James H. Kirkland, just 34 years old when he became Chancellor, hailed from South Carolina. The son of an itinerant Methodist preacher, he attended Wofford College then received his Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig. With the help of colleagues he met during his German studies, he landed a job teaching Latin at Vanderbilt in 1886. Kirkland remained in the post for 44 years, dealing with financial problems and fostering a number of projects designed to raise educational standards in the South.

One of the biggest challenges Kirkland faced in his tenure occurred at 11 a.m. on April 20, 1905. Fire broke out in Old Main, the heart and soul of Vanderbilt life. Throughout the afternoon, while the fire raged, students threw books out the windows. Students waiting below caught the books and carried them to a safe place. Before the fire finally gutted most of the building, students had saved 4,000 books; another 18,000 books burned. Before the day ended, Chancellor Kirkland posted a letter to the anxious student body. Do not brood over this calamity, he wrote his charges, move on and look to the future. He assured them the academic program would continue. In the months ahead, Kirkland took the sow's ear of a fire and turned it into a silk purse of unprecedented new giving to the University, giving prompted in large part by the alumni's desire to help rebuild that cherished building.

During Kirkland's tenure, the University separated from the Methodist church in 1914. The School of Medicine relocated to the main campus in 1925. Kirkland retired in early 1937 and the board named Oliver C. Carmichael to replace him as Chancellor. Kirkland died two years later. As a tribute to the years he spent building the University, Old Main was renamed Kirkland Hall.

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To replace James H. Kirkland, the board named Oliver C. Carmichael, 46, then dean of the graduate school at Vanderbilt. This signaled a turning point for the University because Carmichael already had shown that he favored an institution more attuned to current problems than the older, more elitist Vanderbilt. As dean, he wanted more emphasis on graduate work and research and a more flexible curriculum.

Carmichael grew up on an Alabama farm. He graduated from Alabama Presbyterian College, received a master's degree at the University of Alabama, then was awarded a Rhodes scholarship. While Rhodes Scholars at Oxford, Carmichael and a fellow student, Harvie Branscomb, were among a group of American student volunteers who worked for Herbert Hoover's Commission for Relief in Belgium. For smuggling a politically sensitive letter from Cardinal Mercier through the German lines, the two were awarded the Medaille du Roi Albert, Medaille de la Reine (Belgium). Their friendship would shape Vanderbilt's destiny for nearly three decades.

Later, as Chancellor, Carmichael's political skills resulted in what may be the greatest single achievement of his administration, the establishment of the Joint University Libraries serving Vanderbilt, Peabody and Scarritt College. In 1945 Carmichael resigned to become head of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The Vanderbilt board, following a lengthy search, picked a 51-year-old biblical scholar named Harvie Branscomb, then dean of the divinity school at Duke University.

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Born in Huntsville, Ala., Harvie Branscomb, earned his B.A. at Birmingham Southern and a distinguished M.A. in biblical studies as a Rhodes Scholar. After working on the same Hoover relief commission as Oliver Carmichael, he served in the Army and then took a professorship at Southern Methodist University before earning a Ph.D. at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. The 51-year-old dean of the divinity school at Duke University was named Vanderbilt Chancellor in 1945.

In his 17 years as Chancellor, Branscomb directed an expansion of Vanderbilt that resulted in a doubling of the number of buildings. Perhaps more important than the expansion of facilities, however, was the expansion of Vanderbilt's vision of what it could become. Not satisfied with Vanderbilt as a great Southern university, Branscomb wanted Vanderbilt to become a national leader among universities. In 1949, Vanderbilt was elected to the elite American Association of Universities.

Over the years, Branscomb subtly encouraged the Faculty Senate to vote overwhelmingly in favor of integration and nudged student groups to speak out. One of his allies was the editor of the Vanderbilt Hustler, who campaigned for open admissions. That editor was a student named Lamar Alexander, who would later become governor of Tennessee and then U.S. Secretary of Education.

Branscomb retired in 1963, and the board named Alexander Heard, 48, as Chancellor. Branscomb lived another 35 years, dying on July 24, 1998, at the age of 103. He maintained an office in Kirkland Hall until his death, and until shortly before he died, regularly attended University functions.

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Before Alexander Heard was named Chancellor in 1963, he was dean of the graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and had made a name for himself as a brilliant political scientist. Holding a B.A. from UNC and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia, he had written two books, A Two Party South? and The Costs of Democracy, the latter having led to his being named by President John Kennedy to serve on the Commission on Campaign Costs.

Heard guided the Vanderbilt ship through some very troubled waters. While he was at the helm, unrest engulfed many campuses across the country, at times leading to violence. Early on, Heard began holding quiet, regular meetings with student leaders, including some of the foremost campus radicals. Consequently, as far as activities on campus were concerned, Vanderbilt witnessed peaceful demonstrations, and Heard's defense of the open forum survived challenges from both ends of the political spectrum.

Another segment of the Heard legacy was his successful effort to place the first woman, Mary Jane Werthan, B.A. '29, M.A. '35, on the board. He also convinced the board to create a new class of trustees- four recent graduates-to assure a youthful perspective would be heard by the board- one of the first universities in the nation to do so. In 1979, after a challenging and difficult set of negotiations involving Heard and others, Vanderbilt and Peabody College merged. Two years later the Blair School of Music merged with Vanderbilt. In 1983 the board recognized Heard's work in building the University community by naming the Vanderbilt library system for Heard and his wife, Jean.

When Alexander Heard retired in 1982, the board named Joe B. Wyatt to succeed him. Heard still has an office in Kirkland Hall and regularly participates in University activities.

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When Joe B. Wyatt became Chancellor in 1982, he sought to place Vanderbilt in the very top tier of American universities. Wyatt, a Texan, holds degrees in mathematics from Texas Christian University and the University of Texas. He was vice president for administration at Harvard University-and father of a Vanderbilt sophomore-when he was selected as Vanderbilt's sixth Chancellor. As a computer scientist and executive, he brought to the University his concept that information technology is a strategic resource of accelerating global importance in education, research and patient care.

Wyatt also pushed the University community to unprecedented levels of involvement in volunteer community service. Alternative Spring Break was founded in 1987 by a handful of students with Wyatt's support. With funding from the Chancellor's discretionary fund, the non-profit Break Away: The Alternative Break Connection was founded in 1991 by Vanderbilt graduates to help colleges across the country start alternative spring breaks.

In 1989, for the first time, Vanderbilt's undergraduate programs were ranked among the top 25 national universities overall in the U.S. News & World Report survey, and they continue to be ranked in the top 25 today. Wyatt spent much of the early '90s working with trustees and staff in The Campaign for Vanderbilt, the most ambitious fund-raising effort in the institution's history. This latest campaign, which ended in 1995, raised $560 million.

One of Wyatt's most significant accomplishments as Chancellor has been the improvement in the quality of Vanderbilt's faculty. The criteria for faculty appointment, promotion and tenure have been strengthened twice during his administration, making it clear that excellence in scholarship, teaching and service are required for all members of the faculty. The number of endowed faculty chairs has increased from 39 in 1982 to more than 100 today, and faculty salaries have continuously increased as well.

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Gordon Gee was named Chancellor of Vanderbilt University on Feb. 7, 2000. One of the most experienced chief executives in higher education, Gee previously served as president of Brown University, The Ohio State University, the University of Colorado, and West Virginia University. A joint degree recipient in law and education from Columbia University, Gee completed a federal judicial clerkship, after which he served as an Assistant Dean for the University of Utah College of Law. After holding this position, Gee served as a Judicial Fellow and Senior Staff Assistant for United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger. He then became Associate Dean and Professor at J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University and next served as Dean at West Virginia University. It was at West Virginia University that he made the transition from law school administrator to university president.

Gee places special emphasis on improving student life and increasing Vanderbilt's commitment to and participation within the community. He is committed to instilling a culture of simplicity, clarity, agility and accountability at the University and continues to lead the institution's development and enhancement of world-class scholarship, teaching, public service and patient care. The hiring of several renowned tenure-level faculty and medical researchers, coupled with the launch of an intense self-examination of the University's 39 Ph.D. programs, contributes to a sense of a newly invigorated Vanderbilt.

Committed to Nashville and Middle Tennessee, in 2001 Gee chaired the Director Search Advisory Committee to the Board of Public Education in Metropolitan Nashville and currently serves as vice chair for education for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. He also serves on a steering committee for a new National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and helps conduct Circle of Hope, a philanthropic leadership program organized by the Tennessee chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Gee is currently serving a five-year term as president of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. He also serves as a director or trustee of the American Council on Education, the National Hospice Foundation, the Historic Black College and University Advisory Committee of the Kresge Foundation, The Campus Compact, Dollar General Corporation, Massey Energy Corporation, Gaylord Entertainment Company, as well as on local governing bodies for the Boy Scouts of America and American Red Cross. He is a member of the President's Council for Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges Advisory Council of Presidents, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation Board, and the Business-Higher Education Forum.

Active in a number of professional and service organizations, Gee has been a Trustee for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation since 1995. He has carried out research on behalf of the Ford Foundation, the Guy Anderson Foundation, the American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation, among others. He is the co-author of six books, and the author of over twenty-five papers and articles in fields relating to both law and education. The recipient of a number of awards and honors, he was a Mellon Fellow for the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies and a W.K. Kellogg Fellow. In 1994 he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from University of Utah, and in 1994 he received the same award from Teachers College, Columbia University. The father of Rebekah, he is married to Constance, an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University.

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