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Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school with its initial $1 million endowment in the hopes that his gift, and the greater work of the university would help to heal the sectional wounds inflicted by the American Civil War. Vanderbilt is a founding member of the Southeastern Conference and has been the conference's only private school since 1966.
The university comprises ten schools and enrolls nearly 13,800 students from the US and 70 foreign countries. Vanderbilt is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Several research centers and institutes are affiliated with the university, including the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center, and Dyer Observatory. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, formerly part of the university, became a separate institution in 2016. With the exception of the off-campus observatory, all of the university's facilities are situated on its 330-acre (1.3 km2) campus in the heart of Nashville, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from downtown.
Vanderbilt alumni, faculty, and staff have included 54 current and former members of the United States Congress, 18 US ambassadors, 13 governors, 9 Nobel Prize winners, 2 vice presidents of the United States, and 2 US Supreme Court justices. Other notable alumni include 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, 27 Rhodes Scholars, 2 Academy Award winners, 1 Grammy Award winner, 6 MacArthur Fellows, 4 foreign heads of state, and 5 Olympic medalists. Vanderbilt has more than 145,000 alumni, with 40 alumni clubs established worldwide.
In the years before the American Civil War of 1861–1865, the Methodist Episcopal Church South had been considering the creation of a regional university for the training of ministers in a location central to its congregations. Following lobbying by Nashville bishop Holland Nimmons McTyeire, church leaders voted to found "The Central University of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South" in Nashville in 1872. However, lack of funds and the ravaged state of the Reconstruction Era South delayed the opening of the college.
The following year, McTyeire stayed at the New York City residence of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt's second wife, Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt (1839–1885), was a cousin of McTyeire's wife, Amelia Townsend McTyeire (1827–1891), and both women were from Mobile, Alabama. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the wealthiest man in the United States at the time, had been planning to establish a university on Staten Island, New York. However, McTyeire convinced him to donate $500,000 to endow Central University in order to "contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all sections of our common country".
Vanderbilt eventually increased the endowment to $1 million (roughly $26 million in 2024), and though he never expressed any desire that the university be named after him, McTyeire and his fellow trustees rechristened the school in the Spring of 1873 in his honor. They acquired land from Confederate Congressman Henry S. Foote, who had built Old Central, a house still standing on campus.
The first building, Main Building, later known as Kirkland Hall, was designed by William Crawford Smith, and its construction began in 1874. In the fall of 1875, about 200 students enrolled at Vanderbilt, and in October the university was dedicated. Bishop McTyeire was named chairman of the Board of Trust for life by Vanderbilt as a stipulation of his endowment. McTyeire named Landon Garland (1810–1895), his mentor from Randolph-Macon College, as chancellor. Garland shaped the school's structure and hired the school's faculty. Most of this faculty left after disputes with Bishop McTyeire, including over pay rates. When the first fraternity chapter, Phi Delta Theta, was established on campus in 1876, it was shut down by the faculty, only to be reestablished as a secret society in 1877. In 1880, Old Gym, a Victorian building designed by Peter J. Williamson, was completed and became the university's first gymnasium. By 1883, the Board of Trust passed a resolution allowing fraternities on campus, and more chapters were established in 1884.
Following the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, a statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt, designed by Italian sculptor Giuseppe Moretti, was moved from the grounds of the Parthenon to the Vanderbilt campus.
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Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school with its initial $1 million endowment in the hopes that his gift, and the greater work of the university would help to heal the sectional wounds inflicted by the American Civil War. Vanderbilt is a founding member of the Southeastern Conference and has been the conference's only private school since 1966.
The university comprises ten schools and enrolls nearly 13,800 students from the US and 70 foreign countries. Vanderbilt is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Several research centers and institutes are affiliated with the university, including the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center, and Dyer Observatory. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, formerly part of the university, became a separate institution in 2016. With the exception of the off-campus observatory, all of the university's facilities are situated on its 330-acre (1.3 km2) campus in the heart of Nashville, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from downtown.
Vanderbilt alumni, faculty, and staff have included 54 current and former members of the United States Congress, 18 US ambassadors, 13 governors, 9 Nobel Prize winners, 2 vice presidents of the United States, and 2 US Supreme Court justices. Other notable alumni include 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, 27 Rhodes Scholars, 2 Academy Award winners, 1 Grammy Award winner, 6 MacArthur Fellows, 4 foreign heads of state, and 5 Olympic medalists. Vanderbilt has more than 145,000 alumni, with 40 alumni clubs established worldwide.
In the years before the American Civil War of 1861–1865, the Methodist Episcopal Church South had been considering the creation of a regional university for the training of ministers in a location central to its congregations. Following lobbying by Nashville bishop Holland Nimmons McTyeire, church leaders voted to found "The Central University of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South" in Nashville in 1872. However, lack of funds and the ravaged state of the Reconstruction Era South delayed the opening of the college.
The following year, McTyeire stayed at the New York City residence of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt's second wife, Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt (1839–1885), was a cousin of McTyeire's wife, Amelia Townsend McTyeire (1827–1891), and both women were from Mobile, Alabama. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the wealthiest man in the United States at the time, had been planning to establish a university on Staten Island, New York. However, McTyeire convinced him to donate $500,000 to endow Central University in order to "contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all sections of our common country".
Vanderbilt eventually increased the endowment to $1 million (roughly $26 million in 2024), and though he never expressed any desire that the university be named after him, McTyeire and his fellow trustees rechristened the school in the Spring of 1873 in his honor. They acquired land from Confederate Congressman Henry S. Foote, who had built Old Central, a house still standing on campus.
The first building, Main Building, later known as Kirkland Hall, was designed by William Crawford Smith, and its construction began in 1874. In the fall of 1875, about 200 students enrolled at Vanderbilt, and in October the university was dedicated. Bishop McTyeire was named chairman of the Board of Trust for life by Vanderbilt as a stipulation of his endowment. McTyeire named Landon Garland (1810–1895), his mentor from Randolph-Macon College, as chancellor. Garland shaped the school's structure and hired the school's faculty. Most of this faculty left after disputes with Bishop McTyeire, including over pay rates. When the first fraternity chapter, Phi Delta Theta, was established on campus in 1876, it was shut down by the faculty, only to be reestablished as a secret society in 1877. In 1880, Old Gym, a Victorian building designed by Peter J. Williamson, was completed and became the university's first gymnasium. By 1883, the Board of Trust passed a resolution allowing fraternities on campus, and more chapters were established in 1884.
Following the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, a statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt, designed by Italian sculptor Giuseppe Moretti, was moved from the grounds of the Parthenon to the Vanderbilt campus.