Vanderbilt University - Notable Faculty and Alumni

Notable Faculty and Alumni

Vanderbilt has approximately 114,000 living alumni, with 31 alumni clubs established worldwide. Many Vanderbilt alumni have gone on to make significant contributions in politics. Lamar Alexander (B.A. 1962) is a current U.S. Senator, former Governor of Tennessee, former U.S. Secretary of Education, and former U.S. presidential candidate; he filled the Senate seat left vacant by the retirement of Fred Thompson (J.D. 1971). Two U.S. vice presidents, John Nance Garner and Al Gore, attended the university, but did not graduate. However, Gore's ex-wife, Tipper, is herself an alumna, receiving a master's degree from Peabody in 1975. Other alumni who are or have been involved in politics include former United States Supreme Court Associate Justice and former U.S. Attorney General James Clark McReynolds (B.S. 1882), Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute David Boaz (B.A. 1975), and former White House Chief of Staff John R. Steelman (M.A. 1924). Bill Frist, a cardiothoracic surgeon and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, is a faculty member at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The Prime Minister of Somalia, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali (M.A. 1988), is also an alumnus of Peabody College.

Within the business world, Vanderbilt alumni have gone on to serve in a number of key leadership roles; alumni include Ann S. Moore (B.A. 1971), former Chairman and CEO of Time, Inc.; Doug Parker (M.B.A. 1986), President and CEO of US Airways; and Matthew J. Hart (B.A. 1974), former President/COO of Hilton Hotels. Vanderbilt also has an intimate connection to the contemporary management consulting industry. In particular, the founders of two of the three most prominent management consulting firms graduated with undergraduate degrees from the university. Bruce Henderson, founder of The Boston Consulting Group, graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1937, while Bill Bain, founder of Bain and Company, graduated in 1959 with Phi Beta Kappa honors in history, and currently serves on the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust.

Three alumni, biochemist Stanford Moore (B.A. 1935), economist and microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus (Ph.D. 1971), and former Vice President Al Gore have won the Nobel Prize. Four current or former members of the faculty also share that distinction: biochemist Stanley Cohen, physiologist Earl Sutherland, and pioneer molecular biologist Max Delbrück; Nobel laureate and neuroscientist Paul Greengard was a visiting scholar. Alain Connes and Vaughan Jones, both Fields Medalists, are Distinguished Professors of Mathematics at the university. In addition, the university has a rich literary and journalistic legacy. Most notably, the Southern Agrarians were a group of influential American writers and poets in the 1920s and 1930s based at Vanderbilt. Three U.S. Poets Laureate are Vanderbilt alums: Allen Tate (B.A. 1922), Robert Penn Warren (B.A. 1925), and Randall Jarrell (M.A. 1938). Warren later went on to the win the Pulitzer Prize. Novelists James Dickey (B.A. 1949) and James Patterson (M.A. 1970) also graduated from Vanderbilt. Two well-known sportswriters, Grantland Rice (B.A. 1901) and Fred Russell (B.A. 1927), have a scholarship named after them at the university, and Buster Olney (B.A. 1988) writes for ESPN.com and The New York Times. Journalist David Brinkley attended briefly. Skip Bayless (B.A. 1974) of ESPN First Take attended Vanderbilt as a recipient of the Russell-Rice scholarship. Willie Geist (B.A. 1997) is a host of MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Current Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler (B.S. 2005) is also a Vanderbilt alum and was drafted in the first round of the 2006 NFL Draft by the Denver Broncos. Cutler's teammate and offensive tackle Chris Williams (B.S. 2008) was a first round pick by the Bears in 2008. Vanderbilt also produced the first overall draft pick of Major League Baseball in 2007 with David Price and the second overall draft pick of Major League Baseball in 2008 with Pedro Alvarez. Price and Alvarez were drafted by the then-named Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Pittsburgh Pirates, respectively. ESPN basketball analyst Carolyn Peck was a standout member of the Commodores' basketball program from 1985–1988, eventually becoming a head coach and leading the Purdue Boilermakers women's basketball team to a national championship in 1999.

Given the university's location in Nashville, many of its alumni become involved in the music industry. Dinah Shore (B.A. 1938), Rosanne Cash (B.A. 1979), Amy Grant (B.A. 1982), and Dierks Bentley (B.A. 1997) are all alumni. Shore later went on to star in a variety of films; other Vanderbilt alumni with Hollywood connections include Academy Award-winners Delbert Mann (B.A. 1941) and Tom Schulman (B.A. 1972) and actors Molly Sims (B.S. 1995) and Joe Bob Briggs (B.A. 1974).