Students on an environmental justice tour discovered the issues facing some Nashville neighborhoods.

Would you refuse to drink bottled water if it would help your yet-to-be-born great grandchild?

That’s a delicate balance—the contemporary demand for immediate gratification and the responsibility to secure and protect resources for the future. From debates about oil drilling in the Arctic to the use of reusable bags, the tension between having it now and having enough for later generations crosses all spectrums.

Understanding and managing these competing issues has been the topic of the Sustainability Project, a yearlong Vanderbilt-wide exploration under the aegis of the College of Arts and Science’s American Studies program and funded by the College of Arts and Science’s Fant Fund.

Sustainability—broadly defined as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs—is the most pressing issue of the 21st century, says Teresa Goddu, associate professor of English and director of American studies. “The ultimate goal of the Sustainability Project is to create a campuswide conversation that emboldens Vanderbilt’s efforts toward sustainability while deepening our understanding of what we are working toward.”

A fall rolling seminar took participants to Kentucky to see the effects of mountain top removal.

Dean Carolyn Dever puts it more directly. “We’re applying the full diversity of Vanderbilt’s academic expertise to one of the most complex and urgent human challenges of our time,” Dever says. “In the year to come and for many years ahead, our shared work on sustainability will change this campus and the world for the better.”

Across Disciplines

The initiative began with the Cumberland Project, a spring 2011 two-day intensive workshop for faculty. Faculty from various schools and across campus met to discuss sustainability and to develop curricula that incorporated the topic. A second workshop held May 2012 carried the project forward. While the Sustainability Project will conclude officially in 2013, a new minor in environmental and sustainability studies was recently approved by Arts and Science faculty.

A concurrent goal was to create course collaborations between the sciences and humanities that discussed sustainability as a societal issue. More than 30 courses were offered, ranging from Water and Social Justice in Bangladesh, taught by faculty from Earth and environmental sciences and political science, to The Psychology of Sustainability and even an intensive elementary Spanish course with a sustainability focus.

For Dana Nelson, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English, delving deeply into a compelling topic by drawing on resources across disciplines represents the best of a liberal arts education.

“Fundamentally, the Sustainability Project opens pathways where students learn to speak in the languages of other disciplines,” says Nelson, who is also a professor of American studies and women and gender studies. “Doing so opens them to new ways of thinking and seeing the world around them.”

Author Bill McKibben and students discussing how to change things globally by acting locally.

In the spring semester, she and John Ayers, chair of Earth and environmental sciences, taught a graduate seminar exploring society’s ability to manage valuable resources in common and the role of government, corporations and other institutions in protecting those resources in a fair, equitable way.

Such issues inspired Katie Ullmann, a rising senior and American studies major, to look closely at the environment, climate change and resource scarcity within the context, ethics and morals of American culture and history. Ullman, an environmentalist since high school, spent the spring 2012 semester in South Africa, where she focused on urbanization and ways to reduce individuals’ environmental impact through shared consumption and space.

“The Sustainability Project has changed my viewpoint,” she says. “I’ve always felt one person could make a difference. At the same time, however, Sustainability Project speakers often stressed collective action and that helped me see how much top-down environmental change we need to expedite the cultural shift to more sustainable practices in America.”

Impact and Implications Everywhere

Beyond the classroom, speakers such as Peter Gleick, cofounder of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, and Bill McKibben, environmentalist and author of Eaarth and The End of Nature, brought environmental discussion to public forums on campus.

Creativity and new ideas emerged from faculty brainstorming sessions during the spring 2011 Cumberland Project Workshop.

Yearlong green lunches cosponsored with the university’s Sustainability and Environmental Management Office addressed practical topics ranging from cooking with local foods to composting and alternative transportation. One symposium explored sustainability in connection with legal issues and another with creative writing. The Film Studies program and campus film series sponsored films that involved sustainability issues.

Awareness and action galvanized students who participated, including some who began studying the topic even before the project was officially launched. Jill Vaum, BA’11, took a course on water in American studies last year. She says the topic opened her eyes to numerous ideas that previously had not been on her radar, including the environmental impact of fracking—a controversial method for retrieving oil—to water rights and their intersection with religious beliefs.

Vaum says she’s become her family’s moral environmental compass, advocating against beverages in disposable plastic bottles and for using recyclable shopping bags. “Now, when I hear stories on the environment, I’m interested and I’m taking small steps in my own life to lessen my environmental impact,” Vaum says. “Change is fundamentally about one person making a different decision.”

The next time you pull out your smartphone, take a moment to appreciate the tremendous amount of mathematics that it embodies.

Math is involved in converting the sound of your voice into radio signals that connect you to your friends. It is used to create the complex shapes of the fonts in your email messages. In fact, all the phone’s functions are performed by executing basic logical operations on binary code, strings of ones and zeros.

Dietmar Bisch, chair and professor of mathematics

The sleek slab of glass, metal and plastic is an appropriate symbol of just how dependent modern society has become on its most complex art form. There are very few aspects of life today that can function efficiently without the liberal application of mathematics. At its base, mathematics is one of the truest creations of the human intellect. As Albert Einstein put it, “Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.”

Here’s the Proof

In the last 15 years, Vanderbilt’s mathematics department has played an increasingly prominent role in the world of mathematics. It has quietly transformed itself from a department whose majors were mainly concerned with getting teaching jobs in regional colleges into a leading math research department that turns out students who snag jobs at top universities.

“We have moved up substantially in the world,” says Dietmar Bisch, chair and professor of mathematics.

Mathematicians don’t make statements like this without proof. One of Bisch’s strongest pieces of evidence is the department’s performance in last fall’s evaluation of the nation’s graduate programs by the National Research Council.

In the NRC’s 1995 ranking, Vanderbilt’s math program was placed at 84, toward the bottom of the heap. According to department veterans, the old ranking didn’t accurately reflect its quality. But they are quite happy with the new report that places the program squarely among the top 20 percent of the 127 Ph.D. math programs that it analyzed.

The second piece of evidence Bisch cites is the recent hire of Fields Medal winner, Vaughan Jones, from the University of California, Berkeley. Awarded every four years, the Fields Medal is generally considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics.

Jones himself says that his move to the College of Arts and Science was due in part to “the positive atmosphere at Vanderbilt compared to all the negativity in California.” The new Distinguished Professor of Mathematics also cites the quality of the department and the greater ease with which he will be able to get things done here as major reasons for joining the school.

Advanced Theories with Applications

When he arrived in August, Jones added considerable strength to one of the department’s theoretical research groups, the Center for Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebras. The center is directed by Bisch and includes Stevenson Professor of Mathematics Gennadi Kasparov, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Jesse Peterson, and Professors of Mathematics Guoliang Yu, Dechao Zheng and Daoxing Xia.

They study the properties of “non-commutative” spaces where, for example, 4 times 3 does not equal 3 times 4. These advanced theories describe the properties of subatomic particles and a number of other scientifically important spaces. Such spaces also play an important role in the latest manifestation of string theory, which is based on the idea that elementary particles are tiny vibrating strings instead of infinitesimal spheres.

Another theoretical group consists of Centennial Professors of Mathematics Alexander Olshanskiy and Mark Sapir, Professor of Mathematics Mike Mihalik and Associate Professor of Mathematics Denis Osin, recognized experts in group theory, which has its origins in geometry. Group theory is a powerful way of studying geometrical objects and has a number of applications ranging from crystallization to DNA replication to cryptography. Where geometry focuses on objects like the rectangle, group theory concentrates on operations like rotation and translation that these objects undergo.

Some mathematical research is more down-to-earth,  and the department works in several applied fields. One is constructive approximation, which specializes in finding simple techniques that approximate the behavior of complex mathematical expressions. In the Center for Constructive Approximation, Professors of Mathematics Ed Saff and Doug Hardin developed a new method for evenly distributing points on curved surfaces, a procedure with applications ranging from digitizing curved surfaces to modeling the coastal effects of tsunamis.  The center, made up of Stevenson Professor of Mathematics Larry Schumaker, Professors of Mathematics Saff, Hardin, Mike Neamtu and Akram Aldroubi, and Assistant Professor Alex Powell, also publishes Constructive Approximation, one of the world’s most highly cited math journals.

Talking Math

A key element in the department’s growing reputation has been an annual lecture honoring Professor Baylis Shanks, MA’40, and education administrator Olivia Shanks, MA’39, a couple who played major roles at Vanderbilt from the 1950s to the 1970s. The lecture, which emphasizes a different field of mathematics each year, allows the department to invite top mathematicians from around the world for an accompanying research conference that has developed a considerable following in mathematics circles.

It was an invitation to speak at the Shanks lecture that led to a collaboration with mathematician, Fields medalist Alain Connes of the College de France and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES). For nine years, Connes has directed an annual spring institute that combines lectures and workshops, attracting both senior and junior mathematicians to Nashville. (Connes also serves as Distinguished Professor of Math-ematics here at Vanderbilt.) Because of these activities, the department now hosts 300 to 400 visitors annually, an exceptional number for a math department of its size.

Another factor in the department’s growth was Bisch’s  proposal to replace the short-term lecturers who taught many of math’s 160 courses with post-doctoral researchers. This change freed up research time for graduate students, improved the quality of instructions and enhanced the research ambiance in the department significantly. It also brought the College of Arts and Science to the attention of departments nationwide looking for positions for their graduates.

This growing stature has attracted increasingly high quality students. At the undergraduate level, it recently added a new honors track specifically for students interested in pursuing careers in math research and its graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have been extremely successful in finding jobs despite the tough job market.

The typical undergraduate life isn’t filled with lost sleep over curing cancer. But for Joseph J. Crivelli, participation in research has done just that. For Tesniem Fathi Shinawi, her undergraduate life has featured the learning experience of juggling classes, homework and research.

Crivelli and Shinawi are Beckman Scholars, participants in a by-invitation-only national program that funds scientific research for undergraduates. The prestigious Beckman Scholars program selects universities to participate, which in turn identify student applicants. Applicants must seek out a mentor and together they complete a research proposal. Key to the program are the close mentoring by a top researcher and the ongoing, in-depth research required of the student.

Being a Beckman Scholar provides an opportunity to see how research is done in an environment where you’re not guided by courses, says Jeffrey Johnston, professor of chemistry, and one of the directors of the Beckman Scholars program in the College of Arts and Science. “It really comes down to, ‘There’s a problem in front of me and there’s not really a script.’ That’s very different than going into an undergrad lab and being taught the techniques.”

Scholars are chosen for a 15-month period; they receive a significant stipend and commit to working a set number of hours on their research, including summers. Johnston believes the investment reaches far. “There’s a sobering moment, where you need to accomplish something because you’re really the legacy of this program,” he says. “We look for students who show some signs of being good peer leaders.”

The Beckman Scholars program was founded by Arnold Beckman—regarded as one of the top inventors of scientific equipment—and his wife, Mabel, through their Beckman Foundation. Its purpose is to support the education, research training and personal development of students in chemistry, biochemistry and the biological and medical sciences.

Vanderbilt was accepted into the Beckman Scholars program in 2008. In addition to the scholars funded by the Beckman Foundation, the College of Arts and Science also names an additional Dean’s Beckman Scholar, bringing the total of Beckman Scholars to seven since the program began. Here are a few of their stories.

Jessica Miles, senior, Louisville, Kentucky
Katherine Friedman, associate professor of biological sciences

Katherine Friedman with senior Jessica Miles

“The long-term commitment within the Beckman program is really quite unique,” Friedman says. “The summer, in particular, provides the student an uninterrupted time in which to pursue their research question and allows them to contribute to the mentor’s research program at a depth that is difficult to achieve during the academic year alone.”

Miles’ work in Friedman’s lab has been devoted to exploring telomeres, sequences of DNA at the ends of cell chromosomes, and telomerase, the enzyme that maintains the telomeres. “Telomeres and telomerase have significant medical implications,” Miles says, explaining that telomeres prevent the ends of the chromosomes from deteriorating. “The length of the telomere limits a cell’s life span, controlling the aging process. Moreover, inappropriate telomerase activity is a hallmark of an estimated 85 percent of cancers.”

Miles has learned another significant skill from Friedman: mentoring. After her Beckman Scholars experience, she and a friend created the Vanderbilt Association of Biology Students to mentor other students. “Our goal is to improve the academic experience of our members and to serve the needs of biology students who are not pursuing careers in medicine—a group that had no formal support before the formation of this organization,” Miles says.

Joseph J. Crivelli, senior, Cortlandt Manor, New York
Jens Meiler, assistant professor of chemistry and pharmacology

Joseph Crivelli (front) and Jens Meiler

“If you would like to become involved in research at Vanderbilt but are unsure of where to start, I’d recommend that you browse lab web pages, get an idea of which research area you’re interested in, and most important, send some emails,” Crivelli says. “Don’t be shy. There are so many amazing researchers like Jens who are eager to work with undergraduates.”

Small wonder: Meiler says that he has gained “fresh and original ideas; thinking out of the box,” from his work with undergraduates like Joseph.

Crivelli, a mathematics major, used a molecular modeling program to study how proteins interact with peptides. “If we’re able to accurately model the signaling interactions that occur between proteins and peptides in living cells, we can design molecules to block these interactions, potentially leading to new classes of therapeutics to combat cancer and other diseases,” Crivelli says. “Another exciting application of my work is the design of protein antibiotics which bind bacterial peptides. With such technology, we can target the multidrug resistant microbes that have invaded our hospitals.”

That fits with the larger work at Meiler’s lab, which focuses broadly on protein research.

As for the future, “While the theory behind my current work intrigues me, the long-term medical implications are what keep me up at night,” Crivelli says. “I’m now most interested in using ground-breaking research for the benefit of the patient.”

Tesniem Fathi Shinawi, junior, Murfreesboro, Tennessee
David Cliffel, associate professor of chemistry

Though Cliffel says the typical undergraduate experience is “not geared to making a major mark in research,” Shinawi may just be another exception to that rule. She began working with Cliffel at the end of her freshman year; she was named a Beckman Scholar a year later.

During her time in Cliffel’s lab, she has been exploring whether optical dyes used to stain cells have an impact on the physiology of the cell.

“Because fluorescent dyes are so common in the scientific community, it is important to determine whether they are causing any unwanted or significant effects to cellular function and metabolism,” Shinawi explains. She is currently completing a paper on her findings.

The junior chemistry major also received valuable mentoring for her career path; when she joined the lab, she was unsure of her career goals or even her major. She has since decided to pursue medicine and is considering a combined MD/PhD program. “I have learned how to manage my time, to investigate and solve problems, and to learn and present research information.  It has helped me realize that I could incorporate research into my future career goals,” she says.

Liwei Jiang, senior, Durham, North Carolina
Chris Janetopoulos, assistant professor of biological sciences

For Jiang and Janetopoulos, the Beckman Scholars program only enhanced an already fruitful working relationship. Jiang, a physics major, had sought out Janetopoulos a year earlier because he learned the professor “had some innovative ideas that were just waiting for people to develop into full-fledged, meaningful projects.”

Senior Liwei Jiang and Chris Janetopoulos

And develop they have. Working with Janetopoulos, Jiang has created a number of microfluidic platforms to integrate into the Commodore Compressor, a microscope-compatible mechanical device that gently squeezes a living cell or organism to hold it still for study. During his time as a Beckman Scholar, Jiang added a perfusion system to provide nutrients to the specimen, allowing it to be kept alive for several hours and enabling scientists to study the effect of chemicals on the specimen.

“Scientists around the world prefer studying live cells and organisms because one cannot observe dynamic, living processes in dead specimens. However, many live specimens move around greatly under the microscope, making studying them difficult or impossible,” Jiang explains.

The Commodore Compressor is a unique tool, Janetopoulos explains, and it may have a significant impact in many areas of research. “We realized early on that there were many applications for this device without perfusion. However, adding perfusion to the device as Liwei has done makes the device extremely attractive for other fields as well,” he says.

Jiang’s progress and well-written description of his project led to him being chosen as one of a select few scholars to present his findings at the annual Beckman Symposium. “A few scholars gave suggestions on how I can further my project,” Jiang says. “I have valued their suggestions to this day.”

Jiang’s suggestions are also valuable to Janetopoulos and his lab. “For a laboratory such as mine that averages four or five undergraduates, having a Beckman scholar in the lab sets the bar pretty high for the other students,” Janetopoulos says.

Jiang plans to become a physician with a specialization in research. “Through my undergraduate research experience, I have become convinced that future developments in medicine lie in investigating the human body and disease in a scientific yet creative manner.”

Observing fishermen on Bangladesh’s fragile waterways.

In the College of Arts and Science, if you’re going to study Earth and environmental sciences (EES), you get out of the classroom.

So in the Cascade Range of Washington State, Professor Calvin Miller and his students examine Mount St. Helens. Beside a river in Bangladesh, Associate Professors Jonathan Gilligan and Steven Goodbred Jr. help students try to find answers to that country’s fresh water needs. And in frozen Antarctica, Professor Molly Miller tracks environmental changes in the face of global warming.

As wide ranging as those topics and locations seem, they are all part of how the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences studies, teaches and interprets Earth’s history—its age and origin as recorded in rocks and the landscape—as well as how geological processes affect modern environmental and ecological systems.

“This department is a gem,” says David Furbish, chair of the department. “The faculty is spectacular. We’re getting applications from students that match those at the best schools.” Faculty members are consistent in receiving grants, including funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). “We’re not surprised when people from NSF ask us to serve on science review panels—a measure of the respect that these folks, representing the Earth sciences community, hold for the accomplishments and perspective of our faculty,” Furbish says. “We may be small but we’re also fierce.”

At the core of the department’s international reputation are quality research and teamwork. Most research projects involve collaborations with other EES faculty, Vanderbilt scholars, top researchers worldwide and students. Graduate students are drawn by the department’s small, personal size and its faculty’s reputation for significant research in which students are coauthors.

The interdisciplinary culture of collaboration ranked high in drawing Assistant Professor Larisa DeSantis to the department in 2009. DeSantis, whose area of expertise is mammalian fossils, studies how past climate change affected mammals and their environments.

“EES is an ideal place to integrate geological and biological disciplines with the flexibility to ask biological questions using the fossil record,” DeSantis says. “Students here continually challenge me to communicate the broader implications of current Earth and environmental science research, connecting my work to fields spanning the sciences to the humanities.”

Collaboration is Key

In conjunction with Professors Calvin Miller and John Ayers, Assistant Professor Guilherme Gualda is studying a volcanic eruption that buried parts of the Southwest in ash 18 million years ago. The trio is exploring volcanic forces with a particular eye for ancient eruptions, their causes and impact, and what they tell about today’s eruptions. Gualda focuses on how magma chambers form and factors leading to volcanic eruptions, Ayers studies how earth materials behave geochemically under high pressure and temperatures, and Miller concentrates on ancient magma systems.

“Collaboration is an explicit goal of the department—no isolation. Multiple people thinking about a problem in different ways benefits everyone,” Gualda says. “Having two to three people interacting brings different perspectives.” His research draws in graduate and undergraduate students, and he reaches out to faculty whose interest in the formation of the Earth’s crust mesh with his. The EES professors says this approach gives students opportunities to learn and work in different areas, which can broaden their post-graduation employment options.

“People who collaborate spread their enthusiasm,” Calvin Miller says. “People who have diverse experiences have more job opportunities.”

Above, clockwise from top left: Heading toward Mount St. Helens’ active lava dome; in the field in Nevada; home base in Antarctica; rocks formed within a magma chamber that erupted 16 million years ago.

Miller is an expert on Earth materials, particularly those rocks derived from magma that has cooled and solidified below the Earth’s surface. Fieldwork by Miller and his students at Mount St. Helens has uncovered rich data about the evolution of the recently active volcano. Miller also works with Furbish, an expert in fluid dynamics and geomorphology, on a study of how magmas and particles interact within magma chambers.

Furbish’s fluid studies also tie in with Molly Miller’s landmark work two continents away. New faculty member Dan Morgan, senior lecturer in EES, also interacts with Miller as he studies configuration and evolution of rocks and landforms in Antarctic dry valleys. Miller’s ongoing research in Antarctica is revealing how sediment is delivered to coastal areas and how sea creatures beneath the ice modify the sediment. Concurrently, she tracks environmental changes on the continent in the face of global warming.

Environmental Change and Sustainability

Currently, the department is seeing increased interest in the environment and sustainability. “As Earth scientists, we work both in the present and the past, which gives us a unique perspective,” Furbish says. “Climate change is front and center in students’ worldview. EES continues to broaden its scope in this direction.”

In the spring semester 2010, students came face-to-face with the impact of Earth issues on climate change and sustainability through a multidisciplinary EES seminar called Water and Social Justice in Bangladesh.

During the course, faculty and students from the College of Arts and Science, School of Engineering and Peabody College traveled to Bangladesh with Goodbred and Gilligan. The team toured the country, met with Bangladeshi representatives and discussed solutions to the South Asian country’s dire freshwater needs.

The trip tied both to Goodbred’s climate change-related research on the formation of deltas by major rivers draining from the nearby Himalayas and to Gilligan’s work as associate director of the Vanderbilt Climate Change Research Network. Working in a multidisciplinary environment, network members produce theoretical and applied research on the impact of individual and household behavior on greenhouse gases. Gilligan’s emphasis is the intersection of transdisciplinary environmental problems—issues that combine scientific, technical, social, political and ethical concerns—and helping students prepare to solve them.

That’s ultimately the work of EES, Furbish says. “So many of the challenges the world faces fundamentally involve breaking down barriers, bringing the expertise and perspectives of many people and fields to finding solutions,” he says. “Ours is the quintessential interdisciplinary science, providing vital perspectives on how Earth’s physical and geochemical templates simultaneously sustain and threaten life and influence human interactions with Earth.”

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.

Creative writing faculty, from left, Nancy Reisman, Mark Jarman, Sandy Solomon, Tony Earley, Kate Daniels and Lorraine López.

The College of Arts and Science launched the M.F.A. in creative writing in fall 2006. Three years later, it debuted at No. 18 in Poets & Writers magazine’s influential annual ranking of creative writing programs. Now 621 writers and poets have applied for the six spots in the fall 2010 class.

What makes Vanderbilt’s M.F.A. in creative writing so popular? It may start with Vanderbilt’s reputation. The university’s association with great writing began nearly a century ago with John Crowe Ransom’s acclaimed class described as “a practical course in writing various types of prose, including the short story.” Among Ransom’s students were Fugitive literary group writers Donald Davidson, Allen Tate and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Penn Warren. Given that legacy, the M.F.A. program seemed both logical and overdue.

Literary life at Vanderbilt includes events such as the Gertrude Vanderbilt and Harold S. Vanderbilt Visiting Writers series. Here poet Cornelius Eady reads from his work.

“Creative writing has always been highly regarded at Vanderbilt,” says poet Mark Jarman, Centennial Professor of English and director of the creative writing program. “That’s the legacy we’ve tried to keep going.”

The intimate class size is also important. Just six students are admitted each year into the two-year program, which makes the program highly selective and “extra small,” according to Poets & Writers’ ranking. “We wanted to create an esprit de corps with high morale,” Jarman says. “It was an ethical decision. We want to help our students create a community for a certain amount of time that allows them to be immersed in their writing.”

The English department’s award-winning faculty of 10, evenly split between poetry and prose, is another strong selling point for the program. All members are working writers who continue to teach.

For the program’s faculty, finding the best students is important. “We try to get it down to the best 20 applicants, and then we rank them and go after the top students,” explains novelist Tony Earley, the Samuel Milton Fleming Professor of English. “Last year, we got three of our top five. It really allows us to have a team of all-stars.”

For first-year M.F.A. student Matthew Baker, the faculty’s energy about the students was a drawing card. “The faculty pursued me and seemed genuinely excited about the prospect of me being in the program,” he says. He was also drawn to its small size. “You want to find a program that has a balance between students having a significant amount of time with the professors, but also enough students to make the workshops valuable,” he continues. “Vanderbilt seemed like the right size for me.”

Most of the creative writing students are in their 20s, although some are older. Associate Professor Lorraine López, a PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist, says she appreciates the more seasoned writers. “They bring poise, history, maturity, a longer background in literature,” the novelist and short story author says. “Writing isn’t like a professional sport, where you peak in your early 20s. Your experience and perspective and history continue to shape you. If you keep at it, you just get better as a writer.”

Jarman points out that the program’s goal is not to teach people how to write. “We’re teaching the craft of an art,” he says. “A writer has an innate gift, and we can help them with techniques. But we can’t teach the art.”

Earley wants his students to appreciate the hardness of writing. “Every piece of fiction is the result of thousands of decisions,” he says. “I tell my students to go ahead and get lost, get overwhelmed in the process. It’s the only way to succeed. You must get to that place where you’re overwhelmed and learn to negotiate within those parameters.”

In the M.F.A. program, Earley hopes that his students accelerate their learning curve and discover things they could not gain on their own. “The process is almost alchemy,” he says. “All the pieces, when taken together, become something else.”

As part of the M.F.A., creative writing students study legendary Vanderbilt writers such as Robert Penn Warren, James Dickey and the Agrarians.

For the first three semesters, the M.F.A. students take two seminars and one workshop, where the focus is class discussion of student-produced work. The final semester is devoted to their thesis—a novel, collection of short stories or collection of poems.

In addition, they work as writing consultants in the school’s Writing Studio during the first year and then in their second year, teach an introductory creative writing workshop in their genre.

The teaching helps boost the funding package for the students, which this fall will include a full tuition benefit, $10,650 stipend and $3,350 salary. Jarman says that applications tripled the year they went from partial to full funding for tuition. Now his goal is to double the stipend, bringing it more in the range of a doctoral student’s stipend.

“The stipend, of course, makes a real difference,” Baker says, who hopes to string together a few writing gigs for the summer. For now, much of his attention is directed at the spring launch of the program’s online literary magazine, The Nashville Review. The first issue focuses on areas of literature that are often overlooked.

“You’ll see graphic novels, creative nonfiction, music, and interviews with writers,” he says. “We want to look at writing that isn’t literature with a capital ‘L’.”

Department Chair Andrew Tomarken

Forget what you’ve seen on The Sopranos, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Frasier or cop shows. Despite the almost universal depiction of psychology in the media, the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Science focuses on the bigger picture: how brain processes affect human behavior.

“The work done by our faculty and students has had wide-ranging impact on our understanding of the relation between the brain and thoughts, feelings, and behaviors,” says Department Chair Andrew Tomarken, associate professor of psychology. “I am not exaggerating when I say that I am sometimes in awe of my colleagues’ ability to ask important questions about brain-behavior linkages and to devise creative and rigorous experiments to answer such questions.”

More than two decades ago, he says, the psychology department decided to focus on three main areas of expertise: clinical science, cognition and cognitive neuroscience, and neuroscience. Today its faculty members are nationally recognized for their groundbreaking research. The department’s graduate program ranks among the top programs in the country in these three specialty areas. The undergraduate program, which boasts 287 students majoring in the field, benefits from having top experts teaching its courses.

Emphasizing these three areas doesn’t limit the department, Tomarken explains. Its 30 faculty members have interests and expertise in multiple and sometimes interconnecting areas of those three concentrations. Other connections flourish in the graduate program in psychological sciences, which spans the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Science and the Department of Psychology and Human Development in Peabody College. Because the two departments have complementary specialties, students and faculty are exposed to a wide range of educational and research opportunities.

Cross-campus collaborators Owen Jones and René Marois

Disgust to Depression and Everything In Between

In the past two years, College of Arts and Science psychology faculty have published major findings in a number of areas. These range from studies of brain activity that underlie perceptual expertise (Isabel Gauthier) and motion perception (Randolph Blake) to clinical studies of the relative benefits of different treatments for depression (Steve Hollon), the role of disgust in anxiety disorders (Bunmi Olatunji), and brain processes that underlie the cognitive and emotional problems experienced by individuals who suffer from schizophrenia (Sohee Park).

Many faculty and students have a high level of expertise in neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). For example, Associate Professor of Psychology Frank Tong has shown that fMRI can be used to decode very subtle differences in perceptual experience. In another recent collaboration, René Marois, associate professor of psychology, and Owen Jones, professor of law and of biological sciences, used fMRI to understand how the brain thinks about crime and punishment. Jeffrey D. Schall, the E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Neuroscience, joined the pair for additional studies assessing whether criminals have a distinct pattern of brain dysfunction that may predispose them to lives of crime.

Schall says the level of collaborative research spanning Vanderbilt’s different schools and colleges is unique. He notes that the university’s interdisciplinary Center for Integrative Health, Kennedy Center and Vanderbilt Vision Research Center are critical elements for sparking this level of cross-departmental research. “There are very low barriers to accomplishing interdisciplinary work,” Schall says. “We can credit the administration for creating discovery grants and other mechanisms that allow us to explore fresh ideas with new people. The degree of collegiality here creates an environment where it’s much smoother.”

But even within the department itself, collaboration is unique in that it often joins researchers from within the three disciplines who may also bring different research expertise. Tomarken points to work being conducted by Schall, Tom Palmeri and Gordon Logan as a prime example.

Schall is well-known for his work in the neural basis for response inhibition, while Associate Professor Palmeri is a recognized expert in the mathematical modeling of behavior. Logan, Centennial Professor of Psychology, has long studied cognitive control (the mental processes that control thoughts and behavior) and more than 20 years ago, developed a highly influential theoretical model known as the race model (as in stop and go, like in a race). Widely accepted, the race model is used to explain cognitive problems in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.

Recently a team comprised of Logan, Schall, Palmeri and Research Associate Leanne Boucher explored how the theoretical model Logan developed is implemented by the brain. Together, their work provided a new dimension to long-held beliefs in psychology and new methods for exploring the brain’s influence on activities.

Tom Palmeri, Leanne Boucher, Jeffrey Schall and Gordon Logan

Collegial In and Out of the Classroom

Though the psychology department boasts some of the eminent researchers in the field, it doesn’t mean they are ensconced away in labs, Tomarken notes. “Our big names teach undergrads and do so with a high degree of commitment,” he says.

Graduate students, too, interact with the big names, with an expectation that they will work in labs and coauthor research with some of the luminaries. “Our program is based on getting students to learn how to do the things very early on that they’ll have to do to function as independent scientists,” Tomarken says. “We expect them to be continuously involved in research. They give talks. They publish.”

That, says Jenn Richler, a graduate student working in the clinical area, first drew her to the university. “But I was ultimately convinced to come here by the warm reception I received during recruitment weekend. That highlighted not only the great research going on, but the overall attitude in the department. Not all departments have a mix of people as friendly and eager to work collaboratively.”

Peiyan Wong, a doctoral candidate working in the neuroscience areas, agreed. “It’s not so much of a sink-or-swim thing. It’s guided swimming. I like the fact that psychology is a pretty open department. You get interactions not just at your own lab, but with other students as well. You get to learn about different fields of research. It gives you a different perspective.”

That feeling carries into the faculty realm, says David Zald, associate professor and director of the undergraduate studies program. “The one thing I still find really distinguishes this department is the extent to which the faculty are accessible to the students. Students who want to join labs can do that with a level of ease, and there’s an expectation of that possibility,” he says. “Having a good professor teach a course is always beneficial. But many of those same courses you could take at another university, and a lot of the material covered would be similar. Here there’s the potential for learning outside the classroom, and we just do a really good job of getting students to have those opportunities.”

Katharine Donato, sociology chair

Sometimes new leaders make their mark on an organization by changing everything. Fortunately for the Department of Sociology, new chair Katharine Donato doesn’t hold that philosophy. Instead Donato is building on the strengths of the programs in place to generate growth.

“This is not a department that needs an overhaul,” says Donato, professor of sociology, who joined Vanderbilt in 2006. “It runs very smoothly. My colleagues are very productive, grounded people. That makes them a pleasure to work with personally and professionally.”

The productivity of the sociology faculty is made all the more remarkable by the relatively small size of the department. Sociology, Donato explains, is a very broad field. The American Sociological Association lists 41 different sections of study. The College of Arts and Science’s sociology department concentrates on eight sections, in addition to teaching an overview of sociology in general. “Some sociology departments will list 15. We’re a fairly small faculty to cover eight areas,” she says. “What is remarkable is we really do cover those areas.”

The sociology faculty, which currently numbers 16, concentrates on teaching and research in the areas of health and medicine; cities, states, and political economy; race, ethnicity, and immigration; deviant behavior; arts and culture; gender and sexuality; work, labor, and occupations; and social movements. Their work is published in scholarly journals, two of which—Work and Occupations and Homicide Studies—are housed in the department. Starting in January 2010, the prestigious American Sociological Review—considered as the flagship journal in the field—will also come to Vanderbilt. Donato, Associate Professor Tony Brown, Professor Holly McCammon and Distinguished Professor of Sociology Larry Isaac were recently chosen as editors. 

Relational Focus

Donato intends for the department to grow in the 2009-2010 academic year by adding new faculty positions and projects. It will grow smartly, she says, with continued focused attention on research and mentoring students. “I want to keep pushing so that we hire the best faculty and bring in the highest quality graduate students, and that both grow,” she says.

Emily Tanner-Smith, who graduates with her Ph.D. in sociology in May, was drawn to the program because of its small size. Having attended a small liberal arts college for her undergraduate degree, she wanted something larger, but not by too much. “I felt like I could get the one-on-one relationship with the faculty and that mentoring relationships could be built,” Tanner-Smith says. “I had an idea of what I wanted to study, but I wasn’t positive. With the breadth of the faculty members’ research interests, I knew I wouldn’t be locked in if I changed my mind.”

With the broad reach of the field of sociology, the faculty finds plenty of opportunity to research jointly with others on campus. The Center for Medicine, Health and Society, Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy, and Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and the Environment all have ties to the sociology department through cross-discipline research or shared professors.

“Most of us work at the interstices of these areas, as well as within them,” says Jennifer Lena, assistant professor of sociology. “This affords us particular advantages—we’re all interesting people and interested in one another. We are all broadly read across the discipline and we work with ease on interdisciplinary projects like the medicine, health and society program, or Jewish studies.”

Assistant Professor Shaul Kelner’s Tourism, Culture and Place class.

Healthy Growth

One interdisciplinary project includes interviewing Nashville residents on a wide variety of health indicators. Students use data from the Nashville Health Survey to discuss the survey methods and analyze results. When complete, Donato hopes that findings from the survey will lead to “interesting and important policy recommendations for the city.” 

In a new initiative, the department is teaming with Meharry Medical College on a health policy funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As part of that initiative, graduate students will become foundation fellows, participate in Meharry’s new Center for Health Policy and pursue doctorates in sociology in the College of Arts and Science.

Health-related work is both a strength and an area in which the department can continue to grow, Donato believes. As part of her research, she studies the relationship between migration and health. “We, as a social science discipline, have a long-standing history of writing on health issues,” she says. “Any courses that we offer in health, broadly speaking, fill up immediately.” 

Jennifer Lena, assistant professor, discusses campus creativity.

Emphasis on Research

Research plays a major role in the activity of the department. “Research is what we do and what we are expected to do,” Isaac says. “It is at the heart of the scholarly mission. When we refer to research we generally mean the ongoing process of maintaining command of a particular field of inquiry—necessary for high-quality undergraduate and graduate teaching—and our individual and collective contributions to advance the field—necessary for graduate teaching.” 

The emphasis on research strengthens the department’s 25–30 graduate students, who often work with professors on research topics, earning not only valuable experience, but also publication credit. The department’s prolific research has had an unexpected effect—professors sometimes have difficulty finding enough graduate students who are available to participate in new research projects. To that end, Donato anticipates small growth in the graduate program along with the addition of new faculty.

Research alone isn’t enough to prepare students for future careers in academia. At the graduate level, students are required to take a teaching seminar. “We do mostly research with the graduate students, but then we add that applied piece which rounds them out as new Ph.D.s,” Donato says. “It’s not only about your ideas; it’s about how you get those ideas across.”

Koji Ueno, PhD’04, and currently assistant professor at Florida State University, says the teaching seminar plus the dual emphasis on teaching and research made him a better sociologist. “The extensive and individualized feedback and mentoring from faculty tremendously helped me develop my research agendas and methodological skills to become an independent researcher,” he says. “I also took advantage of the excellent course for sociology instruction as well as the opportunities to guest lecture and teach my own summer course. I felt confident about my teaching when I received my doctoral degree.”

In this global, fast-changing, digital age, people in business need to know more than just business. That’s why the Managerial Studies program in the College of Arts and Science combines a liberal arts education—cultivating creativity, knowledge, innovation and the ability to think critically—with a strategic foundation in business methods.

The Managerial Studies program complements a student’s liberal arts major with the addition of a minor or specific courses in business. That union prepares students for life after college and has won approval from business leaders, students, parents and faculty alike. 

Focusing on the liberal arts allows students to find their hearts and souls, and to study topics for which they have passion, says William Damon, professor of economics and director of the Managerial Studies program. “Their majors provide a broad base of knowledge and then managerial studies provides the tools to help them shape their careers.”

A diversity of majors adds depth to group presentations by students.

The program offers minors in three areas: corporate strategy, financial economics, and leadership and organization. Currently, more than 1,400 students are enrolled in managerial studies courses, making it one of the most popular campuswide. Last year, students from more than 32 majors and four Vanderbilt schools selected managerial studies as their minor.

“The Managerial Studies program delivers an alternative model to the business major, one that we think is better,” says Cherrie Clark, associate director of the program and associate professor of managerial studies. “Being able to draw students from throughout the university brings depth to classroom discussions. It’s a different classroom and different perspective than one would find at a school with a traditional undergraduate business program.”

The program’s three tracks have drawn future entrepreneurs, business people, doctors, lawyers, artists and other professionals. The track in corporate strategy explores the methods businesses use to create competitive advantage in the marketplace. Financial economics develops understanding of financial markets, corporate finance, personal wealth management and government. The third track, leadership and organization, focuses on how to be effective, successful leaders. 

Understanding how business operates helps students apply the knowledge they’ve gained in their majors. Jacqueline Kumar will graduate in May with a major in psychology and double managerial studies minor in corporate strategy and leadership and organizations. The Memphis native has completed two internships in human resources, her chosen field. “I had not really taken any managerial studies classes when I started the first internship,” she says. “I realized that HR is people skills, but now know that in order to be a successful, strategic partner, you need to understand core business processes. I really appreciate the corporate strategy that is more numbers-based. I’ve become stronger and I understand things a little better.”

Real-World Applications

Managerial studies grew out of the economics department, then known as economics and business administration, nine years ago. Initially the program had one professor and one senior lecturer. Today the program has grown to include four full-time faculty and 13 adjunct professors, most of whom have executive experience at top corporations.

Having so many professors with corporate backgrounds gives the program credibility with students, Clark says. She brings experience as a partner in the computer-based education firm Executive Perspectives and as a consultant with Bain & Company. “Students often wonder ‘How does this work in the real world? How am I going to use this?’ Our professors are able to share first-hand knowledge on how classroom concepts can translate to the business world,” Clark says.

Associate Professor of Managerial Studies Cherrie Clark.

Clark uses her business contacts to bring in outside guest speakers who provide additional real-world knowledge, experience and career advice. She says that because they speak from experience, speakers can provide valuable knowledge and career direction that is on target. 

Zhou Zhang, a 2007 graduate now working at Wachovia in Charlotte, N.C., found the guest speakers “gave us a lot more breadth of what you can do, how things apply, and what kind of options were out there.” The courses she took in financial economics contrasted with the individual study that marked her double major in mathematics and economics. Managerial studies courses offered “more of a real world application. With a lot of heavy math classes, it’s all about theories. With the managerial studies classes, there’s a lot of practical application,” Zhang says.

Opportunities and Passions

Some of the popularity of the program, which graduated 230 minors in spring 2008, may start with parents, Damon believes. “We know that some parents, while they see the value in a liberal arts education, are also saying ‘Have some idea about what’s going to happen next.’” One goal of the Managerial Studies program is to help students identify opportunities for combining their passions with business. The three-course sequence in entrepreneurship has been particularly effective in meeting this goal, he says.

The ultimate goal of the Managerial Studies program is to allow students to build upon their liberal arts education, Damon and Clark say. The popularity of the program, however, leaves the program directors with the challenge of balancing an appropriate
number of course offerings with the traditional liberal arts education. “We have some students who would take every course offered in managerial studies,” Damon says. “But if they’re taking all of our courses, they’re not taking the courses where they have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to broaden their view of the world. That goes against the basic philosophy of the liberal arts.”

Damon and Clark believe that a liberal arts education is the best preparation for life as well as the best preparation for business. And that is not just the educators’ opinion. “We’re listening to Arts and Science alumni, individuals who majored in history, philosophy and psychology, for example, and who have gone on to achieve great success in the business world; we’re listening to our guest speakers at the upper levels of business,” Damon says. “They say liberal arts is the way to go.”

One undergraduate travels to Jamaica to research whether the health clinic is open when the population needs it most. Another works with a local hospice. A third studies the effect of literacy on diabetics’ renal function.

Vanderbilt has always strived to educate its students so they will go forth and contribute as leaders after they graduate. But why wait?

From this philosophy, a new College of Arts and Science major, medicine, health and society (MHS), was born. Using an interdisciplinary and transinstitutional framework, MHS encourages students to examine the local, national and international forces that affect medicine, health and society. Courses and seminars cover topics including the correlation of health care and diseases, the doctor/patient relationship, economic and legal barriers to quality care, cultural and global concerns, the history of medicine, and gaps in the infrastructure of public health systems. Students then have an opportunity to participate in internships to confront problems in real-time settings, such as hospitals, hospices, public health clinics, homeless shelters and international relief agencies. 

Passion, Service and Research Combined

“I think a lot of our students come to our program because they want to change the world,” says Arleen Tuchman, professor of history and director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society. “They’re learning how to reflect on this impulse or this passion that they have, and they’re being encouraged to think about how to combine service and research.”

Vanderbilt students are flocking to participate in this innovative intersection of humanities, social sciences and medicine. Now tagged as the hottest new major on campus, it has grown from 29 declared majors in the fall of 2006 to 175 majors today–with no plateau in sight. “There’s a buzz on campus,” Tuchman says. And students and faculty alike share the excitement.

“These are students who want their shot at some sort of transformative experience,” says Greg Barz, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of musicology, and associate professor of music and religion. “I see them as intellectual risk-takers. I see them taking leaps off cliffs in terms of what they’re willing to think about, and what boxes they’re willing to think outside of. Plus, the courses are cool.”

Barz, for example, teaches a course about East African medicine and society, and works with Vanderbilt’s Kampala Project, which includes a four-week, on-the-ground, service-learning component in Uganda. Students chosen for the course attend a spring semester class introducing the health issues of East Africa, with a particular focus on HIV/AIDS. They then travel with Barz for a May session internship in Kampala, where each works in a clinic, school, orphanage, hospital or outreach
center. 

The Kampala Project is now co-sponsored by The Commons (see related story on page 20), with the intent of providing international opportunities for first-year students who will return to the university and share their experiences with peers and teachers.

“We wanted them young, so they would come back and change Vanderbilt,” Barz explains. “From their first steps on campus, these kids are being given an opportunity to become global citizens.” 

Diverse Disciplines Encourage Diversity of Thought

Another hallmark of the major is the way it fosters cross-campus exchange. Instructors assemble from many departments in the College of Arts and Science and from other Vanderbilt schools, as well as the medical center.  

This interdisciplinary diversity broaches a wide range of thought-provoking topics. For instance, Holly Tucker, associate professor of French and associate director of MHS, teaches a course on medicine and literature; David Boyd, who holds a doctorate in medieval studies and has worked in hospital administration, has created a course on death and dying; and physician Frank Boehm leads a class in controversies in modern medicine. School of Nursing Associate Professor and Vanderbilt Distinguished Alumna Carol Etherington instructs students about risks and responsibilities in caring for vulnerable populations.

Tuchman has high praise for her faculty, pointing out just some of what each brings to their classes. “What I appreciate about Carol Etherington is her whole commitment to teaching students, who want to save the world, to examine their motivations. She wants them to begin thinking responsibly about the kinds of interventions that they are either supporting or enacting. And she wants them to make sure that, in the end, their work is actually benefiting the people they’re trying to help.”

In this same vein, Barbara Clinton, who directs Vanderbilt’s Center for Health Services, will guide a class that seeks insight from community leaders into the most pressing issues facing their constituencies. Tuchman says the point is “that those of us who are in academic settings and have resources and research tools should be working with community leaders to help them solve the problems they consider most urgent.”

Unique Perspectives for Premed

Many MHS majors continue on to graduate programs in nursing, public health, dentistry, law, hospital administration and medicine. In fact, the major offers a unique background for the premed undergraduate. 

“So many people [applying to medical school] are biology majors without much experience in the societal aspects of medicine,” explains Daniel Israel, a senior MHS major who will attend medical school in fall 2008. “Now it seems nonscience majors are getting accepted into medical school at a higher rate than pure basic science majors. I think a lot of that is the changing perspective of medical schools, realizing that knowing your p’s and q’s of science isn’t enough to make you a true physician. You really need to know how health affects people from a societal perspective.” 

Senior Sarah Deery, who also will attend medical school next year, attributes the critical thinking required from her MHS classes to helping her sail through medical school interviews. “I was asked, ‘What do you think is the biggest problem facing American medicine today?’ and I could have talked about that for hours!” she says with a laugh.

Disha Kumar, BA’07, now in her first year at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, believes that by double-majoring in MHS and chemistry, she was well prepared for challenges in her chosen career. “I was able to do everything I wanted to do in college,” she says. “I took a history of medicine class. Who would have thought that a class like that even existed for undergraduates? I loved the interdisciplinary nature of MHS. For me, it was the best part of college.”

Photos by Ravi Patel and Carolyn Audet.