Vanderbilt announces scholarship commemorating Tel Aviv terror victim

Taylor Force, a veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, ’embodied all that we strive for,’ says university chancelor

Vanderbilt University has named a new scholarship in honor of the graduate student killed in a terrorist stabbing attack in Tel Aviv earlier this month.

The Taylor Force Memorial Scholarship was announced by Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos on Friday during a campus memorial service for Force, an MBA student at the Nashville, Tennessee, university who was on a school trip to Israel to learn about the high-tech industry when he was killed on March 8.

As many as 10 people were wounded in the attack — including Force’s wife — at and near the Jaffa Port.

Force was a 2009 graduate of the West Point US Military Academy and saw tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Zeppos said the scholarship is designed to support fellow West Point and other academy graduates who, like Force, have demonstrated their abilities and commitment to leadership and service.

“Taylor embodied all that we strive for at Vanderbilt: excellence, service to society, leadership and generosity of spirit,” Zeppos said.

He added: “The Taylor Force Memorial Scholarship ensures that the impact he had on us will continue to inspire future generations of students.”

At the time of the attack that killed Force, US Vice President Joe Biden was less than two miles away meeting with former Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Peres Center for Peace.