Tony Hmelo’s research has taken him from NASA to nanoscience and from New York to Nashville.

Hmelo is associate director for operations and outreach for the Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, the interdisciplinary group researching new science and technology based on tiny—nanoscale—materials. (Nanotechnology is widely considered the next great scientific frontier.)

As research professor of physics and of materials science and engineering, Hmelo himself is interdisciplinary, since he holds appointments in both the College of Arts and Science and the School of Engineering.

Tell us why you came to Vanderbilt.

I have always been interested in the science and engineering of materials. I arrived at Vanderbilt in 1988 shortly after receiving my Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. While earning my degree, I held down a job to design and manage an X-ray research beam line at the National Synchrotron Light Source…my first engineering career.

I had the opportunity to work with researchers from all across the nation who used that facility to characterize different kinds of single crystal materials, including some very interesting specimens that were manufactured in space. This captured my imagination and resonated with one of my childhood aspirations—to become an astronaut.

Vanderbilt was staffing the new Center for Microgravity Research and Applications under the direction of engineering professor and former astronaut Taylor Wang. I saw an opportunity to link my passion for materials with my childhood dream, and Vanderbilt became my ticket to ride, literally.

How did you come to join VINSE?

The late 1980s and 1990s were an exciting start to my materials science career at Vanderbilt. I was a co-investigator for several fluid physics experiments that flew on three different space shuttle missions. In support of those experiments, I think I visited every NASA center several times, tested flight hardware aboard zero-gravity aircraft, worked with and helped train the mission specialists who flew and conducted the science on-orbit, and was able to support the missions in person inside the Payload Operations Center in Huntsville, Ala.

But nothing lasts forever. During the mid-1990s, national priorities changed, and new opportunities emerged. Visionary Vanderbilt faculty worked to establish the Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in 2002. This was an opportunity for me to shift gears and take on new challenges. I formally joined VINSE in 2003, in time to manage the construction of the original core laboratories.

Can you explain the “clean room,” “bunny suits” and other things unique to VINSE?

Imagine preparing a novel material or engineering a new device with critical features so tiny that dust particles floating in the air make the difference between success and failure during the manufacturing process.

At VINSE we provide a special environment called a clean room, where we take great care to control the presence of these airborne contaminants. At 1,636 square feet, this is the largest general-purpose facility of its kind on campus. The laboratory air is scrubbed clean after passing through a grid of HEPA filters comprising the ceiling of the room.

Students don bunny suits to enter the clean room.

Bunny suits are special white garments we wear over our street clothing that zip closed, and together with a hair cap, shoe covers and other safety items, help protect the room from potential contaminants that may be present on our persons. The room is brightly illuminated and constructed of white panel walls with glass windows. With users in their white bunny suits, the laboratory can appear surreal.

You’re also a safety manager. What is an interesting safety issue you’ve dealt with, and do you have a safety-related pet peeve?

We perform cutting-edge work that involves the routine use of hazardous chemicals and flammable and toxic gases in a confined space. These need to be managed carefully and disposed of properly.

My challenge is to work with my staff to ensure that all users are well-trained in clean room procedures. At any given time, we have around 100 authorized users of the facility, with a large turnover every semester. The lab constantly evolves over time with the addition of new equipment and new hazards. Keeping the changing user population informed of the changing laboratory hazard profile is a significant challenge.

If I must name a pet peeve, it is that too many people need to be reminded to wear their personal protective equipment: safety glasses, gloves, lab coats, etc. I understand that users are focused on their research and my responsibility is to make sure they go home at the end of the day able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

What’s a work week like for you?

I spend my typical week maintaining and repairing instruments, attending research group meetings, writing proposals to acquire new instruments and improve facilities, engaging in outreach activities that give talented high school students in middle Tennessee an opportunity to learn more about Vanderbilt and VINSE, and training users. There are many administrative duties required to keep the laboratories running properly that ensure I am constantly occupied.

One of my priorities is to spend at least a few hours every week working with students on projects of particular interest to me, such as novel applications for diamond films and devices.

In your transition from New York to the Southeast, do you miss certain things from there and have you taken a shine to certain things down here?

When I lived in the New York area, I enjoyed having ready access to the cultural amenities, especially off-Broadway theater, the Public Theater in particular. I miss Montauk Point in the summertime and its dramatic seascape. However I have learned to love the Southeast and consider myself a true Nashvillian. I know every trail around Radnor Lake like the back of my hand. If you cannot find me at the symphony, you might look for me at the Bluebird Cafe. I even have my own black-eyed pea recipe I fix every New Year’s Day.

Gary Jaeger could probably improve the writing in this magazine standing on his head. A philosopher, writing coach and yogi, Jaeger serves as the assistant director of the Writing Studio and senior lecturer in the philosophy department, as well as a yoga instructor at 12 South Yoga in Nashville. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and writing from Johns Hopkins University, Jaeger earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He says his work in philosophy and writing complement each other as both allow him to explore the power of argument while his yoga practice keeps him calm and focused.

What do you do at the Writing Studio?

I, along with the other directors of the Writing Studio, supervise a staff of around 30 writing consultants who meet one-on-one with people who want to discuss their writing projects. Much of our time as directors goes to training and mentoring our staff, but we also devote some of our energy to forming collaborations with other departments and programs on campus. In addition to our consultation services, the Writing Studio offers writing workshops and other programs like On Writing, where we interview professional writers, and Dinner and Draft, where we invite faculty to discuss their works-in-progress over dinner.

How many students do you work with each year and how are they benefitted?

Last year we had 4,102 appointments with 1,687 clients. Most of our clients are undergraduates, but we serve graduate students and faculty as well. Our clients come to us at all stages of the writing process. Clients who are just beginning a paper benefit from being able to talk through their inchoate thoughts. Clients who have already written a draft benefit from having a critical but sympathetic consultant read through that draft and engage them in conversation about the structure and strength of their arguments. We even see graduate students and faculty who are writing dissertations and book-length projects. These clients benefit from having regular meetings with the same consultant who can help keep track of how their projects are developing.

What’s the biggest issue students face in their writing?

Most students do not realize that academic writing is about making arguments. Each discipline makes arguments in its own way, but at its core all academic work seeks to make a novel contribution to its field by arguing that the current state of play isn’t quite good enough.

What’s a typical week like for you during the academic year?

Busy! During the school year I am up and writing before 5 a.m., sometimes as early as 4. This is the only way I can make any progress on my research and still make it into the office where my days are split between teaching and administrative duties. While on campus, I prepare and teach my classes, have regular meetings with the other directors of the Writing Studio and our collaborators, consult clients, see to the day-to-day operations of the studio, and attend philosophy department events. I also make time for yoga every day. Before coming to campus I practice pranayama (rhythmic control of the breath) for about 30 to 45 minutes. When I get home I practice asana (poses) for 1 ½ to 2 hours.

What courses do you teach in philosophy?

I mostly teach classes in ethics and political philosophy. I have taught introduction to ethics, contemporary ethical theory, social and political philosophy, contemporary political philosophy, and introduction to philosophy. I have also directed an independent reading course on Indian philosophy.

Tell us about your yoga teaching. How long have you been doing it? What do you get from practicing it and sharing it?

I went to my first yoga class when I was 16 years old. It was offered as a physical education elective in my high school and seemed like the best option for a 90-pound weakling. I didn’t become serious about my yoga practice until I started studying with an Iyengar yoga teacher about 12 years ago. It was significantly more profound and intelligent than any other method I had or have yet to encounter. Although yoga has made me fit, healthy, and nearly eliminated chronic back pain, the biggest reason for doing it is precisely this: it makes me calm, focused and alert. I would say it makes everything else in my busy life possible. I teach it because teaching helps me to learn. This is true of philosophy as well as yoga.

Have you ever had a student in one of your academic courses take your yoga classes?

I have had colleagues and graduate students from the philosophy department take my yoga classes, but I don’t think I have had a student from one of my philosophy courses take my yoga class. When I was teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I taught yoga as an academic course. They had an Iyengar yoga program in their dance department and I was allowed to teach a yoga class in addition to philosophy classes as part of my teaching load.

If Vanderbilt University could be characterized by one building, it would have to be Kirkland Hall. Up the stone stairs worn smooth by a century of foot traffic lies the heart of the university.

If Vanderbilt University could be personified by one individual, it would have to be Mary McClure Taylor, university receptionist. All that is Vanderbilt flows around her station in the center of Kirkland Hall. Taylor is often the first person that visitors to Kirkland, Vanderbilt and the College of Arts and Science meet—and she represents them well. Her demeanor is pleasant. Her compassion is real. Her heart is true. Her story is one with the institution.

Taylor grew up with Vanderbilt. She’s the daughter of an alumnus and faculty member (her father was Christopher Columbus McClure, MD’18, the first chair of the radiology department at Vanderbilt University Medical School), a College of Arts and Science graduate herself and a longtime Vanderbilt employee.

How did your history with Vanderbilt begin?

My dad founded the radiology department at Vanderbilt and I would walk over every day from Peabody Demonstration School (now the University School of Nashville) to catch a ride home. One day I made a wrong turn in the hospital and opened the door to where all the cadavers were kept. I didn’t make that mistake again!

He (her father) was one of 10 children who grew up in Wager, Ala., which is a tiny town close to Mobile. He got on a train by himself and traveled here to go to school and then medical school. He stayed here. Chris, my brother, went here, and of course, my husband (Robert C. Taylor, BA’52, JD’55) went here. My sister-in-law, nieces, nephews, stepsons, everybody. [It is] a real way of life with me.

During that time, you’ve met a few of our chancellors.

I have known all but two of our chancellors. I didn’t know [Landon C.] Garland or [James H.] Kirkland. Chancellor [Oliver C.] Carmichael was a good friend of my dad’s. Micky Carmichael Jr. was one of my brother’s best friends. Harvie Branscomb was chancellor when I was a student here. I worked for Chancellors Heard, Wyatt, Gordon Gee and now, Nick Zeppos. I was very young when I knew Dr. Carmichael. I remember how visible Chancellor Gee was on campus. He remembered everybody’s names and as I watched him interact with students, I found it very rewarding. Chancellor Zeppos teaches a class each semester. The students come by my desk, so excited to be in his class, and even his past students still stop by and see him frequently. Of course, that means I get to see them again as well.

What do you like best about your work?

What makes me love my job more than anything are these students. They are very dear, and tops. They just make my day. There’s just a constant stream. Of course they have to come through to go up to the third floor to change a course. That’s when I see most of them, when they’ve signed up for a course and two days later they’re getting out of it. I have made friends with some of them and have kept up with them through lunch and dinner and things like that, which mean a lot.

Where else have you worked at Vanderbilt?

Alumni Hall and Kirkland are really the only two buildings I’ve ever worked in.

I worked for Ed Shea for a while. He held the same position as Bob McGaw (former alumni secretary and director of public relations). I worked for Jane Sutherland in the registrar’s office, but I think Bob was the first one who asked me to work for him when I got out of school. Mostly I was proofing letters, which I enjoyed doing. It’s so much fun finding a mistake.

I probably started working full time with Skip Higgs. That was in News and Public Affairs in Kirkland. It was proofreading and just any job she needed. That’s been a long time ago. We moved to Alumni during the Kirkland renovation [in the mid to late 1980s].

What other types of work have you done?

I majored in sociology and minored in political science. Looking back on it, I picked those because of the professors. We had some good professors in those two departments.

I worked at the Red Cross—volunteered—drove that big old bloodmobile. It had a guard on it, so it wouldn’t go over 30 miles an hour. I did that a couple of days a week. Those were heavy things to lift, those cases that were filled with blood.

What do you do for enjoyment?

I go to basketball games. I’m a real basketball nut. I had both hips replaced and I can’t handle the steps at the football games. I got seats for men’s basketball that are real easy to get to. I sit behind our team … there’s nobody in front of us. It’s just great. It’s two steps to get down in there. I’ve had those seats a long time.

What’s your favorite time of year on campus?

It’s not winter! It’s spring—I live for spring. We laugh about it when five minutes of more daylight makes such a big difference. Best time of the year.

Mouzon Siddiqi has participated and thrived in international relations from Alabama to Afghanistan. Most of that time and effort have been on the Vanderbilt campus, where she serves as program coordinator for the Graduate Program in Economic Development (GPED). She and her husband, Sultan Siddiqi, MA’70, have served as ambassadors to incoming international students for 35 years. In 2009, the university recognized her contributions with the Commodore Award, Vanderbilt’s highest staff honor, which recognizes and rewards individuals who have made exceptional performance contributions to the university.

What are your duties with GPED?

I work with admissions, assist students with housing, and coordinate tutors and help sessions. During the year, I follow students’ progress and assist in planning their schedules to ensure their timely graduation. I am on call for anything and everything. All the students have my cell and home phone numbers and know that they may call at any time—day, night or weekend—if they are worried about something, need help or just want to talk.

I work with sponsoring agencies (including foreign government sponsors) and manage the office and student aid budgets. I assist the program director with whatever is needed, including drafting remarks for various occasions and writing letters for students for visa purposes, to bring families and so forth.

Much of my time is devoted to email with prospective students—encouraging strong students to join our program and answering a myriad of questions. I also correspond frequently with alumni, assisting them with requests for transcripts, reference letters, alumni information and the like.

You met your husband while he was a grad student at Peabody?

Yes. Sultan enrolled in M.A. study at Peabody in 1968—the same time I came to Scarritt as a junior. At that time, Scarritt was a senior college and graduate school. Students at Vanderbilt, Peabody or Scarritt could enroll in courses at any of the other two schools. I took several courses at Peabody and Sultan studied English at Scarritt. We met in December 1968 at a Christmas dance at Scarritt. He asked me out the following night for dinner. We dated two years, graduated, married in my hometown of Centre, Ala., and left for Afghanistan for two years.

Back then, people who married an American could immediately change their status to permanent resident and then U.S. citizen, but we never considered the option of not returning to Afghanistan. People in my hometown (population 2,500) were worried about my living halfway across the world, but I viewed moving to Kabul as the biggest adventure of my life—and I was right! It was wonderful! The country was so peaceful then—a beautiful place with beautiful people.

What brought you to the College of Arts and Science?

When we returned to the U.S., I found a job with a large sales company where I worked for two years. I soon knew that I wanted to be back in an academic environment where people are more diverse, generally have different priorities and are respected for their individuality. I started to work at Vanderbilt in January 1975 and quickly realized this was the place I wanted to be.

Tell us about your interaction with international students.

I love meeting students at the airport when they arrive. I look forward to seeing the students’ faces for the first time and welcoming them to Nashville and to Vanderbilt. Our staff and second-year students help the new students settle in. We use my pickup truck to help students furnish their apartments [with] purchases from places like Wal-Mart, secondhand stores and the Vanderbilt surplus store.

Our office has quarterly birthday parties to celebrate students’ birthdays, a fall picnic, a Valentine’s party and a celebration for student employee appreciation week. We invite students over to our house whenever we can manage it. They know that they are always welcome. Our office strives to be a very friendly, welcoming place. It not only is a place for students to come for assistance, but a place to study and hang out. If we don’t see students for a few days—maybe a week or so—we check to make sure they are okay.

My husband helps students buy cars and assists the Muslim students in finding places that sell halal meat [adhering to Islamic dietary practices]. He also cooks halal meat for the awards dinner in the spring.

How does it feel to be the 2009 recipient of the Commodore Award?

I was overwhelmed and humbled. There are so, so many deserving employees. I never imagined I would receive this award! It is the greatest honor I could ever have. I will always cherish the award, but most of all, the wonderful, unselfish and thoughtful people, with whom I work, who made this possible.

What activities do you enjoy outside of work?

I like having a garden (although my husband does all the work) and I love to swim. In the fall, I am a football junkie. My dad played for the University of Alabama and football is in my blood.

My husband and I spend many weekends in Atlanta with our daughter, son-in-law and our two grandsons (ages 6 and 2)—the delight of our lives. We also enjoy spending lots of time with our Afghan family and friends in Nashville. Aside from family gatherings, I would have to say the most fun I have is hanging out with my GPED family. It keeps me young!

Even as a high school student, Molly Boland Thompson, BA’99, knew that Vanderbilt University was the place for her. She found her campus home in the College of Arts and Science, first as an English major during her undergraduate matriculation and now as school registrar. She has worked in Arts and Science since January 2003 and was named registrar last August. Among her other duties, she’s overseeing the College of Arts and Science’s participation in the implementation of a new enrollment management system—no more OASIS (Vanderbilt’s online course registration system). Huzzah!

Okay, first off: what does a registrar do?

Together with my fabulous and capable staff (which includes two former Vanderbilt students), I am responsible for preserving the academic integrity of the College of Arts and Science. Our tasks include facilitating the registration process (including creating the schedule and assigning classrooms); posting majors, minors and transfer credits to students’ records; maintaining the online degree audit; and assisting with various and sundry curriculum-related matters.

The registrar’s office maintains student records so that the dean’s office and the faculty can perform their necessary functions: advising and teaching students.

How long have you worked in the College of Arts and Science?

This is my fifth year at Vanderbilt and in A&S. I started working in Vanderbilt Temporary Service (I think that is how a lot of staff stories begin) in human resources. I alphabetized and filed papers in a windowless closet of an office. My next temporary assignment was in the Arts and Science registrar’s office and I have been here since. I started out as the student records assistant and moved my way steadily up the ladder (academic credentials evaluator, assistant registrar) until I was fortunate enough to get the registrar position in August 2009.

What attracted you to apply to Vanderbilt as a student and pursue a major in English?

I applied to Vanderbilt because of the name. Even at that time, it had a good reputation (though nowhere near as stellar as it has now). It seemed to me at the time, too, to be a perfect midway point between my parents’ houses: a quick 8-hour drive on I-40 to North Carolina and a looong 4-hour drive on the Natchez Trace to see my father in Mississippi! I hadn’t actually visited Vanderbilt before I accepted my admission. Once I finally made it to campus during the summer prior to my freshman year, I felt secure that I had made a good decision. I find it difficult to believe that a person could not fall in love with this place even at first glance.

I always planned to major in English; it just seemed like the right fit for me. It didn’t hurt that I got to spend class time listening to Professor Michael Kreyling [Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English] read from The Sound and the Fury or arguing the virtues of The Moral Animal with Professor Vereen Bell. Perhaps it was the literary history here—from the Agrarians to Tony Earley [Samuel Milton Fleming Professor of English] and beyond—but learning about literature at this school seemed sort of magical.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I try to spend as much time as possible with my husband and kids when I am not at work. In the fall and spring, this usually means that I am at soccer practice or games. In the summer, we like to canoe the Harpeth as often as we can. I am a big fan of live music, too—at the Ryman, at The Basement or on the street.

What do you like to read and do you have any favorite Web surfing destinations?

Faulkner. Always Faulkner. At the moment, I am trying to make my way through Entertainment Weekly’s list of the top 100 books of the last 25 years. When I finish with that, I plan to move to Time’s 100 best English-language novels. (What can I say? I love lists!) I expect there will be another list to tackle when I am finished with those two.

My favorite website is The Onion’s A.V. Club. The site has great features like the Weekly Inventory (personal favorite: “Don’t Blow It: 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone”); excellent reviews of music, movies and television; and just all-around spectacular writing.

I started reading Andrew Sullivan’s blog for The Atlantic during the election and I continue to enjoy his rather unique takes on everything from modern conservatism to Catholicism to South Park. I am also grateful to Mr. Sullivan for introducing me to another fabulous blog, www.lettersofnote.com. Letters of Note features historical letters, etc., covering just about anything you can think of—three Elvis fans’ request to President Eisenhower that the singer’s hair not be cut upon induction into the Army; Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to his family upon being released from a Dresden work camp; a ninth-century letter template from China used for apologizing to dinner hosts after drinking too much and embarrassing oneself…I highly recommend the site. If you read only one of the letters of note, I suggest “Favourite memo ever,” which features a memo that Matt Stone sent to the MPAA regarding the South Park movie.

What do you like best about being employed by your alma mater?

I like the discounted season tickets to football, basketball and baseball.

Vanderbilt is a great place to work, and I would think that whether or not I had also gone to school here. For a person as inclined toward nostalgia as I am, it really is a pleasure just to walk past Alumni Lawn and remember those heady days as an undergraduate. I only hope that in some small way I can help our students to have as fine an experience as I had.

You can call it kismet, karma or serendipity, but whatever approach you prefer, there is little doubt that Penelope “Penny” Peirce is exactly where she’s supposed to be—at the helm of Technology Support Services for the College of Arts and Science.

As director of Technology Support Services, Peirce, MDiv’73, JD’79, supervises all classroom technology, production services, computer support and ongoing projects for the school. Her first job at Vanderbilt was working as secretary to the legendary Dr. Mildred Stahlman (BA’43, MD’46, HO’48) in the Department of Pediatrics. Today Peirce works with teams of staff and students to determine what equipment is needed for new and renovated classrooms, provide computer equipment and services, and respond to all of the audiovisual needs of the school.

How long have you been at Vanderbilt and what road led you here?

I have been at Vanderbilt more than 30 years. I stopped counting at 30 because it makes me feel too old. I did get a Vanderbilt law degree while working here, but I decided not to practice after realizing that I wanted the knowledge and not the lifestyle.

I came to Vanderbilt to go to divinity school. I wanted to concern myself with “ultimate concerns.” I soon discovered that I was probably an atheist and that my ultimate concerns were how to pay the rent and buy food. It was an interesting time to be in divinity school. The country was in the middle of the Vietnam War, and men my age were being drafted. Divinity students were given deferments, so most of the people in divinity school at the time were political activists of some kind.

How did you wind up working for the College of Arts and Science?

Vanderbilt Divinity School gave me a chance to do an internship with what was then the television and film division of the Methodist Church. I had already developed an interest in media and in making films from doing still photography and loving music. Around the time I was graduating from the divinity school, I found out the College of Arts and Science wanted to start a media center, and I persuaded them that I was the one who could do it.

I started the Learning Resource Center in one room in Garland Hall with no staff. After purchasing some basic equipment, which at that time was 16 mm projectors, overhead transparency projectors and reel-to-reel video and audio recorders, I hired a few student workers. When faculty needed something, we pushed it on carts to the classroom. We quickly expanded into a few more rooms in Garland. We were promised more space for many, many years and finally, when the Buttrick renovation was scheduled, we were given the space we needed and the opportunity to design it. Recently I have been given the opportunity to combine audiovisual services and computer services, and create the new division, Technology Support Services.

How has the technology changed since those early days?

Classes started out making films and documentary projects on Super 8 film and reel videotape, and now we are using HD cameras and recording on hard discs. Students today who complain about how long it takes to edit a project have no idea what it was like “back in the day.”

Today, the majority of the classrooms in the college are completely equipped with video projectors, computers, DVD players and VCRs. We also have a large amount of equipment available for students and faculty to check out, and we maintain 12 editing stations equipped with Final Cut Pro editing software as well as two sound recording rooms.

How is working with today’s students?

I like having student workers so I can talk with them about what they think and how they spend their time. Recently I was very critical of Facebook, quoting research to them that indicated the more time you spend on Facebook, the worse your grades were. They told me about a study that said Facebook users were better workers and informed me that everyone at Vanderbilt was on Facebook.

I set up a Facebook page and played with it for a while. I’m still not a fan. I would rather spend my time in other ways.

In what other ways do you spend your time?

I love to write. I write almost every day and hope that someday I will have time to finish a few things. Living life seems to get in the way of writing about it. I love my iPod. Actually, I have two iPods. I have made mixed tapes since cassette tape was invented. The iPod rocked my world, made everything about music much easier. I also love my bicycle, and I try to ride several times a week. I am also a recreational kayaker and recreational golfer.

During my internship with United Methodist Communications, I met several Chicago Theological Seminary students who had come to Nashville to begin an intentional living community, and so I became part of a hippie communal group. The group still gets together at least once a year, and I have vacationed in Michigan with three of those people every summer for the past 30 years.

I love the Hubble telescope. We can now see back to the beginning of our universe and we are fairly certain there is a black hole at the center of every galaxy. I think it is a great achievement. I love to read. The last physical book I read was Kevin Wilson’s short stories, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. I am reading Michael Cunningham’s Specimen Days with the Kindle application on my iPhone, and I just finished listening to Spin (a book about the death of the Earth) on my iPod. For the last few years, I have been very interested in finding really positive science fiction because I am concerned that, as Douglas Adams said, we become our dreams.

Nashville and Vanderbilt benefitted when Malah Tidwell returned to her hometown nine years ago. An administrative assistant with the College of Arts and Science’s development and alumni relations office, she takes care of alumni, students and colleagues with a loving hand. “Malah is the heart and soul of the Arts and Science development team,” says Jonathan Petty, associate dean for development and alumni relations. “She always goes above and beyond in her work … no job is too big for her. She is a go-to and get-it-done-right person.”

Meggie Butzow, BA’06, who interned for four years under Tidwell’s guidance, fondly recalls their relationship. “She presented me with all kinds of projects that helped me learn about and understand the general purpose of development. She was never anything but supportive, kind and understanding through it all,” Butzow says. “She understood the constraints that school and classwork sometime put on me, and always made it clear that school was the priority. She really became a second mom to me.”

You’re a native Nashvillian?

I was born and raised in Nashville, and went to Antioch High School. We moved out there in ’56. My mother still lives in the same house. 

My husband, Leon, and I left on our honeymoon and moved to Worcester, Mass., outside of Boston. We stayed a year and a half and decided the weather was not for us. 

We moved back to Nashville, lived in Dickson for a while, and then moved to Montgomery, Ala., where we lived for about 14 years. We had always thought that we’d like to live further south. We knew some people in Montgomery, visited, and we thought we’d try it. And we loved it. Loved it. It was quite an adventure. I remember going through Hurricane Opal, which came up as far as Montgomery. The reason I came back to Nashville was because my husband passed away, my parents were aging, both my children were married, and I felt it was just time to come home. I’ve been back now nine years.

How long have you worked at Vanderbilt?

I have worked here a little over eight years. After my husband passed away, I moved back to Nashville and worked for J.C. Bradford. Then it was sold and I came to work at Vanderbilt in student accounts. I worked there for a year, and then was hired in development and alumni relations for the College of Arts and Science. 

What would most people be surprised to learn about you?

I once took belly dancing. That would surprise people. When my husband was alive, we had a sailboat that we called “Coupon Annie” because I was always clipping coupons; my brother-in-law wanted to know if that was how we bought it.

Other than that, I’m a pretty open book. I enjoy plays and reading. My sister and I like to go the movies and theater, and just out.

We saw The Country Wife at Vanderbilt and have tickets already for Always, Patsy Cline at the Ryman. I’ve seen it twice. We saw it in Nashville when it was here and then we went to Roanoke, Va., to visit my brother and it was playing there. We are big fans of Mandy Barnett. We saw her when she did it a few years ago and that’s when we just fell in love with her. She becomes Patsy. 

My sister, Wanda, and I do a little bit of traveling together. Last spring Wanda and I took our parents to Natchez, Miss., for a few days, and as we were driving on the Natchez Trace close to Tupelo, we went through a tornado. 

What else do you do in your spare time?

Most of my time is spent with my four grandchildren. My son, Barry, has three children and my daughter, Margaret, has one child. The oldest is 7 and the youngest is a year. They light up my life. The older three will come and stay with me over the weekend, and we enjoy going to the park and zoo. They’re the most special things in my life. They keep me going and keep me busy. 

Do you have a favorite alumni event?

The last two years, I’ve worked with the Reunion office in the hospitality tent. It’s always nice to see the people and help them in any way we can. It’s excitement. Old friends will see each other and stop right where they are and congregate, saying “Do you remember this? Have you seen so-and-so? Is so-and-so coming?” Things like that.

Do you find you become close to alumni?

Yes, I do. I talk to them often. I assist with the Board of Visitors that we have for Arts and Science. We have been having two meetings a year and it is always a joy to work with them. We’ll have dinner the night before and then meetings the next day. The people really seem to appreciate it and are excited to find out what’s going on at Vanderbilt.

How much interaction do you have with students?

I usually have work-study students in the office. It’s something they need as well as something we need, so it’s a nice combination. I’m on the third year with the one I have now. I like to get freshmen and keep them four years. I’ve been fortunate enough to have ones that have been very serious about their studies and about their futures.

We’ve heard you like to cook. Do you have a specialty?

I like comfort food. I have a soup they ask me to bring every time we have a potluck lunch at work—lemon chicken artichoke soup. Everyone seems to like that. At Christmas, I make Oreo balls, and they like those too.

His license plate proclaims “SAFTBOB.” That moniker conveys Bob Wheaton’s mission as Vanderbilt’s executive director of environmental health and safety, sustainability and environmental management. 

Is there a funny smell in Benson Hall? Wheaton and his staff of 34 want to know about it. Need a particular chemical for a physics experiment? Wheaton’s department has already catalogued and created a tracking system for 26,000 lab chemicals. What if the psychology department wants to up its commitment to going green? They’ve got it covered. Suppose a natural disaster happened during a football game? No worries—Wheaton’s team has helped create a safety plan. 

The native New Englander shrugs at the myriad, multiple moving parts of his domain and insists that focusing on the institution-wide picture while simultaneously dogging the details is just how it’s done. Safety Bob is on the job.

Where did Safety Bob get his start?

I was always interested in science. I had a professor in environmental toxicology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Every week he’d read to us the job ads and salaries in the field of industrial hygiene. I thought they sounded pretty good. After graduating I worked at Digital Equipment Corp. as an environmental chemist and then as an industrial hygienist.

After leaving Digital, I was assistant director of environmental health and safety at Harvard for six years before coming to Vanderbilt. That was 10 years ago, and Vanderbilt is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. 

Is there an initiative that you’re particularly proud of?

One of the things we do is help with clean-up in labs that are closing. These are important programs we’ve developed to assist researchers in moving, closing or relocating laboratories. In fact, we just helped move eight researchers from chemistry into new facilities at the Vanderbilt Institute for Chemical Biology in Medical Research Building IV.

Have you come across any surprises during those kinds of moves?

When Nobel Prize-winning professor Stanley Cohen was retiring, we found a plastic vial labeled “KCV.” We asked him about it and he said, “Oh, that’s king cobra venom.”

Once, early on a Sunday morning, we were removing some hazardous materials from the old Medical Center North dock. We roped off the area with yellow caution tape and had experts in to handle it properly and safely. We even had VUPD police officers there to help protect public safety. Then some guy walked up and tried to duck under the tape like nothing was going on. I guess he was going into his office to work. It’s always something.

After 10 years in Nashville, do you miss Boston?

Sure, I miss family and friends, but Vanderbilt’s a special place. It has a collegial atmosphere, and the people here really do want to do the right thing. I also miss going to Red Sox and Patriot games. So I go to Titans games instead.

So after the Super Bowl is over, what then?

I’m a golfer with a 13 handicap. My wife, Kathy, and I live on the 19th hole of a 27-hole course. We play every Saturday and Sunday and sometimes during the week. My friends say if there’s a golf infomercial [about a piece of equipment], I own it. That stuff helps my game. Sometimes.

And if you’re not on the golf course …?

I like photography and have a Nikon D300. I love that camera. It’s got the latest and greatest technology built in. I like to shoot environmental stuff—you know, whales breaching and celestial and weather events. My picture of a lightning strike is in the Vanderbilt calendar this year. I’m still waiting on a good tornado [shot]. During the last tornado I was in the closet with Kathy. I figured it wouldn’t look good for Vanderbilt if its safety director got killed while photographing a tornado.

Besides photography and golf, what else do you do?

I enjoy cooking and TiVo cooking shows such as Tyler’s Ultimate, Everyday Italian, America’s Test Kitchen and Down Home with the Neeleys.

My best dishes are pizza from scratch, spaghetti and meatballs, anything on the grill and smoking ribs. I do have to confess, though, that my secret food vice is rocky road ice cream.

Do you have a favorite book?

I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when I was in college. I really envied the imagination and writing style of Ken Kesey in being able to develop the characters and the storyline to not only entertain, but also to use symbolism to describe society in the 1950s.

Is there someone famous you wish you could meet?

My grandfather was a vaudeville magician. You’d have never heard of him, but he’d met Harry Houdini and I wish I could meet Houdini, too. Houdini could do miraculous things like escape from chains inside a safe in 40 feet of water. He could do things no one else could do. I’d ask him how he did it and why. It’s a safety thing, ya know?

“Norma Antillon is the glue that holds us together,” says Ted Fischer, professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies (CLAIS). “She is our public face, the person who shepherds students through the program. She knows where our alums are and what they’re doing, and through her, gives them a tight connection to the center. When alums call, they always ask about Norma.”

Antillon’s ebullient personality and willing spirit are her trademarks. The native of Guatemala doesn’t mention it, but she’s been known to help visiting scholars by personally paying their apartment deposits until their funding comes through. She has a large collection of letters, photos and cards from former students, who keep in touch with her long after they have graduated. The grandmother of 10 is the kind of woman who takes a homeless woman to lunch on a weekly basis. For Antillon, strangers are just people she has not yet transformed into friends. Her official title is administrative assistant, but it should be premier go-to person for the center.

How did you come to work at Vanderbilt? At CLAIS?

This is my second time at Vanderbilt. I came in 1958 with my husband who was pursuing a Ph.D. in biochemistry. After he received his degree, we went back to Guatemala. Later, after I was divorced, I sent my daughter to Nashville…I could get a visa to work and I came back. I heard about an opening in CLAIS and I’ve been here for 22 years.

What do you enjoy about your job?

I am privileged to work with faculty who are experienced in Latin America, speak Spanish, and several of them, Portuguese. Not only are they great academics, they are special, excellent people. The students are diverse, interesting, and they will be teaching and influencing young people to study and to care
for others. I have a lot of contact with the students and it keeps me young.

Spanish is your first language. How did you learn to speak English?

My father was the Guatemalan ambassador to Washington, D.C., so I went to the American School in Guatemala.

What do you like to do?

I love to travel. My first international travel was when I was only 17. I received a scholarship to a college in Briarcliff Manor, New York. That changed my life forever. Since then, I have traveled within the U.S. quite a bit and have been to Venezuela, Peru, Central America, Paris and Israel. I go to Guatemala every summer to see my son and his three children, and also my aunts who are in their 90s.

What do you like best about Nashville?

The region’s change of seasons, particularly fall, is one of my favorite things. Guatemala is called “the land of eternal spring.” We don’t have fall or the kinds of trees that flower and leaf out in the spring. I love to walk at Radnor Lake. The Vanderbilt campus is so beautiful, it’s like working in a park. Every day when I walk from the parking lot, I rejoice in the beauty of the campus. And I talk to the campus groundskeepers. They’re very nice people.

How do you spend your free time?

I love to go shopping at the Farmers’ Market. It’s an informal United Nations. And I visit my five grandsons in Franklin. They have a ping-pong table and my grandsons were surprised that I know how to play. But the youngest—he’s four-and-a-half—has been begging me to play soccer with him.

I’m always busy with my church. It’s very international—we have members from 12 Latin American countries. I’m a consejero (part counselor/part teacher). I help people who want to be baptized. I also teach a Sunday school class for older members and visit new members.

What’s the biggest difference between life here and in Guatemala?

In Guatemala, families live in the same city. Children go to college in the city where their families live, and they don’t leave their parents’ homes until they marry. That’s the kind of thing that holds families together, but you can’t do that in the U.S. because of the distances.

Are you still a citizen of Guatemala?

I couldn’t vote in Guatemala because I didn’t live there and I couldn’t vote in the U.S. because I wasn’t a citizen, so I became a U.S. citizen in 1996.

Do you like to read?

Yes. I love libraries. Also, what the Ph.D.s write about is incredible, but if you haven’t read the Bible, you’re really missing something. For many years, I read anything that came into my hands, but I never got anything out of it. Now I only read spiritual material. The last book I read was 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life by Don Piper.

Do you have a secret vice?

I’ve been watching The Young and the Restless soap opera for 10 years. We watch it at lunch in the copy room. I go home to Guatemala for three weeks every summer, and when I come back, I haven’t missed a thing on the show.

Do you plan to retire anytime soon?

Everyone keeps asking me when I’m going to retire. I keep asking God the same question. In the end, I think it’ll be technology that gets me out of here. Even my grandsons do things on the computer I don’t understand. At Christmas, my son gave me a combination telephone/answering machine. It had 60 pages of instructions. I told him to take it back. When I’m home, I just want a phone I can use by picking it up and saying “Hello?”

Photo by John Russell.