Key Resource

McGee family gift establishes new center to study media narratives

In 2022, a $5 million gift from Suzanne Perot McGee, BS’86, Patrick K. McGee, BS’85, and their family to the College of Arts and Science established a center dedicated to analyzing the media through the cutting-edge tools of data science. The McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies promotes media literacy by providing resources to evaluate the objectivity of news coverage, social media, blogs and other narratives.

“The establishment of this new center serves as a bold example of the kind of interdisciplinary thinking needed to understand and confront the complex challenges of the 21st century. It will be a key resource for strengthening democracy and generating more informed and knowledgeable citizens,” Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said. “I am grateful to the McGees for their generous support of new and novel approaches to scholarship and their longtime dedication to Vanderbilt.”

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 husband, Will Renehan, BA’19. The gift made possible the naming, renovation and expansion of existing campus media resources, including the Vanderbilt Television News Archive within the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries.

The McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies is leading conversion of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive’s searchable metadata from summaries to full-text transcriptions. This will restore the archive to its original purpose of providing to the public data-driven insight into the ways the news media shapes opinion.

The gift also supports hiring faculty to teach innovative new courses, conduct research and mentor students who are doing research in the form of class work or immersion experiences. Plans call for a new classroom to spur engagements across units ranging from data science to cinema and media arts.

“The McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies is poised to become an interdisciplinary hub of reliable, data-driven approaches to understanding the media’s role in our daily lives,” said John Geer, Ginny and Conner Searcy Dean of the College of Arts and Science and professor of political science, “which is especially critical at this particular point in our country’s history.

“The McGee family has played an instrumental role in shaping the vision for this innovative new center, which will serve as an important check against insidious new forms of disinformation and digitally enabled propaganda. We are deeply appreciative of this transformative gift that will advance key research and prepare future leaders to make a difference in the world.”

Suzanne McGee, a philanthropic leader and member of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust, considers Vanderbilt the ideal place to house an interdisciplinary center like this, given the collaborative culture among students and faculty members. “I am excited for the center’s role—especially as the home of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive—to analyze and think critically about the media narratives that surround us 24/7,” she said.

Learn more about the McGee family gift here.