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Vanderbilt University is a private, independent university located in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded as the result of a gift of one million dollars by shipping
magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1873. He hoped that this gift and the work of the university would help to heal the sectional wounds of the Civil War.
For the first 40 years of its existence, Vanderbilt was under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The
Vanderbilt Board of Trust severed its ties with the church in June 1914 as a result of a dispute with the bishops over who would
appoint University trustees.
Probably the peak of Vanderbilt's intellectual influence was the 1920's and 1930's, when it hosted two partly-overlapping
groups of scholars who had a large impact on American thought and letters, the Fugitives and the Agrarians. In the late
1950's, the Vanderbilt Divinity School became something of a hotbed of the emerging Civil Rights movement, and the university responded rashly by expelling one of its leaders, James Lawson. (Much later, in 1996, he was made a Distinguished Alumnus for his
achievements.) History, race, and civil rights issues again came to the fore on the campus in 2002, when the university decided
to rename an old dormitory called Confederate Memorial Hall, and nationwide attention, plus a lawsuit by the Order of the Confederate Rose resulted.
As of 2003-2004, the university had approximately 6,300 undergraduates and
4,800 graduate and professional students. It is also the largest private employer in Nashville and one of the largest in
Tennessee, with approximately 18,000 faculty and staff.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center has grown to be an important part of the University and is distinguished
in medical education, research, and patient care.
Both the University and the Medical Center rank highly in the U.S. News and World Report annual ratings of the best
American educational and health care institutions.
Unusual Research
As with any large research institution, Vanderbilt investigators work in a broad range of disciplines. However, among its more
unusual activities, the university has institutes devoted to the study of coffee and of bridge (the game, due to the Vanderbilt
family's interest in it). 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 had long been coveted by horticultralists and rose lovers.
Schools
- College of Arts and Science
- Blair School of Music
- Divinity School
- School of Engineering
- Graduate School
- Law School
- School of Medicine
- School of Nursing
- Owen Graduate School of Management
- Peabody College of Education and Human Development
Students
As of 2003/2004:
- Undergraduates: 6,283
- Graduate/Professional: 4,809
Notable Alumni
- Charlie Soong, missionary, businessman, father of the Soong
sisters
- Robert Penn Warren, Pulitzer prize winner, first Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of
Congress
- James Lawson, Civil
Rights pioneer
- Fred Dalton Thompson (JD), former US Senator from Tennessee, Actor
- Roy Neel, Campaign Manager for
Howard Dean, Deputy Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton and Chief of Staff for Al Gore, Adjunct Professor of Political
Science
- Lamar Alexander, US Senator from Tennessee, former Governor of Tennessee, Presidential Candidate in 1996 and 2000
- Frank G. Clement, Governor of Tennessee
- John Kennedy, Louisiana State Treasurer and Democratic Candidate for US
Senate in 2004
- Al Gore, former Vice-President and Presidential Candidate, attended Law and
Divinity Schools but did not complete his degree at either
- Roy Blount Jr., humorist, sportswriter, and author
- Terry Eastland, publisher of the Weekly
Standard
- James Sasser (BA, JD), former
US Senator from Tennessee and US Ambassador to China
- Harlan Mathews, former US
Senator from Tennessee
- John Crowe Ransom, poet, essayist, and social commentator
- Donald Davidson, poet
- Merrill Moore, poet
- Allen Tate, Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of
Congress
Notable Faculty
External links
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