Kirkland Memorabilia Room to feature VU's present, future

by Kristi Lomperis

Several of the display cases in Kirkland Hall's Memorabilia Room will soon be updated to feature hallmarks of Vanderbilt's present and future, as well as its past.

The forthcoming changes are at the request of Chancellor E. Gordon Gee, said Lyle Lankford, University events coordinator who is overseeing the project.

"This will give campus visitors, as well as Vanderbilt faculty and staff, a broader picture of what Vanderbilt has accomplished in the past, what it is accomplishing now and what it hopes to accomplish in the future," said Lankford. The new displays are expected to be completed by the end of October.

Located on the second floor of Kirkland Hall, two of the Memorabilia Room's four display cases will focus on Vanderbilt's future plans, and the other two will exhibit Vanderbilt's past and present discoveries.

The cases that will feature Vanderbilt's future will highlight the construction of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, the Medical Research Building III and the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center, as well as the additions and renovations to the Blair School of Music, the Memorial Gymnasium, the McGugin Field Baseball Stadium, the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, the Law School and Jacobs Hall. Lankford plans to depict these changes through architectural renderings of the completed buildings and photographs of the construction sites themselves.

The case devoted to Vanderbilt's past discoveries will feature Edward Emerson Barnard, who discovered Jupiter's fifth moon in addition to many comets and nebulae. Barnard, the first person in history to photograph the Milky Way, was a Nashville native and former Vanderbilt student and instructor.

Lankford said the case devoted to the University's present will feature one of the many recent discoveries in which Vanderbilt has been involved.

Mary McClure Taylor, the University Receptionist, spends each weekday at her desk in the vestibule of Kirkland Hall's second floor near the Memorabilia Room.

"People have a lot of interest in the Memorabilia Room and enjoy the displays," she said.

Previously, the cases in the Memorabilia Room were dedicated exclusively to historical artifacts, which have largely been on loan through Special Collections in the Jean and Alexander Heard Library. The cases most recently exhibited The Fugitives and Agrarians, selections from the James G. Stahlman Historical Collection of autographs, photographs depicting the history of the statue of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt's role in the state of Tennessee's centennial celebration.