Vanderbilt University campus tour: Kirkland Hall, the Commons and Peabody

Vanderbilt University was founded in Nashville in 1873 with a gift from Cornelius Vanderbilt, the shipping and railroad magnate known as "the Commodore", who never saw the campus that carries his name. A century and a half later it is a leafy enclave of brick halls and old trees about two miles (3 km) southwest of downtown, with a large medical centre on one side and one of America's great music cities on the other. This guide walks through the campus in a sensible order and explains how student life is arranged.

The shape of the campus

Vanderbilt is compact for a research university, and the whole campus is a designated arboretum, so nearly every path runs under mature trees. It helps to think of four parts:

The historic core, in the northern part of the main campus, around Kirkland Hall, Alumni Lawn and the Central Library.
The Peabody campus, to the east across 21st Avenue South and reached by a footbridge, where the first-year Commons is.
The medical centre, a dense block of hospitals and research buildings along the southern side.
The athletics district, on the western edge, with the stadium, the gymnasium and the baseball field side by side.

West End Avenue runs along the north-western edge, and most of the newer residential colleges line it.

Kirkland Hall and the old campus

Kirkland Hall is the building in most photographs of the university. It opened in 1875 as the main building and originally had two towers. After a fire in 1905 it was rebuilt with a single clock tower in an Italian style, and it was later named for James H. Kirkland, the long-serving chancellor who oversaw the rebuilding. Today it holds the university's administration.

Around it stand some of the red-brick Victorian buildings of the university's first decades, including Benson Science Hall and the Old Mechanical building. A statue of the Commodore stands in front of Kirkland Hall.

The Central Library, Rand and Sarratt

A short walk south, the Central Library dates from 1941 and anchors the university's library system, named for Jean and Alexander Heard. Next door, Rand Hall and the Sarratt Student Center form the everyday hub of the main campus, with dining, a cinema, meeting rooms and student organisations. Alumni Lawn, the open green between here and Kirkland Hall, is where students spread out on warm days.

The Commons: where first-years live

Vanderbilt houses all its first-year students together on the Martha Rivers Ingram Commons, which opened in 2008. It is made up of ten houses, some of them restored older buildings and some newer, grouped around their own dining hall and common spaces. Faculty members live in the houses alongside the students, and the arrangement is meant to give each new class a shared start before students scatter across the rest of the campus.

After the first year, students move to the main campus. A growing set of residential colleges along West End Avenue, among them one with a tall collegiate-Gothic tower that can be seen from well beyond the campus, houses many upper-year students.

The Peabody lawn and the Wyatt Center

The Commons is part of the Peabody campus, which was a separate institution, the George Peabody College for Teachers, until it merged with Vanderbilt in 1979. It is still the university's college of education and human development.

Its layout is quite different from the main campus. A long, formal lawn lined with columned brick buildings was inspired by Thomas Jefferson's design for the University of Virginia, and it ends at the domed Wyatt Center, originally called the Social Religious Building. The Peabody campus is a National Historic Landmark, and it is the most photogenic corner of Vanderbilt.

The Commodores

Vanderbilt's teams are the Commodores, after the founder's nickname, and they compete in the Southeastern Conference. Football is played in a stadium on campus, so game days in autumn bring the whole neighbourhood out.

Memorial Gymnasium, opened in 1952, is one of the most unusual basketball arenas in the country. It was designed partly as a concert hall, with the court raised like a stage, and the team benches sit behind the baskets at the ends rather than along the sides. Next to it, Hawkins Field is home to a baseball programme that has won national championships.

Nashville on the doorstep

Centennial Park: across West End Avenue, with a full-size replica of the Parthenon that houses an art museum and a towering statue of Athena.
Hillsboro Village: a few blocks of cafés, restaurants and shops on 21st Avenue South, at the southern end of campus.
Music Row: the cluster of recording studios and publishers just east of the Peabody campus.
Midtown and West End: the nearest restaurants and bars, popular with students.
Downtown: Broadway's live-music bars, the Ryman Auditorium and the Country Music Hall of Fame are a short ride away.

Visiting the campus

The grounds are generally open to walk through, and most of what is described here can be seen from outside. Like most American universities, Vanderbilt typically runs tours and presentations for prospective students through its admissions office. What is offered changes during the year, so look at the university's official visitor page for the current arrangements.

Getting there and around

By air: Nashville International Airport is on the east side of the city, usually a 15 to 30 minute drive from campus depending on traffic.
By bus: city buses run along West End Avenue and 21st Avenue South towards downtown.
By car: visitor parking is in marked garages and lots; allow extra time on game days.
On foot: the main campus and Peabody can both be covered in a couple of hours of easy walking.

Where families usually base themselves

Midtown and West End: the closest hotels, many within walking distance of the main gates.
The Gulch and Music Row: between campus and downtown, with plenty of restaurants.
Downtown: the widest choice and the liveliest evenings, though noisier.

Readers comparing Southern universities may also like our guides to Rice University in Houston and Duke in North Carolina.

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Cover photo: Jbaker08, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons