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University leaders, faculty, students and invited guests gathered at the McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies to celebrate its new home at the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries’ Central Library. The interdisciplinary center promotes media literacy by providing essential resources to evaluate the objectivity of news coverage, digital media and other narratives.
The McGee Center was established in 2022 with a $5 million gift from Suzanne Perot McGee, BS’86, and Patrick K. McGee, BS’85, to Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science. The McGees made the gift on behalf of their family, including son Patrick P. McGee, BA’15; son William McGee, BA’16, and his spouse Eliza Granade McGee, BA’16; and daughter Margot McGee Renehan, BS’19, and her spouse Will Renehan, BA’19.
Chancellor Daniel Diermeier commended the McGee family and their founding vision for the center in his remarks at the event on May 5.
“Whenever you’re launching a new initiative, you must have a clear vision that is in alignment with an important question,” Diermeier said. “It’s hard to think of a more important question today than how to understand our evolving media landscape and how it interacts with public life at a deeper level.
“That was the vision behind the center and behind the McGees’ founding gift: How do we become the place that provides a point of view, the resources and the support to think about media narratives and their connections, impact and dynamics in a rigorous fashion?” he said. “This new space will allow us to make that vision a reality.”
Diermeier noted that the McGee Center will maximize the impact of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, the university’s one-of-a-kind “treasure trove of media coverage” dating back to 1968. Part of the Heard Libraries, VTNA is the world’s most complete archive of network television news and features more than 62,000 hours of transcribed and searchable video content.
The McGee Center marked several significant milestones this academic year. Kristy Roschke, a renowned expert in media literacy and misinformation, was appointed the center’s inaugural executive director, and Namrah Khan joined the staff as a media analyst. The center launched a seminar series bringing experts to campus to discuss the impact of narratives on our understanding of the world, including timely topics such as fact-checking and freedom of expression on digital media platforms.
The McGee Center’s mission is to support faculty who teach innovative courses, conduct research and mentor students exploring narrative studies in the form of class work or immersion experiences. This spring, the center collaborated on a Buchanan Library Fellowship in which undergraduate students and faculty engaged with the Television News Archive to examine how the media portrays key issues today, what can be learned from coverage of those issues in the past, and who is invited to lend expertise and opinion to news coverage. This fall, the center will conduct focus groups with students to learn more about their media habits as well as sponsor a media literacy workshop series designed to help students foster healthy relationships with their digital devices.
The McGee Center, located on the second floor of Central Library, will continue to serve as a meeting space for Dialogue Vanderbilt, with whom the center plans to collaborate on programming. Dialogue Vanderbilt will open a dedicated space and administrative offices at the Seigenthaler Center on campus this fall.
“Congratulations to the many people here today who have transformed the McGee Center into a truly flexible space for learning and discovery,” University Librarian Jon Shaw said at the May 5 event. “The initial vision was a center focused on critical inquiry around narrative studies, but what has been most interesting to see is the McGee Center’s strong student component. Students are coming to this space to engage in discussion about current events, to better understand the narratives around them, and to embrace the broader vision of open dialogue on campus.”
To learn more, visit the McGee Center website.
