Early years

Peabody College traces its history to 1785 when Davidson Academy was chartered by the state of North Carolina, of which Tennessee was then a part. In 1806, the school moved to downtown Nashville and was rechartered under the name Cumberland College. The institution was renamed once again to the University of Nashville in 1827.

In 1875, when the university was receiving financial assistance from the Peabody Education Fund started by George Peabody, the state legislature amended the charter to establish a State Normal School. The University of Nashville's operations were split into three separate entities. Its medical school became part of the newly established Vanderbilt University. Its preparatory school became independent as Montgomery Bell Academy, retaining the board of trustees from the University of Nashville. The literary arts collegiate program received the donation from the Peabody Education Fund and began emphasizing teacher preparation. In 1889, it was renamed Peabody Normal College.^[4]

George Peabody College for Teachers

In 1911, the George Peabody College for Teachers was moved from downtown Nashville to its present location directly across the street from the campus of Vanderbilt University. The location on what was then Nashville's western fringe was selected amidst high hopes for collaborations between the two institutions. The land for the new campus, which was donated to Peabody College, included the site of the campus of the former Roger Williams University, a school for African American students which was burned down in a series of arsons around 1906.^[5] Peabody was at that time a college for whites, although its "demonstration school" (now the University School of Nashville) became one of the first high schools in Nashville to be desegregated in the early 1960s. Peabody's first African American student, Tommie Morton-Young, graduated in 1955.^[6]

The design of the Peabody campus was inspired by the classical lines of Thomas Jefferson's design for the University of Virginia's Academical Village and the architecture of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.^[7] In contrast to the main Vanderbilt University campus, which is characterized by collegiate gothic architecture, Peabody's buildings and campus layout are examples of Palladian and Neoclassical styles of architecture. citation needed

Peabody became a renowned school of education, especially in the South.^[4] Notable faculty during the twentieth century included Joseph Peterson, Susan Gray, and Nicholas Hobbs. Hobbs helped to establish and then directed the John F. Kennedy Center for Education and Human Development at Peabody College.^[8] The Kennedy Center was founded in 1965 as one of twelve original university-based centers funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) following the signing of the Community Mental Health Act of 1963.

Peabody seemed financially strong, due in part to an endowment that had been funded in part by its namesake, George Peabody. It had shared some facilities with Vanderbilt for many years, notably the Joint Universities Library, located across the street from Peabody's main academic buildings, and indeed closer to Peabody than to much of the main Vanderbilt academic quadrangle. Also, Peabody students were eligible for participation in Vanderbilt ROTC and the Vanderbilt Marching Band.

In the early 1970s Peabody students became eligible to participate in Vanderbilt athletic teams. This was said to be a concession to the fact that Peabody had no intercollegiate athletics of its own, but cynics noted that Peabody did have a major in physical education, a major frequently taken by scholarship athletes but one which had not been available at Vanderbilt, and the decision was seen by many as an attempt to get players onto Vanderbilt sports teams, notably football, who were not academically eligible for admission to Vanderbilt.^{[citation needed]} In 1954, Nancy Reed won the women's individual intercollegiate golf championship (an event conducted by the Division of Girls' and Women's Sports (DGWS) — which later evolved into the current NCAA women's golf championship).

The 50-acre (20 ha) campus with its 22 main buildings was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965 for its early association with George Peabody's funding efforts.^[1][3]

Merger with Vanderbilt University

Peabody College and Vanderbilt University had collaborated in a number of ways since 1914 when classes were first offered on Peabody's campus next to Vanderbilt. By the late 1970s a series of serious financial missteps had left Peabody's finances in such poor shape that the school's choices seemed to be reduced to three: either negotiating mergers with either primarily White Vanderbilt or primarily Black Tennessee State University or closing entirely. The former path was chosen, and Peabody became a part of Vanderbilt in 1979.^[4]

Development as part of Vanderbilt

For many years following the merger, Peabody maintained a considerable separate identity within Vanderbilt, but this is now somewhat diminished. In 2008, Peabody became the site of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons, the housing for all first-year Vanderbilt students.^{[9][failed verification]}

In an organizational sense, too, Peabody College constitutes a vital part of today's Vanderbilt. As one of the university's ten schools, it not only trains undergraduate and graduate students – Peabody offers 6 Ph.D. programs, 3 Ed.D. program tracks, and 16 master's degree programs^[10] – but conducts substantial research in human learning and cognition and an array of other disciplines, including some research collaborations with Vanderbilt University Medical Center.^[4] It is now the host of 18 research centers, including two government-funded national research centers: the National Center on School Choice and the National Center on Performance Incentives. Peabody College is consistently ranked among the top graduate schools of education. Over the last 10 years, it has been ranked first among graduate schools of education by U.S. News & World Report five times, and seven of its graduate programs are currently ranked among the top five nationally, including #1 rankings for special education and education administration/supervision.^[11]

Peabody College publishes the Peabody Journal of Education, the second longest-running publication devoted exclusively to educational research, practice, and policy.^[12]

In 2017, Peabody began offering several online degree programs including an online Master of Education (M.Ed.) with a specialization in School Counseling^[13] and an online Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) with a specialization in Leadership and Learning in Organizations.^[14]

Undergraduate

Peabody College is one of four schools at Vanderbilt University that awards degrees to undergraduates. Currently, students can earn a bachelor of science degree in seven undergraduate majors: Human and Organizational Development, Child Development, Elementary Education, Secondary Education, Special Education, Child Studies, and Cognitive Studies. ^[16]

Human and Organizational Development (HOD) is one of the largest undergraduate majors at Vanderbilt University. Students can choose from one of five tracks to specialize in their studies.

Graduate