Provost Milton Moreland presented this year’s academic department and program awards virtually for the 171st Student Awards Convocation on May 1. The awards were streamed live on Rhodes.edu and Facebook.

Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is America’s oldest collegiate honor society. Its campus chapters invite for induction the most outstanding liberal arts students at America’s leading colleges and universities. Fewer than one percent of U.S. college graduates are eligible.

Jazmin “Jazzy” Miller ’08 had already built up an extensive résumé of influence in the Memphis arts scene when she was named the first director of the Crosstown Theater, a state-of-the-art facility that opened in January 2019 in Crosstown Concourse.

Jessica Frankl, a senior educational studies and international studies double major from Foster City, CA, is the winner of a Fulbright U.S. Student Award for the 2020-2021 academic year. Depending on travel conditions in the fall, she will serve as an English Teaching Assistant in India.

When Rhodes College transitioned to remote learning, resources that we always had taken for granted—a classroom, projector, whiteboard, computers with necessary software, office space, opportunities to meet with students, and opportunities for students to meet with each other—became unavailable. Prof. Sujan Dan had to rethink and relearn how to teach his classes, engage with students, and stimulate interest in the subject. 

Rhodes has designed this disbursement, from the U.S. Department of Education as part of the CARES Act Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, to prioritize students with the greatest demonstrated need and ensure that funds are distributed as widely as possible. Each recipient must have a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) on file with the Financial Aid Office and must have received financial aid for the spring 2020 semester.

Music industry publication Billboard named Rhodes College one of the top music business programs in the nation. Rhodes is praised for the Mike Curb Institute for Music’s hands-on curriculum, the relationship between Rhodes and Memphis musicians and recording studios, and the liberal arts foundation given to all students interested in music. These interdisciplinary programs and experiences make it possible for students of any major to participate in creative activity and prepare for possible careers in the music industry.

As part of the Rhodes College experience, students learn how to translate academic study and personal concern into effective leadership and action in their communities. Several Rhodes alumni who are now medical students at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) in Memphis are giving back to the community as volunteers at local drive-thru testing sites for COVID-19.

Scott Newstok, professor of English at Rhodes, has published a new book, How to Think like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (Princeton University Press, 2020). The book grew out of the speech that Newstok delivered to the Rhodes Class of 2020 at their convocation four years ago.

Senior Bailey Cate, who is pursuing an environmental studies major and an urban studies minor at Rhodes, has been awarded The Steve and Riea Lainoff Crop Trust Fellowship in Honor of Cary Fowler. The 12-month 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, Cate will join the Partnerships team of the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Bonn, Germany, in August, depending on travel conditions at that time.