Imagine learning history, politics and international law from the very people who made it.
That’s what students enrolled in Humanities 161–The Iraq War experienced in a very tangible way.
Over the course of the 2009 fall semester, class speakers ranged from former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley to the retired Army officer and West Point professor who literally wrote the book on the counterinsurgency strategy. Students were captivated by details of efforts to keep detention facilities from becoming breeding grounds for insurgency and of a soldier’s fight to stay alive. They heard of new military strategies and major mistakes that provided future lessons.
But not all of the firsthand experience came via guest speakers.
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From the Peabody esplanade, Cohen Memorial Hall looks as it has for more than 80 years: a beautiful, classic structure in keeping with the Jeffersonian-inspired mall design.
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The seeds of his career started when Tom Dillehay was a child living on the same street as a professor of archeology at Southern Methodist University.
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Some locations just seem to nurture and foster artists of all types. The heat and history of Mississippi gave us William Faulkner and Eudora Welty.
Read more »Last spring, when the youngest of Steven and Arlene Grushkin’s three children graduated from the College of Arts and Science, the final family trip to Vanderbilt University was bittersweet. There was the sweetness of accomplishment as Jonathan, BA’09, walked the stage like his brother Brian, BA’05, had done four years prior.
I am a final year Ph.D. student from Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland, and one of eight graduate student fellows at Vanderbilt’s Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities. We are a diverse bunch, with varied interests, ideas and opinions, which makes for lively meetings …
Why I Said Yes To Guantanamo I’m pretty sure I had never uttered the word “Guantanamo” before the summer of 2004. I had never even seen A Few Good Men, the movie famously set on the U.S. Navy’s base there. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base first crossed my mind in early 2002, when the U.S. began transferring suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members captured in the war in Afghanistan to the prison located there.
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Five Minutes With … Molly Thompson 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.
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The Craft of an Art Within the brick walls of Benson Hall’s top floor lies an incubator for the next generation of writers. Home to Vanderbilt’s master of fine arts program in creative writing, the fourth-floor hallways are lined with books, comfortable reading chairs, and the workplaces of renowned authors mentoring some of the campus’ best student writers.
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Back in the Day The campus welcomes notable speakers each spring, but none generated more excitement than President John F. Kennedy did on May 18, 1963. Dudley Field was packed as the president commemorated the university’s 90th anniversary.
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In this issue of Arts and Science, you will read the words of Gail McConnell, a visitor from Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland. Gail is a Ph.D. candidate in English and a member of this year’s graduate fellows program at the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities.
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Dan Cornfield, professor of sociology and political science, was awarded the 2010 Susan C. Eaton Scholar-Practitioner Grant by the Labor and Employment Relations Association for his book project on Nashville music careers supported by Vanderbilt’s Curb Center.
Professor of Psychology Steven Hollon received the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Clinical Psychology from the Society of Clinical Psychology (APA Division 12) in recognition for his body of work on cognitive therapy for depression.
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They checked his transcripts and the registrar’s records to make sure he had completed all the requirements, and in late 2009, Dr. Ullin W. Leavell received his College of Arts and Science diploma from Dean Carolyn Dever—66 years after leaving Vanderbilt during World War II.
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