RHODES COLLEGE

'Rhodes College' is a four-year, private liberal arts college located in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1848, Rhodes enrolls approximately 1,700 students. About one third of Rhodes students go on to graduate and professional school soon after graduation,^[1]. The acceptance rates to law and business schools are around 95%, and the acceptance rate to medical school is nearly twice the national average.^[2]
Rhodes College is listed in Loren Pope's, ''Colleges That Change Lives''.

Contents

History

Campus

Students and faculty

Traditions, sports, and clubs

Greek Life

Sororities

Fraternities

Noted alumni

Business

Culture

Government & Military

Noted staff

Administrators

Professors

See also

References

External links

History

Rhodes College traces its origin as a degree-granting institution to the Masonic University of Tennessee, founded in 1848 in Clarksville, Tennessee. The institution became Montgomery Masonic College in 1850 and later was renamed Stewart College in honor of its president William M. Stewart. It was under Stewart's leadership that control of the college passed from the Masons to the Presbyterian Church in 1855. In 1875, the college added to its undergraduate program a School of Theology and became Southwestern Presbyterian University. The School of Theology operated until 1917.
In 1925, president Charles Diehl led the college in a move to its present campus in Memphis, Tennessee (the Clarksville campus would later become Austin Peay State University). At that time, the college shortened its name to Southwestern. In 1945, the college adopted the name Southwestern at Memphis, to distinguish itself from other colleges and universities containing the name "Southwestern." Finally, in 1984, the college's name was changed to Rhodes College to honor former college president Peyton Nalle Rhodes.
Since 1984, Rhodes has grown from a regionally recognized institution to a nationally ranked liberal arts college."^[3] Even as overall enrollment has increased over the past twenty years, the student body has comprised increasing proportions of students from outside Tennessee and the Southeast region.^[4]
The current president of Rhodes is Dr. William E. Troutt, who joined the college as the 19th president in 1999. His predecessor, Dr. James Daughdrill, served as president for over a quarter century.

Campus

The campus covers a 100 acre tract in midtown Memphis across from Overton Park and the Memphis Zoo. Often cited for its beauty,^[5] the campus design is notable for its stone Gothic architecture buildings, thirteen of which are currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[1] The original buildings, including Palmer Hall (1925), Kennedy Hall (1925), and Robb and White dormitories (1925), were designed by Henry Hibbs in consultation with Charles Klauder, who designed many buildings at Princeton University, alma mater of college president Charles Diehl. Later buildings were designed by H. Clinton Parrent, a young associate of Hibbs who was present from the beginning. Parrent's buildings include the Catherine Burrow Refectory (1957), which was an expansion of Hibbs' original dining hall. Parrent also added Halliburton Tower (1962) to Palmer Hall. The 140-foot bell tower was named in honor of explorer Richard Halliburton. Rhodes maintains its Collegiate Gothic architecture, including the new Barret Library (2005) designed by the firm of Hanbury Evans Wright and Vlattas.

Students and faculty

Rhodes enrolls 1687 undergraduate students; 84% are Caucasian, 6% are African American, 4% are Asian and 1.6% are Hispanic. Fifty-nine percent of students are female. The student-to-faculty ratio is 11:1.^[6] Popular majors include economics and business administration, Biology, Political Science, English, and International Studies.

Traditions, sports, and clubs

Rhodes is one of 62 colleges recently classified for both "Curricular Engagement" and "Outreach & Partnerships" in the "Community Engagement" category by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Approximately 80% of Rhodes students participate in some form of community service by the time they graduate.^[7] The college's new curriculum includes a requirement that students participate in activities that broaden the connection between classroom experiences and the outside world. The mission statement of the college also reinforces community engagement, aspiring to "graduate students with...a compassion for others and the ability to translate academic study and personal concern into effective leadership and action in their communities and the world."
Central to the life of the college is its Honor Code, administered by students through the Honor Council. Every student is required to sign the Code, which reads, "As a member of the Rhodes College community, I pledge my full and steadfast support to the Honor System and agree neither to lie, cheat, nor steal and to report any such violation that I may witness." Because of this, students enjoy a relationship of trust with their professors and benefits such as taking closed book final exams in the privacy of their own rooms.
The college mascot is the lynx and the school colors are red and black. The athletic teams compete in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference in the NCAA's Division III. Rhodes counts one national championship to its credit - awarded to the 1961 baseball team.
Rites of Spring, a three day music festival in early April, is a major social event of the school year, and typically attracts several major bands from around the country. In recent years, an adjunct celebration called Rites to Play has brought to campus elementary aged children from all of the various community agencies and schools that partner with Rhodes. The Rhodes students plan, organize, and execute a carnival for the kids.

Greek Life

There are a number of social fraternities and sororities at Rhodes. Approximately 50% of the students are members of Greek organizations. The fraternity and sorority lodges are not, however, residential, and most Greek-sponsored parties and activities are open to the entire campus.

Sororities

(in order of establishment at Rhodes)

★ Chi Omega 1922

★ Alpha Omicron Pi 1925

★ Kappa Delta 1925

★ Delta Delta Delta 1931

★ Alpha Kappa Alpha

★ Sigma Gamma Rho

★ Delta Sigma Theta

Fraternities

(in order of establishment at Rhodes)

★ Pi Kappa Alpha 1878

★ Alpha Tau Omega

★ Sigma Alpha Epsilon

★ Kappa Sigma

★ Kappa Alpha Order

★ Sigma Nu

★ Kappa Alpha Psi

Noted alumni

Business

★ John H. Bryan, former CEO of Sara Lee

Culture

★ J. Baird Callicott, philosopher and ethicist

★ Dixie Carter, a Drama Desk Award winning actress most famous for her work on the TV series ''Designing Women''.

★ Lara Parker, an actress most famous for her role in the TV series ''Dark Shadows''.

★ Carroll Cloar, an internationally recognized painter.

★ Peter Taylor, a Pulitzer Prize winning author.

Government & Military

★ Bill Alexander, served as Chief Deputy Majority Whip while representing eastern Arkansas in the United States House of Representatives from 1969-1993.

★ Abe Fortas, U.S. Supreme Court justice (1965-1969) & President Lyndon Johnson's nominee for Chief Justice of the United States. He authored the opinion in the 1969 case Tinker v. Des Moines School District, accepting the rights of schoolchildren to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War.

★ Claudia Kennedy, U.S. Army Lt. General and Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. Gen. Kennedy is a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame, and the first female to hold a three-star rank in the U.S. Army.

Noted staff

Administrators

★ Dave Wottle, Dean of Admissions, Olympic gold-medal winner

Professors

★ Timothy Huebner, professor of history, 2004 Tennessee Professor of the Year by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

★ David McCarthy, professor of art, Smithsonian Fellow[2]

★ Michael Nelson, Professor of Political Science, author, and media analyst focused on the American presidency

★ Marcus Pohlmann, Professor of Political Science, coach of the Rhodes Mock trial program, President of the American Mock Trial Association. Coached Rhodes to record numbers of national championships (4), finals appearances (7), top-ten finishes (16), and consecutive top-ten finishes

★ Michael Leslie, Professor of English and the Dean of British Studies at Oxford (the oldest American exchange program at Oxford University)

See also

★ Rhodes Singers

References

1. Franek, Robert et al, The Best 361 Colleges: the Smart Student's Guide to Colleges, Random House, Inc., New York, 2006, p. 424.
2. Pope, Loren, Colleges that Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges, Penguin Books, New York, 2006, p. 185.
3. Pope, Loren, Colleges that Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges, Penguin Books, New York, 2006, p. 181.
See also "Best Liberal Arts Colleges", America's Best Colleges, US News and World Report, 1999-2007.
4. data available via Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), National Center for Education Statistics.
5. as in Turner South's Blue Ribbon, Princeton Review, Collegiate Gothic: The Architecture of Rhodes College by William Stroud, and other sources
6. These figures are published in the Rhodes College Common Data Set and have been reported to the federal government via IPEDS and the state government via TICUA.
7. Franek, Robert et al, The Best 361 Colleges: the Smart Student's Guide to Colleges, Random House, Inc., New York, 2006, p. 425.

External links

★ Rhodes College