Dean Carolyn Dever says that when she talks to alumni of the College of Arts and Science, she’s always inspired by how many have found success by being open to opportunities and the unexpected.

The new dean has done that herself.

Molly Miller makes Earth science come alive, even in the coldest spot on the planet.

Some thought Jessica Miles was making a mistake. Why would the Louisville, Ky., student who excelled in the sciences attend the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt rather than a science or technology institute? But it made perfect sense to Miles and to Vanderbilt: Learning how to communicate scientific ideas meant she needed to study both science and the humanities.

Ken Catania is a funny guy. The associate professor of biological sciences is also soft-spoken, modest, articulate, creative and quick to laugh. In life, teaching and research, he always looks for the opportunity to do the fun thing—appropriate, since he’s a world-class practical joker.

The Robert Penn Warren Center reveals its namesake’s long-forgotten conversations with historic civil rights greats. A photograph taken of Robert Penn Warren in the early 1960s shows not the young Kentucky boy whose life changed at Vanderbilt, but a mature Warren—wiser, with life’s experiences written on his face. This is the Warren who sought out men and women in the Civil Rights Movement, interviewing them, sometimes under the cover of darkness for their protection. The Warren who preserved those interviews so they could be heard, in their own voices, once again, thanks to an inter-institutional initiative spearheaded by the center that bears his name, the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities in the College of Arts and Science.

Now revered as America’s first poet laureate and the only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes in both fiction and poetry, Warren, BA’25, enrolled at Vanderbilt as an engineering student. In the English class he took to meet basic education requirements, Warren found where his passion lay: writing. He joined a group of fellow poets and intellectuals known as the Fugitives.

Don’t look for Grammy awards or gold records in Paul Worley’s Music Row office. He has them. Somewhere. Instead, the walls of the music executive’s office overlooking part of Vanderbilt’s campus are covered with guitars.

The transition from high school to college is a big one. The transition from high school to world-renowned private research university is gargantuan. With an ultimate goal of ensuring that all of its undergraduates make that transition smoothly and excel during their time at Vanderbilt, the College of Arts and Science pays particular attention to the acclimation of its first-year students.

“Students graduate from high school and wrestle with issues they haven’t previously confronted—time management, personal autonomy, personal responsibility, new academic challenges, new forms of academic and cognitive learning, and new social networks.”

Fräncille Bergquist has a secret that many deans would not admit: As a college-age student, she had to repeat a year of classes.

Sure, Bear Naked all-natural granola was a great concept—as long as it fit in a standard box. Product co-founder Brendan Synnott, BA’00, disagreed and had a different idea.