Curators Talk: 'Hot Topics: Student Life and Discourse During Vanderbilt’s First Decade”

As a curator for the exhibition “Taking Root: Vanderbilt University’s First Decade, 1875-1885”, Donyea James, Buchanan Library Fellow, Fall 2020, explored the topic of what students did in their free time. As James observes, the lack of school sponsored clubs and activities on campus, did not deter them from mischief and mayhem at this formerly all-male institution, as students set out to establish themselves among their peers as a premier Southern university.