Vanderbilt University was founded to fulfill Cornelius Vanderbilt’s inspired dream of healing a nation by creating opportunity through education. Vanderbilt’s mission is to be a center for scholarly research and informed creative teaching that serve the local and global community. Today, we continue to fulfill Cornelius Vanderbilt’s dream as we respond to humanity’s greatest challenges and provide solutions to its most pressing needs with this same richness of spirit and daring imagination.

The Vanderbilt community is one of welcome, inclusiveness and acceptance — firmly rooted in the principle of providing opportunities for all to flourish and succeed. We believe strongly in our people and the value that each student, faculty and staff member brings to our capacity to learn more deeply about ourselves and the world.

The passion for providing opportunity and uniting humanity that animated Cornelius Vanderbilt’s founding gift continues to lead Vanderbilt across new thresholds. It is my great honor to serve as Vanderbilt’s eighth chancellor and to carry forward this noble charge. —Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos