Trumpeter Muneer Nasser, the Rhodes Jazz Ensemble, and the Rhodes Faculty Players will perform as part of Rhodes Night at the Overton Park Shell on Thursday, Oct. 23. Free and open to the public, the concert begins at 7 p.m. and celebrates Rhodes College’s 100th year in Memphis.

Rhodes College has been recognized among The Wall Street Journal’s “2026 Best Colleges in the U.S.” The ranking, developed in collaboration with research firm College Pulse, names the top 500 universities and colleges in the nation, focusing on how well colleges set their students up for financial success.

Dr. Kailey Lawson, assistant professor of psychology at Rhodes College, has been selected for the SAGE Emerging Scholar Award from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). She will be recognized at the annual SPSP meeting to be held in February 2026 in Chicago, IL.

Dr. Michael Lamb ’04, a Rhodes College political science alumnus and 2004 Rhodes Scholar, will deliver the college’s annual Constitution Day lecture on Oct. 6. The title of the talk is “Character and the Constitution: What the Founders Can Teach Us About How to Keep Our Republic.”

Rhodes College on Sept. 27 hosted a gathering of the Multilingual Memphis Coffee Chat, a regional network that brings together educators, administrators, and community organizations working to better serve second-language learning communities.

Rhodes College students Drishti Bhatia ’26 and Anna Everly ’27 are recipients of awards from the Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants after a competitive process. Bhatia is the recipient of a TSCPA scholarship. Everly is one of only five juniors in the state to receive the Calvin and Jean King Foundation Award.

Dr. Shana Stoddard, associate professor of chemistry at Rhodes College, has been selected as part of the 2025 cohort of Trailblazers by the American Chemical Society. The organization spotlights Stoddard in a special issue of its news outlet, Chemical & Engineering News, published Sept. 15. The issue features the work of scientists with disabilities and the ways they adapt their workplace to do science.

Established in 1848 in Clarksville, TN, Rhodes College moved to its current location in 1925 under the leadership of then president Dr. Charles E. Diehl. The college (then named Southwestern) opened for classes on Sept. 24, 1925. Four hundred and six students and 16 faculty walked into a Collegiate Gothic building, now known as Southwestern Hall, that laid the foundation for the beautiful campus we see today.

Rhodes College rose four spots in U.S. News & World Report’s recently released 2026 Best Colleges rankings, to No. 55 for National Liberal Arts Colleges. The annual rankings evaluate four-year bachelor's degree-granting institutions across the nation. Rhodes also achieved top 50 recognition in several other key rankings areas.

Rhodes College today announced a $2 million gift from The Rhodes Family Foundation to name the director’s position for the college’s Center for Career and Professional Development. This will be the college’s first endowed staff position. The gift supports the center’s vision of “ensuring all students graduate from Rhodes College prepared, engaged, self-aware, and confident in their abilities both to lead and to fulfill professional, academic, and personal goals.”