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Before Vanderbilt Student Government President Jami Cox and Vice President Ryan Connor walked across the Commencement stage, they joined Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos for one last visit as undergraduates. The conversation is the latest episode of The Zeppos Report.

When asked if they distinctly remember the first time they stepped foot on the Vanderbilt campus, Cox and Connor reply with a simultaneous “Yes!” Connor says his first moment on the Vanderbilt campus was during a visit to Belmont University for a music competition.

“I stepped onto Wyatt Lawn and was awestruck,” Connor said. “I pulled up the Wikipedia article for Vanderbilt and started reading through it, then I texted my dad saying ‘I think I’m going to apply early decision to Vanderbilt.’”

On the podcast, Cox shares about her first time coming to Vanderbilt during MOSAIC weekend.

“I came in February, it was cold, and I arrived with my little sleeping bag and duffle bag—I was very nervous because I had never spent time on a college campus before. But Vanderbilt was beautiful and I fell in love with it then,” Cox said.

Cox and Connor met in a first-year seminar class called “Making Connections.” During the class, they each mapped out their goals for their four years at Vanderbilt and took action steps to achieve them. Two years later, they were elected student body president and vice president.

Connor is now preparing to begin a job with McKinsey & Company in Denver, Colo. Cox is a Schwarzman scholar who will pursue a master’s in global affairs at Tshinghua University in Beijing, China.

“For those of us who choose to devote themselves to education and life on a college campus, that’s why we do what we do. It is all about the ability of seeing someone go on to do amazing things and to be a part of the journey,” Zeppos said.

The podcast is available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube and The Zeppos Report website.

Amitav Ghosh, a best-selling author whose work puts Asia at the center of global history, culture and environmental challenges, lectured on campus April 4 as part of Vanderbilt Asian Studies' 50th anniversary. Before his talk, Ghosh joined Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos on The Zeppos Report.

Ghosh, whose books have been translated into more than 20 languages, is the author of The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. On the podcast, he discusses why people are less interested today in issues surrounding climate change than 20 years ago.

"For many years now we've taught young people that the economy will only get bigger," he said. "The world will produce more and more things. You'll have a bigger cell phone and car, for example. This other stuff (about climate change) doesn't fit into that framework."

Zeppos discussed with Ghosh how the effects of climate change might make high-priced real estate in U.S. locations near water—like Miami Beach or New York City—uninhabitable in just a few decades.

Their conversation also focused on how countries like China and India have taken steps to respond to the environmental impact of advances in industrialization. "China is a country which is actually adapting very, very fast," Ghosh said. "One of the reasons why that happening is precisely because they see commercial opportunities.” Ghosh stressed that Asian countries will not scale back on industrialization until the West does.

Ghosh, who divides his time between homes in Brooklyn, Kolkata and rural Goa, noted that he has warned his own mother about the dangers of living in a high flood-prone area. She looked at him like he was "mad' to even suggest moving somewhere else. Ghosh said that is the problem that all of us face in dealing with climate change—inertia.

The podcast is available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube and The Zeppos Report website

For a transcript of this podcast please go to this link:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/vu-wp0/wp-content/uploads/sites/79/2018/04/13185558/The_Zeppos_Report_21_Amitav_Ghosh-Transcript-Edited.docx


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A bestselling author and host of MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews visited campus on March 27 for a Chancellor's Lecture. Before the event, he joined Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos in his office for the latest edition of The Zeppos Report.

Matthews' newest bestselling book, Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit (Simon & Schuster, 2017), explores unifying characteristics of the politician during tumultuous times in history. On the podcast, he notes differences between Bobby and the rest of the Kennedy family.

“What I like about Bobby is that he rode the crossover point,” said Matthews, “He would say that we need law and order, but we must also look out for the people that the system is tough on.”

Zeppos and Matthews discuss the changing dynamics of American politics over the past decades and the pendulum effect that often takes place in election cycles. Matthews describes each change in the presidency as a reaction to what came before. To him, the election of Donald Trump is no different.

“A lot of the division that we see today started in 1968. Since then, we’ve always been trying to fix the problem,” Matthews said.

When Zeppos asked about the state of the media today, Matthews seized the opportunity for some self-reflection.

“Television news today is a modern version of the old afternoon newspaper op-ed pages. You head home after work and everything from the day is there, right in front of you.”

The podcast is available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube and The Zeppos Report website.

After the 2016 GOP presidential primary race, former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina refocused her energy towards equipping leaders from all walks of life.

Fiorina discusses her leadership philosophy with Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos on the latest episode on The Zeppos Report. She visited campus Feb. 20 to participate in a Chancellor’s Lecture entitled “Redefining Leadership: Crafting Civic Virtues in America.”

“Leaders don’t worry about winning or losing, leaders focus on solving problems and improving the circumstances,” Fiorina said.

On the podcast, Fiorina explains how her new project, the Unlocking Potential Foundation, strengthens the core elements of American civil society. The foundation works to empower and train the leaders of nonprofit organizations. She also argues that equity, diversity and inclusion are essential elements for success.

“Diversity isn’t a nice 'to do' anymore. If you really want to be successful, you better have a diverse workforce. You’re going to miss something really big and important unless you have a diverse set of opinions and points of view,” Fiorina said.

Throughout the conversation, Zeppos and Fiorina dive deeply into the key elements necessary for engaged citizenship to flourish in America. They agree that while technology has allowed for more activity and political discourse, it may also be encouraging civic passivity. Zeppos points out that institutions like universities provide the bedrock for a healthy democracy.

“There must be a focus on more than just the government or the individual—intermediary institutions like universities, churches and libraries must be nourished, too. We are the bulwarks for liberty,” Zeppos said.

When asked about running for office again, Fiorina leaves the door open. “Never say never, I have no regrets about my run,” said Fiorina. “We’ll see what the future holds.”

For a transcript of this podcast, please go to this URL:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/vu-wp0/wp-content/uploads/sites/79/2018/03/09205333/The_Zeppos_Report_19_Transcript_with_Carly_Fiorina.docx

The podcast is available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube and The Zeppos Report website.

Professor and author Jelani Cobb preceded his keynote address to the Vanderbilt community with a conversation about free speech and open inquiry on college campuses.

In the latest episode of The Zeppos Report, Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos engages Cobb, the Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, in a discussion about the historical narratives of race in America. The two stress the importance of leaning into the tough conversations in university settings.

Cobb notes that discomfort is appropriate in the classroom when it prompts his students to discover new facets of American history.

“I show lynching images in my classes. That is not supposed to be a fun experience,” Cobb said.

“Faculty across the spectrum want students to be uncomfortable,” Zeppos added. “I hope that, when my students leave here, they have the intellectual dexterity to thoughtfully engage with somebody who disagrees with them.”

In the podcast, Zeppos references the announcement of The Center for Sports and Society. He asks Cobb to share his thoughts on the connection between sports and race relations in America.

“On a basic level, because of the market share that sports has in American life, it has allowed people to have conversations and engage in ways that they might not otherwise,” Cobb said.

Cobb, a staff writer for The New Yorker, spoke at Langford Auditorium Jan. 17 as part of the Chancellor’s Lecture Series. The event was titled “From Louis Armstrong to the NFL: Racial Protest in America.”

For a transcript of this podcast, please go to:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/vu-wp0/wp-content/uploads/sites/79/2018/02/27162022/Zeppos_Report_17_with_Jelani_Cobb.docx

The podcast is available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube and The Zeppos Report website.

On Feb. 6, a week after President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union Address, Pulitzer Prize-winner and Visiting Distinguished Professor Jon Meacham sat down to discuss the president’s first year in office on the latest episode of The Zeppos Report podcast.

“Let’s start with some general reactions to the president’s first year. … Do we have to nest him in some sort of historical context before we jump too far ahead to say there’s never been anything like this before?” Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos asked to open the conversation.

Meacham said he views the Trump presidency so far as being unprecedented in “tone and culture.” But when it comes to the actual policy, he thinks Trump is operating within a traditional Republican orthodoxy.

“I don’t think another Republican actually would have ruled, in substance, much differently,” Meacham said. “One of the things about Trump is it’s damn near impossible to separate the style from the substance because the style, frankly, is for some repellent and for others refreshing.”

Throughout the conversation Meacham and Zeppos compared Trump to earlier historical eras, including the McCarthy hearings, the Nixon White House and the Vietnam War. They also touched on this year’s upcoming congressional elections, pointing to the Tennessee race for U.S. Senate between Republican Marsha Blackburn and Democrat Phil Bredesen as a race that could have national implications.

Meacham often joins Zeppos for on-stage discussions as part of the roundtable format of the Chancellor’s Lecture Series. He is the author of American Lion, a biography of Andrew Jackson, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009. His latest book, Destiny and Power, a biography of George Herbert Walker Bush, was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and named one of the year’s best books by both the Washington Post and the New York Times.

The podcast is available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube and The Zeppos Report website.