John James Tigert IV (1882-1965) was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on 11 February 1882. He received his AB in Psychology and Education from Vanderbilt in 1904 and went on to work as a professor and administrator at various universities. He taught philosophy at the University of Kentucky from 1911 to 1917, served as the US Commissioner of Education from 1921 to 1928, and was President of the University of Florida from 1928 to 1947. Tigert was the son of Vanderbilt University philosophy professor John James Tigert III and the grandson of Vanderbilt co-founder Bishop Holland Nimmons McTyeire. He died in Gainesville, Florida, on 21 January 1965.

Holland Nimmons McTyeire (1824-1889), son of Elizabeth Nimmons and Captain John McTyeire, was born on 28 July 1824 in Barnwell County, South Carolina. He received his AB degree from Randolph Macon College in 1844 and was licensed as a pastor in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He married Amelia Townsend in 1847. He served as a pastor in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana before he was elected Bishop and moved to Nashville in 1867. In 1872, he initiated a plan to create a Central University of the Methodist Episcopal Church. After receiving the financial support of his wife’s cousin-in-law, Cornelius Vanderbilt, McTyeire became president of the newly minted Vanderbilt University in 1873. He died on 15 February 1889 in Nashville, Tennessee.