Dear Arts and Science community,

Congratulations to College of Arts and Science graduates! More than 800 A&S graduates crossed the stage to receive their diplomas on May 12, with families and friends cheering them on.

It was a wonderful day and celebration, captured through social media at #VU2017!

Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful summer,

Lauren Benton
Dean, College of Arts and Science
Nelson O. Tyrone, Jr. Professor of History

Watch: Celebrating the Class of 2017

Arts and Science Founder’s Medalist honored at Vanderbilt Commencement

A&S in the news

The New Yorker: Briefly noted
City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris, a new book by Holly Tucker, professor of French, is reviewed.

National Geographic: Humans in California 130,000 years ago? Get the facts
In an announcement sure to spark a firestorm of controversy, researchers say they’ve found signs of ancient humans in California between 120,000 and 140,000 years ago—more than a hundred thousand years before humans were thought to exist anywhere in the Americas. Tom Dillehay, Rebecca Webb Wilson University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, is quoted.

NPR’s Science Friday: This neuroscientist loves the ‘extremes’ in the animal kingdom

The article features an interview with Ken Catania, Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences, about his research and lab—a curious space filled with fake zombie arms and star-nosed mole portraits.

Education Post: Teach For America could be exactly what America’s schools need to reduce implicit bias
A new study out of Vanderbilt University suggests that policymakers from presidents to school board members would benefit from work experience with people of different races and classes. It would not only foster more enlightened policies, but also make them more aware of their inherent bias, a first step to reducing prejudice. Co-author Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, assistant professor of political science and of public policy and education, is featured and quoted throughout the article.

Vox: Genetically engineered humans will arrive sooner than you think. And we’re not ready
Michael Bess, Chancellor’s Professor of History and author of Our Grandchildren Redesigned: Life in the Bioengineered Society of the Near Future, is interviewed about new advances in biotechnology and how they will provide both tantalizing possibilities and alarming consequences for humans.

Variety: Entertainment education: Stellar film schools in 2017
Vanderbilt’s Cinema and Media Arts program, which emphasizes cinema as a modern aesthetic form and encourages hands-on practice, is one of the 31 film programs highlighted on this list.

The Mac Observer: In a Background Mode interview, this podcast interviewed Kelly Holley-Bockelmann, associate professor of physics and astronomy, about the focus of her research specialty—black holes and gravitational waves.

A&S notable achievements

William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of History Celia Applegate and Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of History David Blackbourn were announced as 2017-18 members at the School of Historical Studies at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies.

Associate Professor of Art Vesna Pavlovic has won a George and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship.