NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Vanderbilt basketball star Shan Foster, who will receive a degree in human and organizational development from Vanderbilt’s Peabody College on May 9, is a student his professors won’t soon forget – one who gives out bear hugs with abandon, plays gospel songs on pianos around campus to relax and accepts with disarming humility the challenge that he can use his celebrity status to better the world.

“I found him to be a very compassionate and caring student,” said Sharon Shields, professor in the practice of human and organizational development. “His academic work was a lived life for Shan.”

Shields said Foster is the kind of student who gives teachers hope that the next generation is in good hands.

“He embodies the idea that learning should be transformational,” said Shields. “And it was for him. But he also transformed those around him.”

Shields and many others on campus say Foster bettered the lives of those around him. Even during the busy basketball season he closely mentored local high school students and accepted numerous invitations to speak to community groups.

He shrugs off suggestions that his efforts were exemplary. “’To whom much is given, much is required,’” he says, quoting a biblical passage while practicing a gospel tune on the grand piano in The Commons Center. “It’s my responsibility to be a role model.”

“Some students without as much going on didn’t do as much with the students they were mentoring,” said Carolyn Hughes, another of Foster’s teachers and the adviser to the student-initiated College as Reality (CAR) mentoring program, which Foster enthusiastically joined.

“Shan stuck with his mentee all year long despite being in season,” said Hughes, who also observed one of Foster’s many motivational speeches to a class of high school students. “I was impressed. Not only is he able to star on the basketball team, but he is taking the time to really reach out to these kids and put himself on their level. He even sang to them a cappella.”

Foster, who specialized in health and human services at Peabody, just smiles and says he is having fun. In fact, he has taken the same philosophy into the classroom that motivates him on the court: “Have fun and get better every day.”

“When you’re going hard and putting out the effort but staying relaxed and having fun, you don’t view anything as hard anymore,” said Foster, who will walk through the Vanderbilt Commencement line with more than a dozen relatives proudly watching. Family is important to Foster, Vanderbilt’s all-time leading scorer and the SEC player of the year. And many of his Vanderbilt professors have become like family to him.

Foster said he always had a sense that his professors and coaches at Vanderbilt truly cared about him as a person, making him want to respond in kind.

Vanderbilt wasn’t a school on his radar screen as a high school student, but his father convinced him to give the program a look. “People here cared about me as a person instead of just a basketball player. I could feel that,” he said of his initial visit. When he enrolled in classes, he learned that his professors “expected the same out of me in the classroom as on the court.
The public school system in New Orleans prepared him well for the rigors of college, he said, but he had to get used to “a different intensity” at Vanderbilt.

Howard Sandler was one of Foster’s toughest teachers. “Statistics was hard for me, so Howard and I got real close,” Foster said with his trademark smile, adding that Sandler didn’t just teach – he wanted every student to understand the concepts. “It was important to him that you were learning the material. It was one of those classes where everyone was excited to be there. You knew you would learn, and it was fun.”

Sandler fondly remembers Foster’s imposing 6-foot-6 presence in his introduction to statistics class during the star shooting guard’s sophomore year. “What impressed me most about him was that after he did poorly on the first exam, he came to me and said that his performance was not up to his standards, that he was going to do better, and that he needed me to tell him how he should go about doing better,” said Sandler, professor of psychology.

“I gave him my version of what a good student was like -- asking questions in class, being prepared, coming to office hours, and so forth. Shan did all of those things and more. He made my class better for his presence. He also succeeded in the class,” Sandler said.

More important, he said, Foster continued to stay in touch after the class was over and Sandler would find himself in a “big bear hug” when he came across Foster on campus.

Foster said he was able to take the lessons he learned in the classroom – to work hard, learn something new every day, make it interesting and have fun – onto the court.

“Alex Gordon and I went to our coaches in our sophomore year and we said, ‘We have to make this fun. The more fun something is, the more we work at it.’” Foster recalled. He said the new approach, which focused not only on having fun but getting better every day, “changed the mentality of practice” and the team started winning more. Gordon is a fellow senior who also graduates this May.

"I've told these seniors that they're going to go down as the group that's changed the program the most from the time they got here to the time they left," Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings has said, "and I think that's a heck of a legacy."

People on campus are still talking about Foster’s final home game on senior night in March when Foster put on one of the greatest shooting performances in Vanderbilt history, finishing with 42 points including nine straight 3-pointers to lead the Commodores to an 86-85 overtime win over Mississippi State.

Asked if he believes in “Memorial Magic,” a phenomenon that many believe leads the Commodores to win a higher percentage of home games, the deeply religious Foster said, “I don’t believe in magic, but it’s been magical.”

Foster also has been known to create a little magic on the keyboards. He’s a self-taught pianist who knows where to find pianos all around campus where he can relax while playing (and singing) gospel tunes and praise music. On a recent spring day, he practiced a tune called “Let Go and Let God” on the grand piano in The Commons Center – he was preparing to play the song for a group of youngsters at a church gathering. Students and employees stopped to listen.

While shooting 3-point jumpers in front of 12,000 fans doesn’t faze him, he admits to getting a little nervous when people listen to him play the piano.

“I’m not that good. I play by ear,” he said, running his fingers smoothly over the ivories. He began tinkering with the piano as a high school sophomore and during junior year he looked for a music teacher. “It didn’t work out,” he said with a grin. “I wasn’t interested in reading music.”

That was one of the few cases when he wasn’t inspired by a teacher, he said.

Foster cited Brian Griffith, assistant clinical professor and assistant director of the human and organizational development program, as the professor who influenced him to choose his major.

Griffith, who became Foster’s faculty adviser, said he is grateful he got to know Foster as more than just an athlete. “He’s a man of integrity and deep faith,” Griffith said.

They first met during the fall of Foster’s freshman year when he enrolled in an introductory class with Griffith.

“One of the fondest memories I have of Shan was in his first HOD class,” Griffith recalled. “The class of 120 met in a large lecture hall and Shan usually sat on the front row. One morning as I was entering the classroom at 8 a.m., I noticed he was eating a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. Jokingly, I commented that it looked very appetizing. When I walked into class the next lecture, there was a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit waiting for me on the lectern. For me, that story captures his compassionate and caring personality. He was always looking for ways to reach out to others.”

Foster rarely turns down requests to speak to community organizations and churches and he has volunteered his time with developmentally disabled youngsters at the Susan Gray School, part of the John F. Kennedy Center at Vanderbilt.

Foster learned about a different side of Nashville from Shields, who pushes her students to know and appreciate a different side of the population.
“She has a story to tell that everyone should listen to,” he said. “She took us out into the community and made us see this diverse population of people who are really struggling day to day.”

Shields said Foster is as much of a teacher himself as a student, and that after the class ended she found Foster encouraged her in her work as much as she encouraged him.

“I found him to be a very compassionate and caring student,” she said. “He cares really deeply and is engaged in his reading and his work. In his mentoring work as well, he was a great example for younger people. I like to think of what Shan’s doing not just as community involvement but as community engagement. He is someone who can make a difference.”

Despite all his finer qualities, Foster admits he arrived on campus with some rough edges that needed smoothing. He learned lessons in how to conduct himself off the court from Vera Chatman, professor in the practice of human and organizational development, who became a close friend.

“She taught me how to be professional at all times,” Foster said. “I’m kind of laid back, but she tells me, ‘Shan, no wearing hats in class,’ ‘No chewing gum.’ She’s kind of like your mother and at the same time she’s a fascinating teacher.”

Chatman said it’s difficult to find the words to describe Foster because he’s a special person. “When I first met Shan, I do not think that he realized that the same discipline that was expected of him on the court was what was expected when he entered the classroom,” Chatman remembered fondly.

“I knew his mother would not expect less so I did not either. Surprisingly, he more than shaped up and performed better than I think he thought he was capable of. I am very pleased that he thinks of me as family because I am as proud as his mother of all that he has and will do,” she said.

Foster shattered some records while he was at Vanderbilt but because of his character he left indelible impressions that may be more lasting and meaningful.

“I think he has the ability to look at systems and issues and understand what needs to be done. For a teacher, this is what it’s all about: To know that the future is in good hands,” Shields said. “What makes it even better is that Shan has a humility about him and a down to earth personality that makes him such a connector.”

Sandler, Foster’s tough statistics teacher, agreed. “Shan has his head on straight,” Sandler said. “He is one of the nicest, most genuine people I know. I am very proud of him and what he has done to make Vanderbilt a better place.”

Jennifer Johnston is a member of Vanderbilt’s university relations staff.

For more on Shan Foster, see the latest edition of Champion magazine. Foster appeared on the cover of the April edition.