VU BreakThru

Can music training improve language outcomes in children? Program for Music, Mind and Society provides violin lessons for children with language impairments

Written by Natalie Wiens, M.S. candidate in Speech-Language Pathology and Graduate Research Assistant in the Music Cognition Lab It’s late afternoon and the sun is slanting through the window. Four violins, three children, three parents and one teacher are gathered in a room. As the teacher plays a series of rhythmic notes on her violin,…

Posted by anderc8 on February 16, 2017 in News, TIPs 2015

Student Project Team Develops Mobile App for Legal Aid

Written by Vanderbilt University junior Economics major Sasha Pines The introduction of project-based University Courses at The Wond’ry will completely revolutionize the way we learn at Vanderbilt, as experiential learning is simply the best model for job training. Technology projects are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring clear communication and organized initiative. Students are granted the opportunity to…

Posted by anderc8 on February 16, 2017 in Mobile Cloud Computing, News

Freedom at a Price

Earlier this month, the class went to the courthouse, to witness the process of criminal justice in action. We arrived at the Public Defender’s Office at 8:30 a.m., and received a brief orientation. Then we were divided into groups and walked over to the courthouse, where we sat in the various courtrooms, and witnessed cases being…

Posted by anderc8 on February 14, 2017 in Justice, Mercy and Mass Incarceration, News

Students and faculty from the the University Course 'Justice, Mercy and Mass Incarceration' will be taking a field trip to the downtown Nashville courthouse, and we would like to chronicle the trip in order to support a potential MyVU story about the course and to support promotional materials (blog site, website, etc.) for University Courses.(John Russell/Vanderbilt University)

A Visit to the Public Defender’s Office and Courthouse

The students and faculty from the University Course Justice, Mercy and Mass Incarceration went to the courthouse on February 7 to learn about the process of adjudication. As part of that experience, students and faculty met with members of the Public Defender’s Office. After a brief orientation, they broke into groups of 4-5 and headed to the…

Posted by anderc8 on February 14, 2017 in Justice, Mercy and Mass Incarceration, News

Organs-on-Chips Pave the Way for Endometriosis Research

Written by Vanderbilt University Graduate Student Juan Gnecco (Working in Dr. Kevin Osteen’s lab, which is affiliated with the Pre3 Initiative) In an exciting age of innovation and technological advancements, biomedical researchers are uniquely positioned to integrate interdisciplinary fields in order to better understand some of the most complex and deadly diseases. The Vanderbilt Pre3…

Posted by anderc8 on February 13, 2017 in News, TIPs 2015

Recapping the first offering of Historic Black Nashville

Written by Vanderbilt History Professor Jane Landers It was a true pleasure co-teaching the new University Course Historic Black Nashville with my colleague from the Law School Daniel Sharfstein last semester. We both got tremendous gratification from seeing our students engage with the varied materials available for exploring our city’s missing past. As they put…

Posted by anderc8 on February 9, 2017 in Historic Black Nashville, News

Enhancing Safety and Resilience of Civil Infrastructure Through Interdisciplinary Research: Vanderbilt’s IRIS Initiative

Written by Vanderbilt Associate Professor Caglar Oskay The nation’s civil infrastructure is aging and in poor health. The American Society of Civil Engineers recently assigned a grade of D+ to our nation’s flood protection infrastructure, which protects more than half of the U.S. population and is critical for homeland safety, security, economic vitality and environmental protection. The health of flood infrastructure systems, which include levees,…

Posted by anderc8 on February 7, 2017 in News, TIPs 2016

Immersion Learning 101: Impromptu Capitol Visit

One benefit to teaching and learning at Vanderbilt is its location in Nashville, the capital of Tennessee. On January 30, 2017, Governor Bill Haslam delivered the State of the State address to the Tennessee General Assembly, and hundreds of political demonstrators were scheduled to appear at the capitol to protest and support various causes. This…

Posted by anderc8 on February 6, 2017 in News, The Nation's Health

VISE affiliate Bennett Landman, Ph.D., uses big data to solve big medical problems in the MASI lab

Written by Bennett Landman, Ph.D. As an initial member of the Vanderbilt Institute on Surgery and Engineering, the Medical-image Analysis and Statistical Interpretation (MASI) lab seeks to transform medical imaging from pixels to information to improve patient care. We lead Personalized Medicine with Medical Imaging Informatics (PM2I2) efforts in translational research to explore innovative, clinically useful…

Posted by anderc8 on February 2, 2017 in News, TIPs 2015

The Program for Music, Mind, and Society makes Music City more musical through the SeREnADe project

Written by Rita Pfeiffer, M.S. Candidate in Speech-Language Pathology and Graduate Research Assistant in the Music Cognition Lab I’m a Nashville native, so it should come to no surprise that music is an integral part of who I am. Growing up, I enjoyed the Pied Piper Series and the Nashville Children’s Theater, was involved in…