An August Saturday at Vanderbilt shows what the ideal looks like for Nashville and the nation

It was only by medical accident that I was on the Vanderbilt University campus on the third Saturday in August.

Little did I know that the Saturday that brought me there was probably the busiest one of the year on this "shining city on a hill," as President Ronald Reagan once called the United States of America.

The campus was swarmed by families and children, young adults and the very old. The smiling faces were colored black, brown, bronze, tan, pinkish and every hue in between. The license plates on the vehicles were from across the nation. The race and ethnicities of the human beings seemed to be of every one we've seen in the Beijing Olympics. And the languages spoken were English, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic and tongues I could not make out due to my ignorance.

Indeed, Vanderbilt on this August Saturday was also a Tale of Two Cities, as then New York Gov. Mario Cuomo called the same America Reagan cited in 1984.

Within the borders of Vanderbilt, there was immunity to the virus sickening the rest of Nashville and Davidson County. The campus was open, friendly, optimistic, laughing, smiling and tolerant of all the differences of the people descending upon it. In fact, there was sense of welcoming, of actually wanting all these differences for a higher purpose that goes with learning, enlightenment and progress.

It took me 15 minutes to walk from my car parked in a space at least five blocks from Vanderbilt Medical Center. And I enjoyed every step. I was like a child in a toy store at Christmas. It seemed as if I had been transported to Beijing, or the United Nations in New York. The world was in my view and within my hearing. And it was marvelous to behold.

My words written here are so inadequate to describe the environment it was my honor to intrude upon. But this surprise on an August Saturday was confirmation of the dream that remains America, that ensures this country remains the strongest in the world. On the campus, the ideas and passions of all the nations have been assembled, to first learn and then to contribute and heal.

Truly, Vanderbilt as a university and a place of healing is Nashville's and Tennessee's most precious treasure. It renews and refreshes amid the ravages of intolerance outside its borders.

No, Vanderbilt is not a perfect place. Nashville's largest employer should establish a living wage minimum of $12 an hour for every worker. That kind of leadership would then set the moral bar for other employers in Nashville and start to address the ills of the "Two Cities" of America that Cuomo cited in 1984.

Almost a quarter century later, the Two Cities are even more distinct in this nation.

If you missed being on campus last Saturday, which was the time for incoming freshman to take residency, then mark your calender for the third Saturday in August in 2009. Get there early, then walk or simply stand and soak in the world and all its languages and all its hope for a better future because of a better place called Vanderbilt University.