Commons Reading

This summer, Vanderbilt’s incoming first-year students will take on a new challenge: learning to listen with curiosity. As part of the 2025–26 Martha Rivers Ingram Commons programming theme, “Stories that Connect Us,” students will conduct interviews during the summer with members of their communities, practicing the skills of thoughtful listening and engaged dialogue.  Read More

The Campus Reading for the 2021-22 academic year will be "When Breath Becomes" Air by Paul Kalanithi. The selection was chosen by a team of faculty and students. Read More

This year’s Lawson Lecture featured Dolly Chugh, author of "The Person You Mean to Be," the 2020 Commons Reading for first-year and transfer students, and Dean of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons Melissa Gesalfi in a fireside chat via webinar. Read More

Incoming first-year, transfer and Next Steps students were welcomed into the Vanderbilt community on Sunday during Founders Walk, an annual event that marks the start of the academic year as well as the students’ time at the university. Read More

Vanderbilt’s Inclusive Book Group will meet online Aug. 5 to discuss "The Person You Mean to Be," which explores causes of inequality and offers tools for recognizing implicit bias. Read More

While all incoming Vanderbilt undergraduates are expected to read "The Person You Mean to Be," the Commons Reading for 2020-21, the book will be particularly useful for anyone trying to understand the root causes of inequality. Read More

The Commons Reading for the 2020-21 academic year will be "The Person You Mean to Be" by award-winning author Dolly Chugh. The book will be distributed to all incoming first-year undergraduate students as well as incoming transfer students. Read More

The Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center and the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries will host a discussion of the 2019 Commons Reading, "The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity" by Kwame Anthony Appiah, on Tuesday, July 23. All in the Vanderbilt community are invited to read the book and join in the discussion. Read More

The Commons Reading for the 2019-20 academic year will be "The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity" by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Read More

The Commons Reading for the 2018-19 academic year will be "The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom" by Jonathan Haidt. Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Susan R. Wente and Vanessa Beasley, dean of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons, announced the selection March 26. Read More

On the latest episode of "The Zeppos Report," Vanderbilt writer-in-residence Andrew Maraniss tells Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos about his personal journey to Vanderbilt and how it led him to write Perry Wallace's biography. Read More

Resilience—the ability to adjust to change, recover from setbacks or overcome life’s challenges—is a key theme being explored by first-year students on The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons during 2017-18. Read More

When first-year students arrived last August at Stambaugh House, a residence hall on The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons, no doubt much of what they encountered was brand new. But a relic from the past awaited them in the Stambaugh lobby. Read More

"Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South" will serve as the Commons Reading for a second year in 2017-18, with members of the incoming first-year class exploring additional themes of the book and participating in new and expanded programming. Read More

The diverse classes offered by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Vanderbilt for winter 2017 include a look behind the scenes of 'Romeo and Juliet,' Perry Wallace's inspiring story, and steel drum band. Read More

A reunion 50 years in the making made a significant impact on first-year students at the 10th annual Lawson Lecture Sept. 27, when Vanderbilt alumni Perry Wallace and Godfrey Dillard shared their stories of being young African American basketball recruits and students on campus in the late-1960s. Read More

The Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery presents “Race, Sports and Vanderbilt: 1966–1970,” which will showcase photographs, front pages from "The Tennessean," and related artifacts from this time period, beginning Friday, Sept. 23. Read More

Faculty and staff at The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons are kicking off the newly revised Vanderbilt Visions curriculum for first-year students with an interactive activity that will give students, faculty, staff and visitors to campus an opportunity to learn more about African American athletics pioneer and Vanderbilt alumnus Perry Wallace. Read More

The Commons Reading for the 2016-17 academic year will be "Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South" by Vanderbilt alumnus Andrew Maraniss, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Susan Wente and Vanessa Beasley, dean of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons, announced today. Read More