Rhodes College celebrated the commencement of the Classes of 2020 and 2021 May 15. Their degrees were officially conferred May 2020. Rhodes also awarded the 2021 commencement awards, which include some of the highest honors the college recognizes.

The 2021 Clarence Day Awards for Outstanding Teaching and for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity are awarded to Dr. Brian Larkins and Dr. Scott Newstok, respectively. The Clarence Day Awards, presented to two faculty members each year, are two of the college’s highest honors for its faculty.

Six seniors’ portraits have been added to Rhodes’ Hall of Fame on the second floor of Southwestern Hall. They are K’nori Bone, Jacob Fontaine, Betsy John, Hannah Johns, Sydney Jones, and Mary Thomas. Selection to the Hall of Fame, which was established in 1931, is based on individual merit, leadership in student activities, service to others, and overall contributions to the campus community. Honorees are chosen by their peers.

The Rhodes Board of Trustees announced today that internationally renowned Blues artist, Blues Hall of Fame inductee, and Grammy Award winner, Bobby Rush, whose career spans eight decades, will be this year’s recipient of the Honorary Doctorate of Humanities.

With the support of the Mike Curb Institute for Music at Rhodes, Emma Jane Hopper ’22 and Elijah Matlock ’21 have been making quite a splash with Beyond Beale. The student-run podcast focuses on illuminating the underrepresented narratives of the Memphis music scene. In their first season, Matlock and Hopper took a deep dive into the integrated Memphis Country Blues Festival held at Overton Park Shell in the late 1960s; they also produced a mini-episode about the festival that garnered an honorable mention in NPR’s 2021 Student Podcast Challenge: College Edition.

Becca Risman '21 has used her passion for community engagement in Memphis as an Urban Fellow; studied urban planning in Sevilla, Spain; and will soon serve as a Work First Fellow in New York City with America Works, a nonprofit that seeks to alleviate poverty in major cities.

Ryan D. Mire ‘93, MD, FACP has been named President-elect of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Mire earned his Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Rhodes. He also serves on the Rhodes College Board of Trustees, is a past member of the Rhodes Alumni Executive Board, and previously received the Black Student Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Senior English major Shaliz Barzani has been awarded The Steve and Riea Lainoff Crop Trust Fellowship in Honor of Cary Fowler. The fellowship is made possible through the generosity of Steve and Riea Lainoff, parents of Rhodes graduates Brian Lainoff ’11 and Mark Lainoff ’15. As a fellow, Barzani will join the Partnerships Team of the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Bonn, Germany, in August 2021. The 12-month fellowship provides the opportunity for a recent graduate to develop an understanding of the Crop Trust’s work and the issues associated with agricultural biodiversity conservation.

Katherine Polster, who is pursuing a master’s degree in urban education at Rhodes College, is the recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Student Award for the 2021-2022 academic year. She will serve as an English Teaching Assistant in Taiwan beginning in the fall. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government.