Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school 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.

[14] 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.

The culminating Luria–Delbrück experiment, also called the Fluctuation Test, demonstrated that Darwin's theory of natural selection acting on random mutations applies to bacteria as well as to more complex organisms.

[49] Shortly after the war, from 1945 to 1947, researchers at Vanderbilt University conducted an experiment funded by the Rockefeller Foundation where they gave 800 pregnant women radioactive iron[50][51][52] without their consent.

Women's rights advocate Maryly Van Leer Peck graduated as the first chemical engineer in 1951 after not being able to study this field at Georgia Tech where her father was president.

[55] The university drew national attention in 1966 when it recruited Perry Wallace, the first African American to play varsity basketball in the Southeastern Conference (SEC).

[68] Participants have included Martin Luther King Jr., Allen Ginsberg, Stokely Carmichael, Strom Thurmond, Robert F. Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Madeleine Albright, Vicente Fox, Ehud Barak, and multiple Presidents of the United States.

[74][75] In 1989, the university began offering Posse Foundation scholarships to groups of promising young leaders from urban backgrounds to increase their share of diverse students.

[83] In August 2016, the university agreed to remove the word "Confederate" from the building after "anonymous donors" donated $1.2 million to repay the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

[86] In 2011, the Oakland Institute exposed a university investment in EMVest Asset Management, a private equity firm "accused of 'land grabbing,' or taking over agricultural land used by local communities through exploitative practices for large-scale commercial export farming in five sub-Saharan African countries.

[109] Its Institute for Space and Defense Electronics, housed in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, includes the largest academic facility in the world involved in radiation-effects research.

[112] In 2010, the Center for Intelligent Mechatronics at Vanderbilt began testing a powered exoskeleton intended to assist paraplegics, stroke victims and other paralyzed or semi-paralyzed people to walk independently.

[161] Flanking the original campus to the south are the Stevenson Center for Science and Mathematics—built on a woodland once known as the Sacred Grove[162]—and the School of Engineering complex (Jacobs Hall-Featheringill Hall).

On September 6, 2024, Vanderbilt University entered into a lease agreement to occupy the General Theological Seminary campus in Chelsea, Manhattan pending approval from the government authorities.

Vanderbilt made it clear that General Theological Seminary would continue to occupy some space on the New York City campus, but would remain a separate entity.

[169] Wyatt placed great emphasis on improving the quality of faculty and instruction, and during his tenure Vanderbilt rose to the top 25 in the U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings for the first time.

[181] The college played host to two notable literary movements, the Fugitives and the Southern Agrarians; John Crowe Ransom was a member of the English department.

[191][77] The intent is to form "a cohesive and growing network of residences that spark creativity, build community, support student success, and extend educational opportunities beyond the classroom.

[210] On November 4, 2010, two anonymous former members of the Vanderbilt chapter, an alumnus and a senior student, alleged they were evicted from Beta Upsilon Chi, a Christian fraternity, for being gay.

[215] In March 2015, three swastikas, a symbol of Nazi antisemitism, were found spray-painted in the elevator and basement inside the house of Alpha Epsilon Pi, one of the historically Jewish fraternities on campus.

[216][217][218] The campus Hillel chapter called it "a malicious attack intended to bring to mind the horrors of the Holocaust, to force us to feel different, endangered and isolated.

[220] Meanwhile, as of 2015, The Tennessean reports that the university is "under review by federal education officials, spurred by six current and former female students who filed a complaint about how Vanderbilt has handled cases of sexual misconduct.

"[220] In April 2016 and June 2016, two former Vanderbilt football players were found guilty of charges related to the videotaped rape of an unconscious woman in a dorm room.

[240] Despite fears that Vanderbilt would lose coaches and recruits or would be forced out of the SEC, the university experienced considerable success after the change; 2006–07 was one of the best in the school's athletic history.

accompanied by the "VU" hand sign, created by extending the thumb along with the index and middle fingers (essentially identical to the Serbian three-finger salute).

[270] Influential figures outside of elected office include civil rights movement pioneer James Lawson,[271] Nobel Peace Prize-winning father of microfinance Muhammad Yunus, who is also currently serving as the Chief Adviser of Bangladesh,[272][273] Scopes Trial chief counsel John Randolph Neal Jr.,[274] Chinese theologian T. C. Chao,[275] Watergate prosecutor James F. Neal,[276] Yun Chi-ho, Korean political activist and thinker during the Joseon Dynasty,[277] and Charlie Soong, who played a significant role in the Xinhai Revolution.

[299] In academia and the sciences, distinguished Vanderbilt alumni include University of Pennsylvania President Sheldon Hackney,[300] founding dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government Don K. Price,[301] Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Stanford Moore,[302] astronomers E. E. Barnard[303] and J. Davy Kirkpatrick,[304] Platonist philosopher Richard M. Weaver,[305] founder of New Criticism Cleanth Brooks,[306] mathematician Lawrence C. Evans,[307] Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare developer Herman Daly,[308] Haskell programming language designer Paul Hudak,[309] Director of the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT Mriganka Sur,[310] founder of the NASA Astrobiology Institute and Chairman of the SpaceX Safety Advisory Panel G. Scott Hubbard,[311] Mendel L. Peterson, "the father of underwater archaeology",[312] John Ridley Stroop, who discovered the Stroop effect,[313] and NASA astronauts Michael L. Gernhardt[314] and Charles R.

[325] Journalists who have attended Vanderbilt include Pulitzer Prize winners Ralph McGill and Wendell Rawls Jr., Morning Joe host Willie Geist, Vogue Director of Communications Hildy Kuryk,[326] NBC newscaster David Brinkley, CNN International anchor Richard Quest, and head writer of The Daily Show Zhubin Parang.

[334] Vanderbilt's entrants into the NBA include Will Perdue,[335] Charles Davis,[336] Festus Ezeli,[337] Darius Garland,[338] Dan Langhi,[339] Clyde Lee,[340] Luke Kornet,[341] and Aaron Nesmith.

[342] Vanderbilt baseball stars include Sonny Gray,[343] Walker Buehler,[344] Pedro Alvarez,[345] Dansby Swanson,[346] David Price,[347] Scotti Madison,[348] and Mike Minor.