VUCast: Celebrate, celebrate…amazing seniors
Meet several impressive Vanderbilt graduates who took their bold ideas outside of the classroom. Plus, high tech changes are coming to the Commencement ceremony and hear from the real life “Mother Earth.”
VUCast Extra: Be Agents of Change!
Nobel Prize winner, Green Belt Movement founder, and this year’s recipient of the Nichols-Chancellor’s medal Wangari Maathai gave students an inspirational call to action at Senior Day. Hear from Maathai and the graduates. Read more >>
Senior Day Speaker Wangari Maathai
Watch video of Wangari Maathai, the 2004 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the environmentally conscious Green Belt Movement, receiving Vanderbilt University’s prestigious Nichols-Chancellor’s Medal May 12 during Senior Day. The Nichols-Chancellor’s Medal, which includes a cash prize, is one of the university’s highest honors and is given to individuals who define thekeep reading »
Commencement 2011
Watch video of Vanderbilt University’s class of 2011 Commencement ceremony. About 2,843 graduates were expected to attend Commencement. Degrees were scheduled to be awarded to 1,734 undergraduate and 1,904 graduate students. The main ceremony, featuring the annual address to graduates from Chancellor Zeppos, was moved to Memorial Gym due to the weather. After Chancellor Zepposkeep reading »
3.1 The origins of domesticated dogs
In the 18th and 19th century evolutionary biologists, including Darwin, emphasised the similarities between natural evolution and artificial ‘ improvement’ of livestock under domestication. They believed that studying domesticated animals and plants could illuminate the mechanisms of natural evolution.
5.2 The energy of electromagnetic waves
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) is arguably the father of electromagnetism, and unarguably one of the greatest physicists ever. Einstein called Maxwell's equations 'the most important event in physics since Newton's time, not only because of their wealth of content, but also because they form a pattern for a new type of law'. This unit will examine Maxwell's greatest triumph, the prediction that electromagnetic waves can propagate vast distances through empty space and the realisation that light
4.3.1 Ecological tax reforms
Human societies have to take urgent action to end their dependences on fossil fuels. We have to alter the whole path of our development and decision making in order to make our societies both environmentally adaptable and sustainable. This unit takes on the task of trying to chart some of the ways in which it might be possible.
2.2 Transportation disasters Movement of people and goods was one of the main outcomes of the industrial revolution in Britain in the late-eighteenth century, starting with canals, which were displaced gradually by railways. Industrialisation came through innovation in manufacture, especially the development of mass-produced materials such as cast-iron. While the material had been known and used since the Elizabethan period, it could only be made in small quantities by smelting iron ore with charcoal. The Darby fam
18.2.1 Relative advantage
This unit is for designers, engineers, technologists and anyone interested in designing and inventing. It is also for managers and consumers interested in innovation and technical change. The unit will show you how design and innovation can create a more sustainable future. It will also help you understand how innovation comes about and will encourage thinking about environmental and social challenges for the future.
10.1 What motivates individuals to invent?
This unit is for designers, engineers, technologists and anyone interested in designing and inventing. It is also for managers and consumers interested in innovation and technical change. The unit will show you how design and innovation can create a more sustainable future. It will also help you understand how innovation comes about and will encourage thinking about environmental and social challenges for the future.
6.1 Evolutionary development
This unit is for designers, engineers, technologists and anyone interested in designing and inventing. It is also for managers and consumers interested in innovation and technical change. The unit will show you how design and innovation can create a more sustainable future. It will also help you understand how innovation comes about and will encourage thinking about environmental and social challenges for the future.
5.12 Process innovation
This unit is for designers, engineers, technologists and anyone interested in designing and inventing. It is also for managers and consumers interested in innovation and technical change. The unit will show you how design and innovation can create a more sustainable future. It will also help you understand how innovation comes about and will encourage thinking about environmental and social challenges for the future.
4.8 Has the telephone led to any related or spin-off products?
This unit is for designers, engineers, technologists and anyone interested in designing and inventing. It is also for managers and consumers interested in innovation and technical change. The unit will show you how design and innovation can create a more sustainable future. It will also help you understand how innovation comes about and will encourage thinking about environmental and social challenges for the future.
1.3 Eugenics
This unit explores the Holocaust, as the destruction of European Jewry is commonly known. The mass killing represented by the Holocaust raises many questions concerning the development of European civilisation during the twentieth century. This unit, therefore, covers essential ground if you wish to understand this development.
2 Doing philosophy This section will illustrate the points just made and give you a sense of what it will be like to do philosophy. We shall look at some extracts from the first A211 course book, Arguments for Freedom by Nigel Warburton, and see how philosophical skills can help us to think about political freedom. There will also be a few short exercises for you to do. Although we shall look at actual extracts from the course material, you should bear in mind that this topic will be covered in mu
3 Hero and author
What does Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus tell us about the author and the time at which the play was written? This unit will help you to discover the intricacies of the play and recognise how a knowledge of the historical and political background of the time can lead to a very different understanding of the author's intended meaning.
1.1 The state as patron
In this unit we will examine a range of Napoleonic imagery by David, Gros and a number of other artists, beginning with comparatively simple single-figure portraits and moving on to elaborate narrative compositions such as Jaffa and Eylau. In so doing, we will have three main aims: to develop your skills of visual analysis, to examine the relationship between art and politics and to introduce you to some of the complex issues involved in interpreting works of art.
2.3 Conclusion
Improvisation and composition are words frequently used in the western world to describe the creation of music. But are they really two distinct processes, or are they aspects of the same phenomenon? In this unit we will explore the relationships between the two using examples of Asian music to help us clarify the concepts.
4.1 Initial assessment
Does the recruitment and selection process fill you with dread? Discrimination and equal opportunities legislation can make this area feel like a minefield. If you are faced with appointing a new employee, then this unit will provide a straight-forward guide to the process: from writing job descriptions to finally assessing who to appoint.
2 Effective recruitment and selection
Does the recruitment and selection process fill you with dread? Discrimination and equal opportunities legislation can make this area feel like a minefield. If you are faced with appointing a new employee, then this unit will provide a straight-forward guide to the process: from writing job descriptions to finally assessing who to appoint.
