National and global news about Rhodes students and alums

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides grants for English teaching assistantships as well as for individually designed study/research projects abroad. Winners will be announced throughout Spring 2023.

Dr. David Rupke, associate professor of physics at Rhodes College, is software lead and member of an international collaboration of astronomers and astrophysicists studying distant quasars with NASA’s new flagship observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope. The European Space Agency has announced a surprising discovery made by the scientists using the telescope.

Award-winning poet Caki Wilkinson’s poem “Fox Song” from her book The Survival Expo was featured online Oct. 6 on Poet Daily, whose editors say they select the best and most interesting poems from publications for their thousands of readers.

She received the 2022 Henry C. McBay Outstanding Teacher Award at the 49th annual meeting of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers held in Orlando, FL, on Sept. 28.

The Department of Psychology at Rhodes has a long history of involving students in faculty-mentored research including more than 50 students annually on research teams. So far this year, three research teams have presented their research at different national conferences.

Emerson Fellows are placed with community-based organizations across the country and with policy-focused organizations in Washington, D.C. to make a difference in eliminating hunger and poverty in the United States. The new cohort of 18 change-makers began their work this month.

Three physics majors at Rhodes College— Mackenzie Gibbs ’22, Jess Hamer ’23, and Olivia Kaufmann ’23—have received national recognition through the Society of Physics Students.

Visitors of Rhodes College often will comment that the campus’ Collegiate Gothic architecture, with its limestone arches, stone walls, stained-glass windows, and slate roofs, makes them feel like they are in England. Twenty-one Rhodes students had the opportunity to actually study in England as part of the Rhodes Summer School in London program led by Associate Professor of Music Vanessa Rogers in coordination with Professor of Art Victor Coonin and professors and staff from the United Kingdom.

Saylor Tettleton ’22 will be studying in Germany for one year as a Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Fellow. She is one of only 75 Americans awarded the competitive fellowship, which is funded by the German Bundestag and U.S. Department of State. Tettleton graduated from Rhodes in May with a bachelor’s degree in educational studies and is interested in learning more about educational systems in Germany over the next year. She plans to teach at the elementary school level when returning to the U.S.

Samuel Cross, a rising junior from Griffin, GA, is among the new members of the 2022-2023 Hillel International Student Cabinet. His one-year term began in July. Founded in 1923, Hillel International has grown into the world’s largest Jewish campus organization.