There was a surprise twist at the department's recent 2012 student awards ceremony. Both of the graduate student awards were shared - and by the same two students.

The International Conference on Cycles in Graphs was held at Vanderbilt May 30 to June 2, 2012,  in conjunction with the 27th Annual Shanks Lectures. The purpose of the conference was to bring together workers from around the world to focus on recent developments in cycles in graphs.

The Department of Mathematics hosted the Tenth Annual Spring Institute on Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebras May 4-10, 2012. The theme of the 2012 event was Conformal Field Theory and von Neumann Algebras.

A new scholarship for undergraduate students majoring in mathematics has been endowed by former math major Elizabeth Brueggeman and her husband Mark. The $250,000 gift agreement to fund the Mark and Elizabeth Barrow Brueggeman Scholarship was made in honor of Elizabeth’s upcoming reunion in October 2012.

The Department of Mathematics' rise to prominence in recent years is the focus of an article in the Fall edition of Vanderbilt's Arts and Science magazine.