It’s been two years since our last issue and around two-and-a-half since the day I discovered Vanderbilt Lives. That evening, I had been scrolling through the school’s multicultural newsletter and came across a recruitment poster for editors. As I read through the flyer, something about it touched me. 

As students, our thoughts are often scattered everywhere. Seniors search for their future careers while freshmen attempt to figure out their new life chapter. When we don’t have enough hours in a day, we give up our nights. We work so hard to salvage a few hours where we can rest and, between these necessities, we also desperately try to make connections with the people we care about. All this leaves very little time for us to spend on ourselves. 

For a brief moment, the words in that flyer pulled me out of this cycle. It questioned the core of who I am – something I rarely seemed to contemplate whenever life got busy. The imminence of the future urges us to focus on the present, but Vanderbilt Lives pulls us back, reminding us to not forget who we are. And it continues to do so, a bit differently each volume. 

In this year’s issue, our student authors tell the stories of their journey through an unknown. Hence, the title, “Wander”. True to its name, “Wander” gives voice to those who are trying to find another piece of themselves or still coming to terms with what already exists. 

Though we often attribute our growth to specific moments in our past, we hope “Wander” allows us all to remember that each change is the culmination of everything we have been.

It has been a difficult and heartbreaking experience tracking how our response to the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved over the course of these past two issues. In our previous issue, “Unspoken,” emotions ran high. Frustration, love, rage, and sorrow painted the pages. Our authors were ready to take action. We were ready to take action. “Unspoken” was published at a pivotal moment in history, the beginning of a pandemic crossing paths with nationwide protests and the beginnings of an election that would set the United States aflame.

Now, more than twelve months after the start of it all, our words are nearly unrecognizable. In the beginning, the changes to our world were almost exciting. The thought of virtual classes and new video-conferencing technologies inspired us to reflect on our world in new ways. But after a month of novelty, we find ourselves dreading the thought of rolling out of bed five minutes before class. We barely leave our seats. Every day we walk past chairs neatly stacked atop tables, past fenced-off seating areas, around plastic screens in the most inconvenient places. We have witnessed our demands, growing ever louder, go unheard. Many things have changed. But at the same time, almost nothing has changed.

We have witnessed justice brought to those who deserved it. But in the wake of it all, we find ourselves wondering if it really was justice after all if hundreds more walk free and thousands more suffer unduly. The road stretches longer and longer ahead of us.

But despite it all, we keep moving.

In this issue of Vanderbilt Lives, we feature student authors who have resolved to keep going, to continue having those tough conversations started in March. Perhaps unconsciously, we built this issue in conversation with “Unspoken.” Both issues deal with unprecedented challenges. The essays, while they represent an incredible diversity of perspectives and experiences, ultimately aim to develop a new vocabulary with which to view our changing world. 

But where “Unspoken” looked wistfully around at a reality we were departing, we now see something we will never fully recover. Fittingly, “Weathering” attempts to come to terms with this departure. Passion gives way to calmer insight. We must figure out how to move forward.

This year was a tough year to write. In a semester we’d all prefer to spend studying and sleeping, these authors have committed to reflecting deeply on their circumstances. As has been said many times, in a world where history can be bent so easily, our responsibility is to make sure it’s being told by the right people, and by many different people.

We’d like to thank the Curb Center and the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities for their continued generosity and support. We’d also like to thank all of our talented authors. Without all of your, Vanderbilt Lives would still just be a dream. Finally, we would like to thank the Vanderbilt Writing Studio, Health Professions Advisory Office, English Department, Law School, and Fellowships Office for your help in organizing our writing workshop, “Making it Personal.”

“Weathering” will be the last issue I release as editor-in-chief of Vanderbilt Lives. What started as a short personal essay in my freshman year became three years of fulfilling work and experiences I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to fully repay. I’ve worked with the best team of faculty mentors, authors, editors, and designers I could have asked for. I’m glad I found my place within these pages, and I look forward to seeing where this project will go.

Keep moving, Vanderbilt. We’ll see you on the other side.

We found ourselves and our developing journal at a moment that could be the defining moment of a generation. We stand at an intersection between a pandemic and a demand to end systemic racism, both of which cannot be ignored any longer.

When we first settled on the theme "Unspoken" for our third issue, we never could have anticipated the way it would evolve in the ensuing seven months. As soon as it all happened, though, we knew that the stories presented in this issue would be critically important to the student body as well as our wider audience. We were determined to do the best job we could curating them.

In this year's issue of Vanderbilt Lives, we feature the unspoken struggles of Vanderbilt students. These are stories of regret and unvoiced frustration, but they are also stories of hope, determination, and healing. The essays in this issue explore strained relationships with family and with the self. They deal with change. They are methodical, passionate, collected, raw.

We also feature stories of life under COVID-19. International students face a daunting journey home. Asian students grapple with the racialization of the virus. New students leave behind what was supposed to be the most formative first year of their undergraduate careers. So many writers from different backgrounds have contributed their voices to this project.

As we speed-walk between Stevenson 4 and Wilson Hall five days a week, we sometimes forget just how much we don't know about each other. We forget to look up from our books and ask the janitor how they're doing, to learn the names of the Rand dining staff, or to understand why that sophomore in Row J always arrives ten minutes late to lecture. Sometimes we forget to understand ourselves. We hope that, by amplifying these stories, we not only facilitate understanding but also inspire action.

In these first weeks of June, this issue of Vanderbilt Lives has evolved into a call to action. As educated youth, we students have not only the privilege but also the responsibility to take action on the problems we see in our society. We have an obligation to help in any way we can, be it through dialogue, writing, research, or any of the unlimited options our college education has given us. Although we have built our third issue on a backdrop of silence, it stands for action. We are all frustrated with the lack of action our leaders have taken. We are all frustrated with the way they have circled around the problem, around the loss of Black lives to a flawed system that must be reimagined and rebuilt. Silence is no longer an option. It never was.

We hope that this is the last issue in which we must battle that silence.

Sincerely,

Alex Camai, Editor-in-Chief
Asia Grant, Editor
Neelansh Bute, Editor
Melanie Lu, Editor
Lindsay Quackenbush, Editor

We would like to thank the authors for their brilliant ideas and stories. As editors, we have had the privilege of sharing the smiles, laughs, and sadness of so many different people, all from so many different worlds. Yet all the same, there are truths that unite us: learning, loss, incompleteness, fulfilment. An acceptance of life as it stands now, but a hope that we can better the world so that others will not have to hurt in the same way. Our main concern this issue has been with the personal truths that define our worlds, and how we grapple with the truths that cause pain or discouragement. All of the essays in this issue have this forward energy.

We both have been in contact with the journal since it started. In some stroke of luck (or fate, however you want to think about it), we both happened to be in Professor Covington’s sections of English 2200 when the journal was accepting submissions for its first issue. What’s more, one of our assignments in English 2200 was to write a nonfiction essay. The targets couldn’t have aligned more perfectly. In writing about our experiences, we learned things we would never have expected about ourselves. We became invested in the way writing about your life can teach you about yourself, and wanted to encourage others to undertake a similar journey of self-discovery through writing.

It’s been quite a month riding the whole gamut of emotions, humor to heartbreak. We are seriously impressed by the amount of raw storytelling talent on campus. Clichéd as it’s become, in a world full of so much misinformation, ignorance, and hate, we believe that stories are a unifying force. In the stories we read, we recognize where we differ, but more importantly we discover the often-unusual experiences we share. It’s been a joy to produce this issue of Vanderbilt Lives, and we look forward to the stories  to come.

Sincerely,

Asia Grant & Alex Camai || Co-Editors, Vanderbilt Lives

We are thrilled to present the inaugural issue of Vanderbilt Lives, Vanderbilt's new undergraduate journal for creative nonfiction. This collection of twenty spectacular nonfiction essays, reflections, and memoirs provides the rare opportunity to hear from Vanderbilt students at their most personal, introspective, and distinctive. These essays range from thought provoking to heartbreaking to hilarious, and we hope that you savor each one. The editorial team here at Vanderbilt Lives would like to thank the English Department, the College of Arts and Science, and The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy for their support. Please enjoy The First Issue: and so our stories begin!