the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test, now the SAT Reasoning Test...
scores was 31-34.
Research
As with any large research institution, Vanderbilt investigators work in a broad range of disciplines, and the university was among the top 25 recipients of federal research dollars in 2006. In 2007, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine ranked 10th in terms of NIH funding ($282.3 million). Its Institute for Space and Defense ElectronicsInstitute for Space and Defense Electronics
The Institute for Space and Defense Electronics is a research facility at Vanderbilt University, a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee...
, housed in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is the largest such academic facility in the world.
Among its more unusual activities, the university has institutes devoted to the study of coffee and of bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
. Indeed, the modern form of the latter was developed by Harold Stirling Vanderbilt
Harold Stirling Vanderbilt
Harold Stirling Vanderbilt was an American railroad executive, a champion yachtsman, a champion bridge player and a member of the Vanderbilt family.-Background:...
, a former president of the university's Board of Trust and a great-grandson of the Commodore. In addition, in mid-2004 it was announced that Vanderbilt's chemical biology
Chemical biology
Chemical biology is a scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology that involves the application of chemical techniques and tools, often compounds produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and manipulation of biological systems. This is a subtle difference from...
research may have serendipitously opened the door to the breeding of a blue rose
Blue rose
Blue roses, often portrayed in literature and art as a symbol of love and prosperity to those who seek it, do not exist in nature as a result of genetic limitations being imposed upon natural variance. Traditionally, white roses have been dyed blue to produce a blue appearance. In 2004, researchers...
, something that has long been coveted by horticulturalists
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...
and rose lovers.
Vanderbilt's research record is blemished, however, by a study university researchers, in conjunction with the Tennessee Department of Health, conducted on iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
metabolism
Metabolism
Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...
during pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
in the 1940s. Between 1945 and 1949, over 800 pregnant women were given radioactive iron. Standards of informed consent
Informed consent
Informed consent is a phrase often used in law to indicate that the consent a person gives meets certain minimum standards. As a literal matter, in the absence of fraud, it is redundant. An informed consent can be said to have been given based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the...
for research subjects were not rigorously enforced at that time, and many of the women were not informed of the potential risks. The injections were later suspected to have caused cancer in at least three of the children who were born to these mothers. In 1998, the university settled a class action lawsuit
Class action
In law, a class action, a class suit, or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued...
with the mothers and surviving children for $10.3 million.
Exploration is the university's online research magazine. It publishes multimedia stories that explain campus research projects ranging from archeology to zoology
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
, probe the motives of the explorers that perform these studies, and describe the experiences of Vanderbilt students who become involved in scientific research. Vanderbilt undergraduates also publish a journal of original research. Vanderbilt is a member of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities
Oak Ridge Associated Universities
Oak Ridge Associated Universities is a consortium of American and British universities headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with an office in Washington, D.C., and staff at several other locations across the country.- History :...
and the Universities Space Research Association
Universities Space Research Association
The Universities Space Research Association was incorporated on March 12, 1969 in the District of Columbia as a private, nonprofit corporation under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences . Institutional membership in the Association has grown from 49 colleges and universities when it was...
.
Rankings
In its 2012 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked Vanderbilt 17th, tied with Rice UniversityRice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
, among all national universities. Most notably, in the same publication's 2010 and 2011 graduate program rankings, the Peabody College of Education was ranked first in the nation among schools of education. In addition, the Vanderbilt Law School was listed at 16th, the School of Medicine was listed at 15th among research-oriented medical school
Medical school
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution—or part of such an institution—that teaches medicine. Degree programs offered at medical schools often include Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Bachelor/Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, master's degree, or other post-secondary...
s, the School of Nursing was listed at 15th, the School of Engineering was listed at 37th, and the Owen Graduate School of Management was listed at 28th among business schools. Additionally, Vanderbilt is ranked first in the nation in the fields of special education
Special education
Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
, audiology
Audiology
Audiology is the branch of science that studies hearing, balance, and related disorders. Its practitioners, who treat those with hearing loss and proactively prevent related damage are audiologists. Employing various testing strategies Audiology (from Latin , "to hear"; and from Greek , -logia) is...
, and education administration. The Wall Street Journal ranked Owen second among "smaller" business schools in 2004. In 2008, Owen was ranked #30 by BusinessWeek
BusinessWeek
Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...
. In The Times Higher Education Supplement
The Times Higher Education Supplement
The Times Higher Education , formerly Times Higher Education Supplement , is a weekly British magazine based in London reporting specifically on news and other issues related to higher education...
2011, Vanderbilt is ranked 31st in North America and 51st worldwide. The Academic Ranking of World Universities
Academic Ranking of World Universities
The Academic Ranking of World Universities , commonly known as the Shanghai ranking, is a publication that was founded and compiled by the Shanghai Jiaotong University to rank universities globally. The rankings have been conducted since 2003 and updated annually...
ranks Vanderbilt as the 53rd best university in the globe. In 2011 QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....
ranked Vanderbilt university 131st in the world. Human Resources & Labor Review, a national human competitiveness index & analysis, ranked the university as one of 50 Best World Universities in 2011. The 2007 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index
Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index
The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index , a product of Academic Analytics, is a metric designed to create benchmark standards for the measurement of academic and scholarly quality within and among United States research universities....
, a measure of the scholarly output of the faculty of nearly 7,300 doctoral programs around the United States, ranked Vanderbilt 8th among large research universities, and 1st in the areas of comparative literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
, educational leadership, pharmacology
Pharmacology
Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and special education. Poets & Writers
Poets & Writers
Poets & Writers, Inc. is one of the largest nonprofit literary organization in the United States serving poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers...
ranked Vanderbilt's English Department's MFA Program in Creative Writing 18th among the top 50 writing programs in the United States in 2010 and 14th in the United States in 2011. Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
magazine ranked Vanderbilt among the top 100 places to work in the United States, the only university on their list.
Campus layout
The oldest part of the Vanderbilt campus is known for its abundance of trees and green space, which stand in contrast to the surrounding cityscape of urban Nashville. The campus was designated as a national arboretum in 1988 by the Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, and over 300 species of trees and shrubs can be found on campus, including one of every species of tree that is indigenous to the state of Tennessee. One tree, the Bicentennial Oak between Rand Hall and Garland Hall, is certified to have lived during the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
and is the oldest living thing on the campus.
Main campus
Flanking the original campus to the south are the Stevenson Center for Science and Mathematics and the School of Engineering complex (Jacobs Hall-Featheringill Hall). Housing the Science Library, the School of Engineering, and all the science and math departments of the College of Arts and Science, this complex sits between the original campus and the Medical Center. The Vanderbilt University Medical Center itself takes up the southeastern part of the campus. Besides the various associated hospitals and clinics and the facilities of the Schools of Medicine and Nursing, the medical center also houses many major research facilities.
West of the original campus and the Medical Center, Greek Row and the bulk of the Vanderbilt residence halls are found. From north to south, Carmichael Towers, Greek Row, Branscomb Quadrangle, and Highland Quadrangle house the vast majority of on-campus residents in facilities ranging from the double-occupancy shared-bathroom dorms in Branscomb and Towers to the apartments and lodges in Highland Quadrangle. This part of campus is newer than the others; Vanderbilt's westward growth did not start until the 1950s. This portion of campus was built by tearing down small single family houses and duplexes dating from the early 20th century, and so the area has significantly less green space than the arboretum on the original campus and is more indicative of the university's urban locale.
Memorial Gymnasium
Memorial Gymnasium (Vanderbilt University)
Memorial Gymnasium is a multi-purpose facility located in Nashville, Tennessee. Usually called Memorial Gym or simply Memorial, the building is located on the western end of the Vanderbilt University campus. It was built in 1952 and currently has a seating capacity of 14,316...
, Vanderbilt Stadium
Vanderbilt Stadium
Vanderbilt Stadium at Dudley Field is a football stadium located in Nashville, Tennessee. Completed in 1922 as the first stadium in the South to be used exclusively for college football, it is the home of the Vanderbilt University football team...
, Hawkins Field
Hawkins Field
Hawkins Field is a baseball stadium in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the home field of the Vanderbilt Commodores college baseball team. The stadium opened in 2002 adjacent to Vanderbilt Stadium and Memorial Gymnasium and holds 3,700 people...
, McGugin Center, and all the other varsity athletic fields and facilities are to be found in the extreme west of campus. The Student Recreation Center and its associated intramural fields are located south of the varsity facilities.
Peabody campus
Directly across 21st Avenue from the Medical Center sits the campus of the Peabody College of Education and Human Development. Due to their separate histories until the merger, the Peabody campus was configured in a radically different style than the original Vanderbilt campus. Whereas the latter has an unplanned organic design with buildings scattered throughout, Peabody campus was planned as a geometric design, similar to the JeffersonianJeffersonian architecture
Jeffersonian Architecture is an American form of Neo-Classicism or Neo-Palladianism embodied in American president and polymath Thomas Jefferson's designs for his home , his retreat , his school , and his designs for the homes of friends and political allies...
style of the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
. The campus is home not only to Peabody College but also to The Commons, where all freshmen live together as part of the College Halls plan. While freshman are now residents of The Commons, it was first inhabited by sophomores before being transformed into a center for first-year living.
Student life
Organizations
The university recognizes nearly 400 student organizations, ranging from academic major societies and honoraries to recreational sports clubs, the oldest of which is the Vanderbilt Sailing ClubVanderbilt Sailing Club
The Vanderbilt University Sailing Club was founded in 1962 with an initial grant from Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, then the chairman of the University's Board of Trust...
. There are also more than 50 service organizations on campus, including the Vanderbilt-founded Alternative Spring Break, giving students the opportunity to perform community service across the country and around the world.
Despite the lack of an organized journalism curriculum, no less than ten editorially-independent media outlets are produced and controlled by students. In addition, a sportswriting scholarship, named for Vanderbilt alumni Fred Russell
Fred Russell
Fred Russell was an American sports writer prominent in the Golden Era of Sports in the 20th century...
and Grantland Rice
Grantland Rice
Grantland Rice was an early 20th century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. His writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio.-Biography:...
, is awarded each year to an entering Vanderbilt freshman who intends to pursue a career in sportswriting. Vanderbilt Student Communications, Inc., (VSC) owns eight print publications, a broadcast radio station, and a closed-circuit television station. One publication, The Vanderbilt Hustler, was established in 1888 and is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Nashville (the newspaper's name references another nickname for the Commodore based on his cutthroat business practices, i.e., that he "hustled" people out of their money). The on-campus radio station, WRVU
WRVU
WRVU is a college radio station broadcasting a Variety radio format; though it originally broadcast on 91.1 FM, the station now broadcasts over an HD Radio subchannel and streams to internet radio listeners. Licensed to Nashville, Tennessee, USA, the station serves Vanderbilt University...
, represents the student body by playing a range of music from bluegrass to choral, with a focus on non-mainstream music, and students may also have their own talk radio show, while the campus television station, Vanderbilt Television (VTV), showcases student-produced films, skits, and news and entertainment-based shows.
VSC was formed as a not-for-profit corporation in 1967 to insulate the university from potential liability and to maintain journalistic independence after a series of controversial articles published by The Hustler. During the 1970s, VSC funded a visiting journalist position to provide advice and counsel to its various operating units. Initially, the directors of VSC included a faculty chairman of the board of directors, several student directors, and an outside journalist director. Among the earlier journalist directors was John Seigenthaler
John Seigenthaler
John Lawrence Seigenthaler is an American journalist, writer, and political figure. He is known as a prominent defender of First Amendment rights....
, the then-president, publisher, and editor of The Tennessean
The Tennessean
The Tennessean is the principal daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Its circulation area covers 39 counties in Middle Tennessee and eight counties in southern Kentucky....
, who also played an instrumental role in the creation of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
.
Additional student publications include those published by the Vanderbilt University Law School, which publishes three law review
Law review
A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association...
s; the flagship journal is the Vanderbilt Law Review
Vanderbilt Law Review
The Vanderbilt Law Review is Vanderbilt University Law School's flagship academic journal. The law review is published six times per year. The Vanderbilt Law Review is 18th among general-topic law reviews, based upon the number of times its articles are cited.-External links:*...
.
Greeks are an active part of the social scene on and off campus, and the university is home to 14 fraternities and 10 sororities as of Spring 2011. As of 2006–2007, 35% of men were members of fraternities and 49% of women were members of sororities, or 42% of the total undergraduate population.
In 2011, four Christian student organizations were placed on probation due to non-compliance with the university's 'nondiscrimination policy', which states that groups may not require their leaders to share the "beliefs, goals and values" embodied in the group.
Honor Code
Since the first classes began at Vanderbilt, the Honor System has served to strengthen the academic integrity of the university. Its principles were outlined in a famous quote by long-time Dean of Students Madison Sarratt:As a part of their first act together as a class, each Vanderbilt class meets together at the Honor Code Signing Ceremony, where every member of the class pledges their honor and signs the code. The signature pages are then hung in Sarratt Student Center. The ceremony is one of only two occasions where a class will be congregated in a single place at the same time (the other being Commencement).
The Undergraduate Honor Council was formed to help enforce and protect the tradition of the Honor Code. Today, the Honor Council serves two simultaneous aims: to enforce and protect the Honor Code and to inform members of the Vanderbilt community about the Honor System.
Student housing
Davidson County, Tennessee
Davidson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2010, the population was 626,681. Its county seat is Nashville.In 1963, the City of Nashville and the Davidson County government merged, so the county government is now known as the "Metropolitan Government of Nashville and...
are required to live on campus all four years to the extent that on-campus student housing facilities can accommodate them. In practice, though, approximately 83% of undergraduates—freshmen, sophomores, nearly all juniors and most seniors—currently live on campus. The remaining undergraduates join graduate and professional students in living off-campus. Student life at Vanderbilt is consequently heavily intertwined with campus life.
However, the on-campus residential system is currently undergoing a radical change. The new system, announced by the administration in 2002, would change the current structure of quadrangle-based residence halls to a new system of residential colleges, to be called "College Halls". Similar to the residential structures at Caltech
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
, Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Rice
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
, and Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, the new College Halls system would create residence halls where students and faculty would live together in a self-contained environment, complete with study rooms, cafeterias, laundry facilities, and stores. This project is now underway and is scheduled to be completed within the next 20 years.
The first step in the College Halls system is The Commons, a collection of ten residential halls on the Peabody campus that houses all first-year students. It is hoped that The Commons will give first-year students a unified (and unifying) living-learning experience. Vanderbilt renovated five existing residence halls on Peabody and built five new halls to complement them. Two of the new residence halls have received LEED
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....
silver certification and the new Commons Dining Center has received gold certification, making Vanderbilt the only university in the state to be recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council
United States Green Building Council
The U.S. Green Building Council , co-founded by Mike Italiano, David Gottfried and Rick Fedrizzi in 1993, is a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built, and operated...
. The university expects all five of the new residence halls and one renovated residence hall to eventually receive LEED recognition. The total cost of The Commons construction project is expected to be over $150 million.
With the addition of these new residence halls, the university will be able to house all undergraduate students on campus. Since university policy requires undergraduates to live on campus when possible, Vanderbilt's Office of Housing and Residential Education does not grant students permission to live off campus. Many current students who came to Vanderbilt with the understanding that seniors were generally allowed to live off campus are now disappointed that they must live on campus all four years. However, university administrators believe the undergraduate community receives the greatest benefit from living in on-campus residence halls, citing increased interaction with faculty, better academic performance, and stronger interpersonal relationships.
The university will break ground in May 2012 on Kissam College Halls, two colleges that will each house about 330 upperclass students–a mixture of sophomores, juniors and seniors–and be led by faculty directors in residence. Each college will also be divided into two halls led by a graduate fellow. The six existing Kissam Quadrangle buildings, located near the intersection of West End Avenue and 21st Avenue South, will be demolished to make way for the two colleges that will be connected by a shared facility providing gathering space, “grab-and-go” dining options, a classroom, offices and meeting rooms.
The $115 million project, a top initiative of Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos, is expected to be complete in fall 2014. Funding for the project will be provided entirely through philanthropy and internal resources.
Athletics
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...
and is the conference's only private school. The university fields six men's and nine women's intercollegiate teams. With fewer than 6,600 undergraduates, the school is also the smallest in the conference; the SEC's next-smallest school, the University of Mississippi, has nearly twice as many undergraduate students. Additionally, the school is a member of the American Lacrosse Conference
American Lacrosse Conference
The American Lacrosse Conference is a NCAA Division I women's lacrosse-only college athletic conference whose members are located in the Midwest, on the East Coast, and increasingly in the Southeastern states from Illinois to Florida....
for women's lacrosse
Women's lacrosse
Women's lacrosse, sometimes shortened to wlax or lax, is a sport played with twelve players on each team. Originally played by the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the first tribe to play it was the Hauser tribe, of the Great Plains. The modern women's game was introduced in 1890 at the St...
, as the SEC does not sponsor that sport. Conversely, Vanderbilt is the only league school not to field teams in softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
and volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, but has discussed adding either or both sports in the future.
Men's and women's tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
and men's
Vanderbilt Commodores men's basketball
The Vanderbilt Commodores men's basketball team represents Vanderbilt University in the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference . The Commodores have won three SEC regular season titles . They have competed in ten NCAA Tournaments, making it to the Elite Eight once and the Sweet 16 six times...
and women's basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
are traditionally Vanderbilt's strongest sports. Both teams play in quirky Memorial Gym, built in 1952. Memorial Gym is noted for the location of the team benches on the baselines, the four separate sections of stands on the four sides of the court, the distance of the stands from the court and the elevation of the court above the first few rows of seats on each sideline. The homecourt advantage Vanderbilt has enjoyed has been nicknamed "Memorial Magic". The more recently founded women's lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
and bowling
Bowling
Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
programs as well as the long-standing men's baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
program are also experiencing moderate national success. After enjoying success in the first half of the 20th century, the football program
Vanderbilt Commodores football
The Vanderbilt Commodores football program is a college football team that represents Vanderbilt University. The team currently competes in NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the Southeastern Conference...
has generally struggled in more recent times. However, the 2008 Commodore football team finished with its first winning season in over 25 years and with its first postseason win
2008 Music City Bowl
The 2008 Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl was the eleventh edition of the college football bowl game played at LP Field in Nashville, Tennessee. The game started at 2:30 pm US CST on Wednesday, December 31, 2008. The game, telecast on ESPN, pitted the Vanderbilt Commodores against the Boston...
in over 50 years.
Athletics restructuring
Baseball America
Baseball America is a magazine which covers baseball at every level, with a particular focus on up-and-coming players in high school, college, Japan, and the minor leagues. It is currently published in the form of a bi-weekly newspaper, five annual reference book titles, a weekly podcast, and a...
, made the NCAA field again in 2006, and won the 2007 SEC regular-season and tournament championships. Vanderbilt was ranked first in most polls for a large portion of the 2007 season, and the team secured the top seed in the 2007 NCAA tournament
2007 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament
The 2007 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament was held from June 1-24, . Sixty four NCAA Division I college baseball teams advanced to the post season tournament after having played through a regular season, and for some, a conference tournament....
.
Mascot
Vanderbilt's intercollegiate athletics teams are nicknamed the Commodores, in honor of the nickname given to Cornelius Vanderbilt, who made his fortune in shipping. Students and alumni refer to Vanderbilt athletic teams as the "Dores" and use several cheers, including "Who ya with?" (usually responded with "V! U!") and "Go Dores!"The term commodore
Commodore (rank)
Commodore is a military rank used in many navies that is superior to a navy captain, but below a rear admiral. Non-English-speaking nations often use the rank of flotilla admiral or counter admiral as an equivalent .It is often regarded as a one-star rank with a NATO code of OF-6, but is not always...
was used by the Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
during the mid-to-late 19th century. A commodore was the commanding officer of a task force of ships, and therefore higher in rank than a captain but lower in rank than an admiral. The rank is still used by the British Royal Navy and other Commonwealth countries, but the equivalent modern-day rank in the U.S. Navy is rear admiral lower-half
Rear admiral (United States)
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. The uniformed services of the United States are unique in having two grades of rear admirals.- Rear admiral :...
. Since the term was used most during the 19th century, Vanderbilt's mascot, "Mr. C", is usually portrayed as a naval officer from the late 19th century, complete with mutton chops
Sideburns
Sideburns or sideboards are patches of facial hair grown on the sides of the face, extending from the hairline to below the ears and worn with an unbearded chin...
, cutlass
Cutlass
A cutlass is a short, broad sabre or slashing sword, with a straight or slightly curved blade sharpened on the cutting edge, and a hilt often featuring a solid cupped or basket shaped guard...
, and uniform.
Notable faculty and alumni
Michael Burry
Michael Burry is founder of the Scion Capital LLC hedge fund, which he ran from 2000 until 2008, when he closed the fund to focus on his own personal investments. Burry was one of the first investors in the world to recognize and invest in the impending subprime mortgage crisis...
(M.D.) is founder of the Scion Capital LLC hedge fund and one of the first investors in the world to recognize and invest in the impending subprime mortgage crisis. Lamar Alexander
Lamar Alexander
Andrew Lamar Alexander is the senior United States Senator from Tennessee and Conference Chair of the Republican Party. He was previously the 45th Governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987, United States Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993 under President George H. W...
(B.A.
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
1962) is a former Governor of Tennessee and a current U.S. senator; he filled the seat left vacant by the retirement of Fred Thompson
Fred Dalton Thompson
Fred Dalton Thompson , is an American politician, actor, attorney, lobbyist, columnist, and radio host. He served as a Republican U.S...
(J.D. 1971). Two U.S. vice presidents
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
, John Nance Garner
John Nance Garner
John Nance Garner, IV , was the 32nd Vice President of the United States and the 44th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives .- Early life and family :...
and Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
, attended the university, but did not graduate. However, Gore's ex-wife, Tipper
Tipper Gore
Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Gore , née Aitcheson, is an author, photographer, former second lady of the United States, and the estranged wife of Al Gore...
, is herself an alumna, receiving a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
from Peabody in 1975. Other alumni who are or have been involved in politics include former United States Supreme Court Associate Justice James Clark McReynolds
James Clark McReynolds
James Clark McReynolds was an American lawyer and judge who served as United States Attorney General under President Woodrow Wilson and as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court...
(B.S. 1882); Congressmen Steve Cohen
Steve Cohen
Stephen Ira Cohen is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Tennessee's 9th district includes almost three-fourths of Memphis. Cohen is Tennessee's first Jewish congressman....
(B.A. 1971) and Ric Keller
Ric Keller
Richard Anthony "Ric" Keller is an American politician, and was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing .Keller was defeated in his bid for a fifth term by Democrat Alan Grayson....
(J.D. 1992); David Boaz
David Boaz
David Boaz is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank. He played a key role in the Institute's development and the American libertarian movement....
(B.A. 1975), Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
; and John R. Steelman
John R. Steelman
John Roy Steelman was the first Assistant to the President of the United States, serving President Harry S. Truman from 1946 to 1953. The office later became the White House Chief of Staff....
(M.A. 1924), former White House Chief of Staff
White House Chief of Staff
The White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.The current White House Chief of Staff is Bill Daley.-History:...
. In addition, Senator Theodore Bilbo
Theodore G. Bilbo
Theodore Gilmore Bilbo was an American politician. Bilbo, a Democrat, twice served as governor of Mississippi and later was elected a U.S. Senator . A master of filibuster and scathing rhetoric, a rough-and-tumble fighter in debate, he made his name a synonym for white supremacy...
attended both Peabody College and the Law School. Bill Frist
Bill Frist
William Harrison "Bill" Frist, Sr. is an American physician, businessman, and politician. He began his career as an heir and major stockholder to the for-profit hospital chain of Hospital Corporation of America. Frist later served two terms as a Republican United States Senator representing...
, a cardiothoracic surgeon and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, is a faculty member at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center is a collection of several hospitals and clinics, as well as the schools of medicine and nursing associated with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.It comprises the following units:...
. The Prime Minister of Somalia
Prime Minister of Somalia
This page contains a list of the Prime Ministers of Somalia.-Prime Ministers of Somalia :-Affiliations:*SYL - Somali Youth League*SNL - Somali National League...
, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali
Abdiweli Mohamed Ali
Dr. Abdiweli Mohamed Ali is a Somali economist and politician. He is the Prime Minister of Somalia.-Personal life:Ali is originally from the autonomous Puntland region in northeastern Somalia. He holds both Somali and American citizenship....
, (M.A. 1988) is an alumnus of Peabody College. Alain Connes
Alain Connes
Alain Connes is a French mathematician, currently Professor at the Collège de France, IHÉS, The Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University.-Work:...
, Fields Medalist, is a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics.
Given the university's location in Nashville, it is not surprising that many of its alumni become involved in the music industry. Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...
(B.A. 1938), Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of the late country music singer Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin....
(B.A. 1979), Amy Grant
Amy Grant
Amy Lee Grant is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, media personality and actress, best known for her Christian music. She has been referred to as "The Queen of Christian Pop"...
(B.A. 1982), and Dierks Bentley
Dierks Bentley
Dierks Bentley is an American country music artist who has been signed to Capitol Records Nashville since 2003. That year, he released his self-titled debut album. Both it and its follow-up, 2005's Modern Day Drifter, are certified platinum in the United States. A third album, 2006's Long Trip...
(B.A. 1997) are all alumni. Shore later went on to star in a variety of films; other Vanderbilt alumni with Hollywood connections include Academy Award-winners Delbert Mann
Delbert Mann
Delbert Martin Mann, Jr. was an American television and film director. He won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Marty...
(B.A. 1941) and Tom Schulman
Tom Schulman
Thomas H. Schulman is an American screenwriter most famous for his screenplay Dead Poets Society which won the Best Screenplay Academy Award for 1989....
(B.A. 1972) and actors Molly Sims
Molly Sims
Molly Sims is an American model and actress. Sims is known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues and her role as Delinda Deline in the NBC drama Las Vegas. She is also an ambassador for Operation Smile...
(B.S. 1995) and Joe Bob Briggs
Joe Bob Briggs
John Irving Bloom , who uses the pseudonym Joe Bob Briggs, is a syndicated American film critic, writer and comic performer.-Early years:...
(B.A. 1974).
In addition, the university has a rich literary and journalistic legacy. Most notably, the Southern Agrarians
Southern Agrarians
The Southern Agrarians were a group of twelve American writers, poets, essayists, and novelists, all with roots in the Southern United States, who joined together to write a pro-Southern agrarian manifesto, a...
were a group of influential American writers and poets in the 1920s and 1930s based at Vanderbilt. Three U.S. Poets Laureate
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate—serves as the nation's official poet. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of...
are Vanderbilt alums: Allen Tate
Allen Tate
John Orley Allen Tate was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1944.-Life:...
(B.A. 1922), Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
(B.A. 1925), and Randall Jarrell
Randall Jarrell
Randall Jarrell was an American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist. He was the 11th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a role which now holds the title of US Poet Laureate.-Life:Jarrell was a native of Nashville, Tennessee...
(M.A. 1938). Warren later went on to the win the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
. Novelists James Dickey
James Dickey
James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...
(B.A. 1949) and James Patterson
James Patterson
James B. Patterson is an American author of thriller novels, largely known for his series about American psychologist Alex Cross...
(M.A. 1970) also graduated from Vanderbilt. Famed ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre
Alasdair MacIntyre
Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre is a British philosopher primarily known for his contribution to moral and political philosophy but known also for his work in history of philosophy and theology...
, author of After Virtue
After Virtue
After Virtue is a book on moral philosophy by Alasdair MacIntyre. MacIntyre provides a bleak view of the state of modern moral discourse, regarding it as failing to be rational, and failing to admit to being irrational. He claims that older forms of moral discourse were in better shape,...
, taught there in 1982 and 1985. Bestselling economics writer Ravi Batra
Ravi Batra
Raveendra Nath "Ravi" Batra is an Indian-American economist, author, and professor at Southern Methodist University. Batra is the author of six international bestsellers, two of which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list...
, author of The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism
The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism
The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism is a major work by Ravi Batra in the field of historical evolution, published in 1978. The book's full title is The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism: A New Study of History...
, taught there in 1981. Two well-known sportswriters, Grantland Rice (B.A. 1901) and Fred Russell (B.A. 1927), have a scholarship named after them at the university, and Buster Olney
Buster Olney
Robert Stanbury "Buster" Olney III is a columnist for ESPN: The Magazine, ESPN.com, and covered the New York Giants and New York Yankees for The New York Times. He is also a regular analyst for the ESPN's Baseball Tonight...
(B.A. 1988) writes for ESPN.com and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. Journalist David Brinkley
David Brinkley
David McClure Brinkley was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997....
attended briefly. Skip Bayless
Skip Bayless
Skip Bayless is an American journalist and television personality. Bayless regularly appears on ESPN2's ESPN First Take and its afternoon show 1st and 10. Bayless previously wrote regular columns for ESPN.com and its "Page 2" section.-Schooling and family:Bayless was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma...
(B.A. 1974) of ESPN First Take
ESPN First Take
ESPN First Take is an American morning sports talk program on ESPN2 and ESPN2HD. The show was formerly known as Cold Pizza. The official switch was made on May 7, 2007. Two back-to-back two-hour episodes air each weekday from Monday through Friday, with the live episode airing from 10 a.m...
attended Vanderbilt as a recipient of the Russell-Rice scholarship. Willie Geist
Willie Geist
William "Willie" Geist is host of MSNBC's Way Too Early with Willie Geist, a co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and contributor to several NBC News programs. Geist also hosts a satirical video blog on MSNBC.com called Zeitgeist...
(B.A. 1997) is a host of MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
's Morning Joe
Morning Joe
Morning Joe is a weekday morning talk show on MSNBC, with Joe Scarborough discussing the news of the day in a panel format with co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist. It was created as the replacement for Imus in the Morning, which was canceled in April 2007 after simulcasting on MSNBC since 1996...
.
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
quarterback Jay Cutler
Jay Cutler (American football)
Jay Christopher Cutler is a quarterback for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. He played football at Vanderbilt University. Cutler began his professional football career with the Denver Broncos, who selected him as the 11th overall pick of the 2006 NFL Draft...
(B.S. 2005) is also a Vanderbilt alum and was drafted in the first round of the 2006 NFL Draft
2006 NFL Draft
The 2006 National Football League Draft, the 71st in league history, took place in New York City at Radio City Music Hall on April 29 and April 30, 2006. For the 27th consecutive year, the draft was telecast on ESPN and ESPN2, with additional coverage offered by ESPNU and, for the first time, by...
by the Denver Broncos
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver, Colorado. They are currently members of the West Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
. Offensive tackle Chris Williams
Chris Williams (American football)
Christopher Joseph Williams is an American football offensive guard for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. He was drafted by the Bears 14th overall in the 2008 NFL Draft...
(B.S. 2008) was a first round pick by the Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
in 2008. Vanderbilt also produced the first overall draft pick of Major League Baseball in 2007 with David Price
David Price (baseball)
David Taylor Price is an American Major League Baseball left-handed starting pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays. Price was selected first overall in the 2007 Major League Baseball Draft by the Rays and made his major league debut in September 2008.Price pitched out of the bullpen during the Rays' run...
and the second overall draft pick of Major League Baseball in 2008 with Pedro Alvarez
Pedro Alvarez (baseball)
Pedro Manuel Alvarez Jr. is a Dominican-American professional baseball third baseman with the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball....
. Price and Alvarez were drafted by the then-named Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Tampa Bay Rays
The Tampa Bay Rays are a Major League Baseball team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays are a member of the Eastern Division of MLB's American League. Since their inception in , the club has played at Tropicana Field...
and the Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates are a Major League Baseball club based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They play in the Central Division of the National League, and are five-time World Series Champions...
, respectively. ESPN basketball analyst Carolyn Peck
Carolyn Peck
Carolyn Arlene Peck is an American television sportscaster and former college basketball coach. She was was the head coach for the women's basketball teams of Purdue University and the University of Florida, and also the first head coach-general manager in the history of the WNBA's Orlando Miracle...
was a standout member of the Commodores' basketball program from 1985–1988, eventually becoming a head coach and leading the Purdue Boilermakers women's basketball
Purdue Boilermakers Women's Basketball
The Purdue Boilermakers women's basketball team is a college basketball program that competes in NCAA Division I and the Big Ten Conference. Purdue is rich in tradition and history, holding the record for Big Ten Championships, along with being the only program in the conference to boast winning...
team to a national championship in 1999.
Three alumni, biochemist Stanford Moore
Stanford Moore
Stanford Moore was a U.S. biochemist. He shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1972 Stanford Moore (September 4, 1913 – August 23, 1982) was a U.S. biochemist. He shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1972 Stanford Moore (September 4, 1913 – August 23, 1982) was a U.S. biochemist. He...
(B.A. 1935), economist and microcredit
Microcredit
Microcredit is the extension of very small loans to those in poverty designed to spur entrepreneurship. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credit...
pioneer Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, an institution that provides microcredit to help its clients establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency. In 2006 Yunus and Grameen received the Nobel Peace Prize...
(Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
1971), and former Vice President Al Gore have won the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
. Four current or former members of the faculty also share that distinction: biochemist Stanley Cohen
Stanley Cohen (neurologist)
Stanley Cohen is an American biochemist and Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology and Medicine .He received his bachelor's degree in 1943 from Brooklyn College, where he had double-majored in chemistry and biology. After working as a bacteriologist at a milk processing plant to earn money, he...
, physiologist Earl Sutherland, and pioneer molecular biologist Max Delbrück
Max Delbrück
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück was a German-American biophysicist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Delbrück was born in Berlin, German Empire...
. Nobel laureate and neuroscientist Paul Greengard
Paul Greengard
Paul Greengard is an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons. In 2000, Greengard, Arvid Carlsson and Eric Kandel were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous...
was a visiting scholar. Yunus was also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
in 2009.
See also
- Latin American Public Opinion Project
- Rites of Spring Music FestivalRites of Spring Music FestivalRites of Spring is an annual music festival held at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee in late April.- History :The history of the festival is defined on the Rites of Spring website:- Lineups :2011...
- Southern IvySouthern Ivy"Southern Ivy" is an informal term, and not an official body, that has been used in the U.S. to compare Southern universities to the schools of the Ivy League in some way, usually in academic quality or in social prestige...