Solar Eclipse!
This fall offers an event of a lifetime for many of us at Vanderbilt and in Nashville. At approximately 1:27 p.m., on Monday, August 21, 2017, the Vanderbilt campus will experience 1 minute and 54 seconds of total solar eclipse. That date is also the Monday following move-in day for our students. Although they will be busy that Monday going through pre-class academic preparation, I hope that faculty, staff, and students will all pause and take time to enjoy this event.
While this may seem like an unusual event to be tied in with the office of educational technology, I have been busy working with others to plan series of events around the eclipse with colleagues throughout the university. In part, I took on this role because some of our colleagues are producing programs that integrate digital technology with the solar eclipse. However, in another way, my involvement and excitement simply comes from my wonderment about the galaxy.
Given that the eclipse takes place at the beginning of the fall semester, we are planning most of our programming for this spring 2017. Let me walk you through some of the plans we have around the eclipse:
- Susan Stewart, Adjoint Assistant Professor of Astronomy, will be teaching a summer school course, ASTR3850, which will focus on the eclipse and host several visiting lecturers.
- Anthropologist, John Janusek, will create a display on solar and lunar tracking in the PreColumbia era that will be available during the spring semester.
- The Central Library will curate a collection of astronomical photos from glass negatives and lantern slides drawn from the papers of Edward Emerson Barnard. Featured in these photos are stunning pictures of a total eclipse.
- The Dyer Observatory will be coming to campus to set up temporary solar viewing stations during the spring semester, in order to illustrate how the sun is studied. In addition, representatives from Dyer will be providing free presentations about the eclipse to those who request one.
- The School of Engineering will be launching and following solar balloons on the day of the eclipse.
Moving from the sciences to the humanities, there will be three different student competitions this spring semester concerning the eclipse, one in creative writing, one in visual art, and one in innovation. These competitions are sponsored respectively by the Creative Writing Program, the Department of Art, and the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy. Toward the end of the semester, we will host a celebration of the winners in each category.
Finally, in order to be sure that everyone is able to view the eclipse safely, Vanderbilt University, in partnership with the Dyer Observatory and the Vanderbilt Eye Institute, will be distributing thousands of eclipse sunglasses prior to, and on, the big day.