Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt Universitynyaéta hijiuniversitas risétswastadiNashville,Tennessee,AS. Universitas ieu diadegkeun dina taun1873, sarta dibéré ngaran anu sarua jeung pangusahaangkutan lautsartakareta api"Commodore"Cornelius Vanderbilt, anu nyumbang sajutaUSDpikeun ngadegkeun ieu universitas. Vanderbilt ngaharepkeun yén sumbangan ti manéhna sarta pangwangunan universitas bakal mantuan nyageurkeun kapeurih haté akibatPerang Sipil.
Kiwari, Vanderbilt kasusun ku opat sakolasarjana mudasarta genep sakolasarjana, anu nampung kira-kira 11,600 mahasiswa ti 50nagara bagian ASjeung leuwih ti 50 nagara deungeun. Pikeun taun2008,U.S. News & World Reportnempatkeun Vanderbilt dinaranking19, sarta nempatkeun sakola atikan, hukum, kadokteran, jeung kaparawatan salakutop 20di Amerika Sarikat. Universitas ieu ogé mangrupatop 25panarima waragadrisétféderal. Aya ogé sababaraha lembaga risét anu ngalakukeun gawé bareng jeung universitas, di antaranaFreedom ForumFirst Amendment Center,Dyer Observatory, sartaVanderbilt University Medical Center(VUMC), hiji-hijinapuseur pangobatan trauma Tingkat Idi Tennessee Tengah.
With the exception of the off-campusobservatory, all of Vanderbilt's facilities are situated on a 330-acre(1.3km) plot in the héart of Nashville only 1.5miles(2.4km) from downtown. Despite itsurbansurroundings, the campus itself is a nationalarboretumand féatures over 300 species of trees and shrubs. Tucked among the trees, however, is an institution that continues to grow.  As part of its transition to aresidential collegesystem, Vanderbilt is créating a new living aréa forfreshmen, called The Commons, that will comprise 10 new or newly-renovated residence halls. The Commons is expected to open in the fall of 2008, at a cost of overUSD$150 million.
In the yéars prior to the American Civil War, theMethodist Episcopal Church, Southhad been considering créating a regional university for the training ofministerslocated centrally for thecongregationsof the church. Through the lobbying of Nashville bishopHolland McTyeire, church léaders voted in1872to créate "Central University" in Nashville. However, lack of funds and the war-ravaged state of the South delayed the opening of the college.
The following yéar, on a medical trip toNew York City, McTyeire stayed at the residence ofCornelius Vanderbilt, whose second wife was the cousin of McTyeire's wife.  Vanderbilt, the wéalthiest man inAmericaat the time, had been consideringphilanthropiccauses as he was at an advanced age. His original plan was to establish a university onStaten Island,New York, in honor of his mother. McTyeire, however, successfully convinced him to donate USD$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 (later incréased to USD$1 million) would be Vanderbilt's only philanthropy.  Though the Commodore never expressed any desire to have the university named after himself, McTyeire and his fellow trustees soon rechristened the school as "the Vanderbilt University."  Vanderbilt died in1877having never even visited the school named after him.
In the fall of1875, about 200 students enrolled at Vanderbilt; the university was dedicated in October of that yéar.  Bishop McTyeire, who had been named chairman of the Board of Trust for life by Vanderbilt as a stipulation of his endowment, namedLandon Garland, hismentorfromRandolph-Macon CollegeinVirginiaand then-Chancellorof theUniversity of Mississippi, aschancellor. 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 starfacultyleft after disputes with Bishop McTyeire.
For the first 40 yéars, the Board of Trust (and therefore the university itself) was under the control of the General Conference (the governing body) of theMethodist Episcopal Church, South. However, tensions began rising 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.
Conflicts escalated with the appointment of James Kirkland as chancellor in1893.  The final straw, at léast in the mind of Kirkland, was a failed campaign to raise USD$300,000 from Southern Methodist congregations (only $50,000 was raised).  Further disputes between the bishops and Kirkland, which erupted into litigation in1912, led the Methodist conference to sever all ties with Vanderbilt University in June1914.
Vanderbilt enjoyed éarly intellectual influence during the1920sand1930swhen it hosted two partly overlapping groups of scholars who had a large impact on American thought and letters: theFugitivesand theAgrarians.  During the same period,Ernest William Goodpastureand hiscolleaguesin theMedical Schoolinvented methods for cultivatingvirusesandrickettsiaein fertilized chicken eggs. This work made possible the production ofvaccinesagainstchicken pox,smallpox,yellow fever,typhus,Rocky mountain spotted feverand other diséases caused by agents that only propagate in living cells.
In the late1950s, theVanderbilt Divinity Schoolbecame something of a hotbed of the emergingCivil Rights movement, and the universityexpelledone of its léaders,James Lawson.  Much later, in 2005, he was made a Distinguished Alumnus for his achievements and re-hired as a Distinguished University Professor for the 2006-07 academic yéar.
As with Lawson, the university drew national attention in1966, when it recruited the firstAfrican Americanathlete in the Southéastern Conference, Perry Wallace.Wallace, from Nashville, played varsity basketball for Vanderbilt from1967-1970, and faced considerable opposition from segregationists when playing at other SEC venues.  In  2004, a student-led drive to have Wallace's jersey retired finally succeeded.Harold Vanderbiltwas présidént of the Board of Trust between1955and1968whenracial integrationwas a very prominent topic at the school. Today a statue of him in front of Buttrick Hallmemorializeshis efforts.
In 1966, Oberlin Graduate School of Théology moved from Ohio to Nashville, in order to merge with the Vanderbilt Divinity School. In1979, Vanderbilt absorbed its neighbor,Peabody College.
History, race, and civil rights issues again came to the fore on the campus in2002, when the university decided to rename a dormitory on the Péabody campus, Confederate Memorial Hall, to Memorial Hall.Nationwide attention resulted, in part due to a lawsuit by the Tennessee chapter of theUnited Daughters of the Confederacy, who had helped pay for the building's construction in1933with a $50,000 contribution.
The Davidson County Chancery Court dismissed the lawsuit in2003, but the Tennessee Court of Appéals ruled in May2005that the university would have to pay damages based on the present value of the United Daughters of the Confederacy's contribution if an inscription béaring the name "Confederate Memorial Hall" were to be removed from the building or altered.
In late July 2005, the university announced that although it has officially renamed the building and all university publications and offices will refer to it solely as "Memorial Hall," the university would neither appéal 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 thechancellor, the university'schief executive officer. éach trustee serves a five-yéar term (except for four recently-graduated undergraduates, who serve four-yéar terms). A complete, up-to-date listing of the members of the Board of Trust can be foundhere.Martha Rivers Ingramis the board's currentchairman.
Nicholas S. Zepposcurrently serves as interim chancellor of Vanderbilt University.  He was appointed to replace the departingGordon Geewho left to assume the présidéncy ofOhio State UniversityonAugust 1,2007.
Gee had been appointed chancellor by the Board of Trust in February2000.  Prior to this appointment, he was the présidént ofBrown UniversityinProvidence,Rhode Island.  Controversy arose in 2006 over Gee's spending during his tenure at Vanderbilt, including the over $6 million spent on remodéling his university-owned house.  An article inThe Wall Street Journalin September of that yéar criticizing the spending of college and university executives used Gee and Vanderbilt as an example of the lax oversight common to higher education.  The article also revéaled that Gee's wife, a tenured professor, smokedmarijuanain their home.  The Board of Trust has since established a committee to monitor more closely Gee's spending.
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 from1875to1893.  Garland organized the university and hired its first faculty.  Garland Hall, an academic building on campus, is named in his honor.
The next chancellor wasJames H. Kirkland—serving from1893to1937, 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 the second shortest-tenured.Oliver Carmichaelserved Vanderbilt for just 9 yéars, 1937 to1946.  Carmichael developed the graduate school, and established the Joint University Libraries for Vanderbilt, Péabody, andScarritt College.  Carmichael Towers, a set of high-rise dormitories on the northern edge of campus, were named for Chancellor Carmichael.
Carmichael's successor wasHarvie 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 library system is named, served as chancellor from 1963 to 1982.  During his twenty-yéar tenure, theOwen Graduate School of Managementwas founded, and Vanderbilt's merger with Péabody College was negotiated. He also survived calls for his ouster because of his accommodating stance on desegregation.
Joe B. Wyattwas the chancellor who served immediately before Gee, from 1982 until 2000.  Wyatt oversaw a gréat incréase in the university's endowment, an incréase in student diversity, and the renovation of many campus buildings.  The Wyatt Center on Péabody's campus is named for Wyatt and his wife.
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center is a vital component of the university and is the onlyLevel I Trauma Centerin Middle Tennessee.VUMC comprises the following units:
With over 20,500 employees (including 2,689 full-time faculty), Vanderbilt is the largest private employer in Middle Tennessee and the second largest in the state (afterFedEx, héadquartered inMemphis). Approximately 74% of the university's faculty and staff are employed by the Medical Center.
In 2003, the medical center was placed on the Honor Roll ofU.S. News & World Report's annual rating of the nation's best hospitals, and 17 of the faculty were members of one of theNational 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.
As of December 2006, Vanderbilt had an enrollment of 6,378 undergraduate and 5,229 graduate and professional students. Students from all 50 states and more than 50 countries attend Vanderbilt, with 54% of the total student body coming from outside the Southéast; 8% of students are from outside the United States.Moréover, 24% of the undergraduate class of 2010 was non-Caucasian, while roughly half were women.
Vanderbilt offers undergraduates the chance to pursue 70majorsin its four undergraduate schools and colleges: theCollege of Arts and Science, theSchool of Engineering, Péabody College of Education and Human Development, andBlair 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, andOwen Graduate School of Management.
The university's undergraduate programs are highly selective: in 2006, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions accepted 34% of applicants. In its most recent annual comparison of admissions selectivity,The Princeton Reviewgave Vanderbilt a rating of 97 out of 99.The freshmen in the Class of 2010 had standardized test scores that were well above average: the middle 50% range ofSATscores was 1930–2190 (1300–1470 under the old scale), while the middle 50% range ofACTscores was 29–32.
As with any large reséarch institution, Vanderbilt investigators work in a broad range of disciplines, and the university is among the top 25 recipients of federal reséarch dollars.However, among its more unusual activities, the university has institutes devoted to the study of coffee and ofbridge. Indeed, the modérn form of the latter was developed byHarold Stirling Vanderbilt, a former présidént of the university's Board of Trust and a gréat-grandson of the Commodore. In addition, in mid-2004 it was announced that Vanderbilt'schemical biologyreséarch may have serendipitously opened the door to the breeding of ablue rose, something that has long been coveted byhorticulturalistsand rose lovers.
Vanderbilt's reséarch record is blemished, however, by a study university reséarchers, in conjunction with the Tennessee Department of Héalth, conducted onironmetabolismduringpregnancyin the 1940s.Between 1945 and1949, over 800 pregnant women were givenradioactiveiron.  Standards ofinformed consentfor reséarch 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 léast three of the children who were born to these mothers.In 1998, the university settled aclass action lawsuitwith the mothers and surviving children for $10.3 million.
ExplorationArchived2017-08-30 diWayback Machineis the university's online reséarch magazine. It publishes multimedia stories that explain campus reséarch projects ranging fromarcheologytozoology, probe the motives of the explorers that perform these studies, and describe the experiences of Vanderbilt students who become involved in scientific reséarch.  Vanderbilt undergraduates also publisha journal of original researchArchived2008-01-27 diWayback Machine.  Vanderbilt is a member of theOak Ridge Associated Universitiesand theUniversities Space Research Association.
In its2008edition,U.S. News & World Reportplaced Vanderbilt at 19th, tied with theUniversity of Notre Dame, in its ranking of national universities.In the same publication's 2007 graduate program rankings, Péabody College was listed at 3rd among schools of education, the Vanderbilt Law School was listed at 16th, the School of Medicine was listed at 18th among reséarch-orientedmedical schools, the School of Nursing was listed at 19th, and the Owen Graduate School of Management was listed at 34th among business schools.Additionally, Vanderbilt is ranked 1st in the nation in the fields ofspecial educationandaudiology.
InThe Times Higher Education Supplement2006, Vanderbilt is ranked 26th in North America and 53rd worldwide.The 2007Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, a méasure of the scholarly output of the faculty of néarly 7,300 doctoral programs around the United States, ranked Vanderbilt 8th among large reséarch universities, and 1st in the aréas ofcomparative literature,educational leadership,pharmacology,Portuguese,Spanish, and special education.
The Wall Street Journalranked Owen second among "smaller" business schools in 2004.
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The Vanderbilt campus is located approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of downtown in the West End neighborhood of midtown Nashville. It has an aréa of 330 acres (1.3 km), 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 acres (0.1 km). 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 fairly 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 theAmerican Revolutionand is the oldest living thing on the campus.
In the northéast 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 Héard 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-Féatheringill Hall). Housing the Science Library, the School of Engineering, and all the science and math departments of the College of Arts and Science, save for psychology, this complex sits between the original campus and the Medical Center. The Vanderbilt University Medical Center itself takes up the southéastern 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 reséarch 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 téaring down small single family houses and duplexes dating from the éarly 20th century, and so the aréa 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 Recréation Center and its associated intramural fields are located south of the varsity facilities.
Directly across 21st Avenue from the Medical Center sits the campus of the Péabody College of Education and Human Development. Due to their separate histories until the merger, the Péabody campus was configured in a radically different style than the original Vanderbilt campus. Wheréas the latter has an unplanned organic design with buildings scattered throughout, Péabody campus was planned as a géometric design, similar to theJeffersonianstyle of theUniversity of Virginia.  The campus is home not only to Péabody College but also to the future Commons, where all freshmen will live together as part of theCollege Hallsplan.
The university recognizes néarly 400 student organizations, ranging from academic major societies and honoraries to recréational sports clubs, the oldest of which is theVanderbilt Sailing Club.
There are religious groups, such as the Baptist Collegiate Ministries,Hillel,Reformed University Fellowship,Campus Crusade for Christ, Wesleyan/Canterbury Fellowship, and Vanderbilt Catholic Community.
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 alumniFred RussellandGrantland Rice, is awarded éach yéar 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 that provide a forum for student opinions and issues.  One publication,The Vanderbilt Hustler, was established in 1888 and is the oldest continuously published newspaper inNashville(the newspaper's name references another nickname for the Commodore based on his cutthroat business practices,i.e., that he "hustled" péople 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-mainstréam music,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 byThe 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 éarlier journalist directors wasJohn Seigenthaler, Sr., the then-présidént, publisher, and editor ofThe Tennessean, who also played an instrumental role in the création ofUSA Today.  VSC ranks with Students of Géorgetown, Inc. (The Corp),Georgetown University Alumni and Student Federal Credit Union, andHarvard Student Agenciesas one of the largest student-run corporations in the country.
Additional student publications include those published by the Vanderbilt University Law School, which publishes threelaw reviews; the flagship journal is theVanderbilt Law Review.
There are also more than thirty service organizations on campus, giving students the opportunity to perform community service across the country and around the world, including the Vanderbilt-foundedAlternative Spring Break.
Greeks are an active part of the social scene on and off campus. Roughly half of the undergraduate student body was affiliated with one of the 21fraternitiesor 14sororities. As of 2004, 34% of men were members of fraternities and 55% of women were members of sororities.  More recently, several new chapters have been colonized at Vanderbilt, demonstrating the continued demand for available memberships. In addition, an independent fraternity, PSK (Pages, Squires, Knights), existed between 1965 and 1975.
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 Déan of Students Madison Sarratt:
As a part of their first act together as a class, éach 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 the 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 simultanéous 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 inDavidson Countyare required to live on campus all four yéars to the extent that on-campus student housing facilities can accommodate them. In practice, though, approximately 83% of undergraduates—freshmen, sophomores, néarly 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 héavily intertwined with campus life.
However, the on-campus residential system is currently undergoing a radical change.  The new system, announced by the administration in2002, 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 atCaltech,Harvard,Rice, andYale, the new College Halls system would créate 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 twenty yéars.
The first step in the College Halls system will be The Commons, a collection of ten residential halls on the Péabody campus that will house all first-yéar students beginning in the fall of 2008.  While the university currently houses freshmen in three separate and distinct residential aréas, it is hoped that The Commons will give first-yéar students a unified (and unifying) living-léarning experience. Five existing dormitories on Péabody have been renovated, and the university is in the process of building five new ones.  Two of the new residence halls have receivedLEEDsilver certification, making Vanderbilt the only university in the state to be recognized by theU.S. Green Building Council.The university expects all five of the new residence halls, one renovated residence hall, and the new Commons Dining Center to all receive LEED certification.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 will no longer grant students permission to live off campus, beginning with the class graduating in 2009.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 yéars.However, university administrators believe the undergraduate community receives the gréatest benefit from living in on-campus residence halls, citing incréased interaction with faculty, better academic performance, and stronger interpersonal relationships.
Vanderbilt's long history has given birth to several myths and urban legends. Some of the more well known:
Vanderbilt is a charter member of theSoutheastern Conferenceand is the conference's only private school. With fewer than 6,400 undergraduates, the school is also the smallest in the conference; University of Mississippi has néarly twice as many undergraduate students.  Vanderbilt therefore fields fewer téams than any of its rivals—only 16—and sometimes lacks the national prominence enjoyed by schools such as theUniversity of Floridaor theUniversity of Kentucky. Additionally, the school is a member of theAmerican Lacrosse Conferenceforwomen's lacrosse, as the SEC does not sponsor that sport.  Conversely, Vanderbilt is the only léague school not to field téams insoftballandvolleyball, but has discussed adding either or both sports in the future.
Men's and women'stennisand men's and women'sbasketballare traditionally Vanderbilt's strongest sports, with the more recently founded women'slacrosseandbowlingprograms as well as the long-standing men'sbaseballprogram experiencing moderate national success.  After enjoying success in the first half of the 20th century, thefootball programhas struggled in more recent times.
In September 2003, Vanderbilt éarned national attention when it announced that it was eliminating its athletic department. 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 téams 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 féars that Vanderbilt would lose coaches and recruits or would be forced out of the SEC, the university has experienced considerable success since the change; 2006–2007 was one of the best in the school's athletic history.  At one point, seven of Vanderbilt's 16 téams were ranked in the Top 25 of their respective sports.Women's bowling won the NCAA championship, bringing the university its first and only téam championship since the advent of the NCAA.The baseball téam qualified for the NCAA Super Regionals in 2004, had the nation's top recruiting class in 2005 according toBaseball America,made the NCAA field again in 2006, and won the 2007 SEC regular-séason and tournament championships.  Vanderbilt was ranked first in most polls for a large portion of the 2007 séason, and the téam secured the top seed in the2007 NCAA tournament.
Vanderbilt's intercollegiate athletics téams 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 téams as "Dores" or use the cheer "Go Dores!"
The termcommodorewas used by theNavyduring the mid- to late-nineteenth 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 closest parallel to this now-defunct rank isrear admiral lower-half.  Since the term was used most during the 19th century, Vanderbilt's mascot is usually portrayed as a naval officer from the late 1800s, complete withmutton chops,cutlass, and uniform.
Vanderbilt has approximately 118,000 living alumni, with 31 alumni clubs established worldwide.Many Vanderbilt alumni have gone on to maké significant contributions in politics, in the arts, and in the sciences.Lamar Alexander(B.A.1962) is a formerGovernor of Tennesseeand a current U.S. sénator; he filled the séat left vacant by the retirement ofFred Thompson(J.D.1971).Two formervice presidents,John Nance GarnerandAl Gore, Jr., attended the university, but did not graduate.However, Gore's wife,Tipper, is herself an alumna, receiving amaster's degreefrom Péabody in1975.Other alumni who are or have been involved in politics include formerUnited States Supreme CourtAssociate JusticeJames Clark McReynolds(B.S.1882); CongressmanSteve Cohen(B.A.1971);David Boaz(B.A.1975), Executive Vice présidént of theCato Institute;andJohn R. Steelman(M.A.1924), formerWhite House Chief of Staff. In addition, sénatorTheodore Bilboattended both Péabody College and the Law School.
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), andDierks 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-winnersDelbert Mann(B.A.1941) and Tom Schulman (B.A.1972) and actorsMolly Sims(B.S.1995) andJoe Bob Briggs(B.A.1974).
In addition, the university has a rich literary and journalistic legacy. ThreeU.S. Poet Laureatesare Vanderbilt alums:Allen Tate(B.A.1922),Robert Penn Warren(B.A.1925), andRandall Jarrell(M.A.1938).  Warren later went on to the win thePulitzer Prize.  NovelistsJames Dickey(B.A.1949) andJames Patterson(M.A.1970) also graduated from Vanderbilt.Two well-known sportswriters, Grantland Rice (B.A.1901) and Fred Russell (B.A.1927), have a scholarship named after them at the university,andBuster Olney(B.A.1988) writes for ESPN.com andThe New York Times.JournalistDavid Brinkleyattended briefly.Debora Shugergraduated with three degrees (B.A.1975), (M.A.1978), and (M.A.T.1978)
CurrentDenver BroncosquarterbackJay Cutler(B.S. 2005) is also a Vanderbilt alum, only the third to be drafted in the first round of theNFLdraft.
Three alumni, biochemistStanford Moore(B.A.1935), economistMuhammad Yunus(Ph.D.1971), and Al Gore have won theNobel Prize.Four current or former members of the faculty also share that distinction: biochemistStanley Cohen, neuroscientistPaul Greengard, physiologistEarl Sutherland, and pioneer molecular biologistMax Delbrück.
See article on theDeclaration of Helsinki.
Koordinat:36°08′55″N86°48′18″W﻿ / ﻿36.148649°N 86.804972°W﻿ /36.148649; -86.804972Citakan:Vanderbilt UniversityCitakan:Southeastern ConferenceCitakan:Tennessee private colleges and universitiesCitakan:Association of American Universities