Renaissance in Nashville

When Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt blessed the bishops of the Southern Methodist Episcopal Church with $1,000,000 to build a university in Nashville 89 years ago, he set a style in largesse that has lingered on the campus ever since. Last week Vanderbilt University's current fund drive was close to its $30 million goal, and there was every sign that the school was well on the road to a renaissance.

A new quadrangle for women is already under way. A ten-story tower and a hospital will be added to the Medical Center. Behind it, a $4,000,000 science center will go up, and down the way, a $1,250,000 law building. A graduate school of business and an expanded engineering program will bring more students and the faculty will be enlarged. "I want Vanderbilt to be a great American university, not just a fine Southern university," says Chancellor Harvie Branscomb.

Poets & Players. When Andrew Carnegie offered the medical school $1,000,000 in 1913, the Methodist bishops sensed an impending loss of control and vetoed the gift. The school's Board of Trust won independence in the Tennessee Supreme Court, settled down in the spirit of uncrowded excellence that Vanderbilt had attained. The first of poetry's Fugitives/- arrived in 1915, and with the '20s came Vanderbilt's glorious but short reign as a football power. Then, for nearly two decades, the school lapsed into quiet ease.

Chancellor Branscomb took over in 1946. He put in nine years of dealing with the cliquish, 44-man board, and then persuaded Harold S. ("Mike'') Vanderbilt to accept the presidency and lead the school back to the role that his great-grandfather had charted for it--strengthener of ties "between all sections of our common country." Sportsman and Financier Vanderbilt was the first of his family to serve on the board, and he took the job seriously; in private airplanes, he flies into Nashville once a month from homes in New York, Palm Beach and Virginia, works "in great harmony" with Chancellor Branscomb.

A Crusty Leader. The student body of 3,861 is well above the national average in scholastic achievement, and Branscomb has helped by minimizing frills such as football and fraternities. Tuition has risen $400 since 1958 to the present $1,000 a year. More than half the students come to Vanderbilt from outside Tennessee, but it remains segregated in all except its professional and graduate schools, where desegregation is only token.

At 67, Alabama-born Chancellor Branscomb has developed a campus reputation for crustiness that makes students marvel at his genius for fund raising. His let-your-conscience-be-your-guide approach has brought Vanderbilt financial support from nearly half its alumni in recent years; in the current drive, the Board of Trust set a good example by signing up for $11 million itself, thereby assuring the school of a $4,000,000 Ford Foundation matching grant. Branscomb has great expectations for his university, and he is content to sacrifice popularity to realize them. "He's not exactly the kind of man you would want to share a foxhole with," an aide says, "but if you were playing a crucial baseball game, you'd say, 'Pitch Branscomb,' and if it was a doubleheader, you'd say, 'Pitch Branscomb twice.' "

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The Vanderbilt alumnus' willingness to get in there and give was matched all over the U.S. on a bigger scale than ever last year, says the annual report put out by Manhattan's John Price Jones Co., an organizer of fund-raising drives. Compared with 1960, says Jones, gifts at 50 leading campuses rose last year by a hefty 22%. The 50 schools raised a record $346 million, of which individual donors gave 54% (foundations gave 35%, business 11%). The top beneficiaries:

1960 1961

Yale $16,112,000 $42,207,000 Harvard 37,519,000 40,340,000 Stanford 18,440,000 23,495,000 Columbia 17,791,000 20,402,000 Chicago 12,283,000 19,167,000 California 13,269,000 15,687,000 Princeton 15,545,000 15,602,000 N.Y.U. 11,196,000 15,326,000 Cornell 14,658,000 15,301,000

/- Among them John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, Merrill Moore.

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