Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University, private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Nashville, Tennessee. The school was founded in 1873 as Central University. The present name was adopted the following year in honor of the American industrialist and philanthropist Cornelius Vanderbilt, who donated $1 million to the institution.

Vanderbilt University was opened for instruction in 1875 with departments of law, medicine, arts, and theology, to which were added departments of pharmacy and dentistry (1879, later discontinued), engineering (1886), and nursing (1909). The existing divisions were reorganized as schools in 1915 with the exception of the department of arts, which became the College of Arts and Science. In 1925 the medical and nursing schools were moved from the city’s center to their current location on campus.

A prominent research and teaching institution, Vanderbilt University confers bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral, and professional degrees in a variety of fields. At present the university comprises the College of Arts and Science, the Blair School of Music, the Owen Graduate School of Management, Peabody College (education and human development), a graduate school, and schools of divinity, engineering, law, medicine, and nursing. Research facilities at the school include the Kennedy Center for Research on Education and Human Development, the Free Electron Laser Center, the Dyer Observatory, and the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies.

Vanderbilt’s 134-hectare (330-acre) campus, also an arboretum, is located just outside of downtown Nashville. The school enrolls about 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Prominent graduates include recording artist Amy Grant and Sheldon Hackney, the chairman of the National Endowment for Humanities (see National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities).