Driven by a love of being outdoors and on the water, environmental science major Bernadette Badamo contacted assistant biology professor Dr. Patrick Kelly last year about assisting him with his research on aquatic ecosystems. As a result, she has spent this summer in a canoe measuring sources of organic carbon in Mid-South area lakes to analyze how these lakes store and release carbon and how they cycle nutrients.

Students continue to win national awards after they have graduated from Rhodes. McKenna Davis ’18, a physics and mathematics alumna, won the Goldwater Scholarship in 2017 when she was a junior. Now as an aerospace engineering graduate student at UCLA, she has won the highly competitive fellowship.

Dr. Amy Risley, professor and chair of international studies at Rhodes, has a new book out titled The Youngest Citizens. Published by Routledge this summer, it traces the evolution of children’s rights in Latin America and analyzes a dramatic discursive and policy shift that has occurred since the 1990s.

Bill Cochran has announced that he will retire as Rhodes’ head men’s golf coach at the end of the 2019-20 season. This season will be Cochran’s 19th year as the Lynx head coach.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will deliver Rhodes College’s annual Constitution Day lecture on October 3. “We are honored to have Justice Breyer join us in Memphis,” Rhodes President Marjorie Hass says. “Our community will get a rare look behind the scenes of the Supreme Court. Lectures like this one are a key component of the transformational experience we provide for our students.”

First-year students toured The National Civil Rights Museum with faculty and administrators supplementing the exhibits with lectures on African American history, ​​​​​​​Brown vs. Board, the Selma to Montgomery march, the Sanitation Workers' Strike, and the life and work of Dr. King. All four class years at Rhodes have now participated in the experience.

Of its more than 2,000 students, who come from 47 states and represent 54 countries, approximately 520 first-year students and 18 transfer students have committed to enroll fall 2019. Multicultural and international students make up 40 percent of the Class of 2023—an 8 percent increase compared with last year’s incoming class.

Dr. Pamela Church, associate professor of accounting at Rhodes College, was presented the 2019 Jameson M. Jones Award for Outstanding Faculty Service at the college’s Opening Convocation Aug. 16.

Rhodes professors equip students to think and understand in new ways through rigorous academics and opportunities for exploration outside of the classroom. The college welcomes 15 new faculty to its distinguished roster for the 2019-2020 academic year.

New director positions have been added in the Office of Academic Affairs as part of the leadership teams of the associate provost, dean for faculty development, and dean for curricular development.