Vanderbilt University Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
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 and rail 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.
Comprised of 10 schools--4 undergraduate and 6 graduate--and a medical center, Vanderbilt has an approximate total enrollment of 11,000. Its chancellor is E. Gordon Gee.
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Prior to the Civil War, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South had been considering creating a regional university for the training of ministers. Through the lobbying of Nashville bishop Holland McTyeire, church leaders voted in 1872 to create a Central University in Nashville. However, lack of funds delayed the actual founding of the college.
The following year, on a medical trip to New York, McTyeire stayed at the residence of Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose second wife was McTyeire's cousin-in-law. Vanderbilt, the wealthiest man in America at the time, had been considering several philanthropies as he was in his advanced years. McTyeire successfully convinced Vanderbilt to donate $500,000 to endow Central University. The endowment (later increased to $1 million) would be Vanderbilt's only philanthropy. Though he never expressed any desire in making the university a namesake, McTyeire and his fellow trustees soon rechristened the school as the Vanderbilt University.
About two hundred students enrolled at Vanderbilt in the fall of 1875 and the university was dedicated in October of that year. Landon Garland was named Chancellor by McTyeire.
For the next 40 years of its existence, Vanderbilt would be under the auspices of the Methodist General Conference. 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 in 1893. The final straw, at least in the mind of Kirkland, was a failed campaign to raise $300,000 from southern Methodist congegrations (only $50,000 was raised). Futher disputes between the bishops and Kirkland, which erupted into litigation in 1912, led the Methodist conference to sever all ties with Vanderbilt University in June 1914.
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.
In 1979, Vanderbilt absorbed its near neighbor, Peabody College.
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 the 2004-2005 school year, the university had an enrollment of 6,272 undergraduate and 5,022 graduate and professional students. It was also the largest private employer in Nashville and one of the largest in Tennessee, with approximately 18,000 faculty and staff. Gordon Gee, formerly president of Brown University, has been chancellor of the university since his appointment in February of 2000.
Once considered a southern school, Vanderbilt has been taking steps to diversify its incoming classes. Today, around 55% of the total student body comes from outside the South, including 8.5% coming from outside the U.S. Moreover, 22% of the Class of 2008 are students of color.
The Vanderbilt campus is located approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of downtown Nashville; however, the university maintains a park-like setting. The campus has an area of 330 acres (1.3 km²), though this figure includes large tracts of land to the southwest of the main campus as well the medical center. The original academic quad is approximately 30 acres (120,000 m²) in area.
The campus is certified to have at least one specimen of every tree that is indigenous to the state of Tennessee. In fact, the main (original) campus was designated as a national arboretum in 1988, a status which the University does not take lightly. Any visitor to the campus will quickly notice that signs posted to the trees by various student groups are actually bound to the trees with wire instead of being nailed to them, as it is illegal to cause damage to any tree on a national arboretum.
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center has grown to be an important part of the University and is distinguished in medical education, research, and patient care. In 2003, the Medical Center was placed on the Honor Roll of U.S. News and World Report annual rating of the nation's best hosptials, solidifying Vanderbilt's reputation as a peer of universities like of Duke and Stanford. Additionally, the U.S News ranked the university's school of medicine 15th in the nation among research-oriented medical schools in its annual ratings of best American educational institutions.
The University itself has also received high marks from the U.S. News. Vanderbilt currently ranks 18th in the nation among national research universities in the U.S. News college rankings. In the U.S. News graduate program rankings, the Vanderbilt Law School ranks 17th, Vanderbilt's Peabody College ranks 4th among schools of education, and Vanderbilt's Owen School of Management ranks 39th among business schools. (Though it has been argued that Vanderbilt's ranking is hindered by its relatively small size. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal recently rank Owen 2nd among "smaller" business schools.)
Additionally, Vanderbilt is ranked first in the nation in the fields of Special Education and Audiology.
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, invented by 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 had long been coveted by horticulturalists and rose lovers.
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Current facts
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Notable alumni
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