Cultural Awareness

In the residential colleges system, students learn to explore, live, and celebrate diverse communities in their house or college, at Vanderbilt, in Nashville, and throughout the world by developing thorough understandings of identities, biases, stereotypes, and cultural competencies.

We seek to empower students to contribute to the creation of an inclusive community that embraces and honors people of all backgrounds and experiences. Each year, the country flags of all 1,600 students’ national identities are displayed in the atrium of The Commons Center, to honor the experiences and backgrounds that the entire first-year class brings to The Ingram Commons. In Moore College, students join Faculty Head Mumin Kurtulus for a weekly student break event known as cosMOOREpolitan in which food and practices from a particular country are shared. Countries celebrated in the fall 2021 semester include Japan, Italy, Cuba, and Mexico, among others.