On Monday, March 17, Vanderbilt University will celebrate the 135th anniversary of its founding. The celebration is free and open to the public. Participants should meet at Kirkland Hall, the second floor lobby, at 10 a.m.

There will be a brief ceremony at the statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt, located at the entrance of the Kirkland Hall esplanade off of West End Avenue. Wreaths will be placed at the statue and at the campus gravesite of Bishop Holland McTyeire and his wife, Amelia. The ceremony will conclude at 11 a.m. with cake and coffee served in Kirkland Hall.

Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was 79 years old when he gave $1 million to build Vanderbilt University in 1873. The $1 million that he gave to endow and build the university was the Commodore's only major philanthropy.

“Vanderbilt did not set out to become a philanthropist,” says historian Michael McGerr. “He was obsessed with his name. He thought his name would live through the New York Central Railroad, which no longer exists.”  Vanderbilt would be shocked that his name survives not through industry, but through a university, McGerr said.


Contact: Lyle Lankford, (615)343-1579
lyle.lankford@Vanderbilt.Edu