Archive
Parallel Lives
Drs. Jim Robertson ’53
Jon Robertson ’68
Neurosurgeons and brothers Jim Robertson ’53 and Jon Robertson ’68, 15 years apart in age—and miles apart while growing up—finally found their lives aligned after Rhodes and medical school.
A Team Effort
Rosanna Cappellato
Assistant Professor, Biology
Chair, Environmental Studies/Environmental Sciences
Program Committee
Environmental Studies and Environmental Sciences are new additions to the Rhodes curriculum. Can you discuss their evolution?
Challenging Students
Gary Lindquester
Chair, Rhodes Department of Biology
Rhodes students today are constantly challenged, and they constantly rise to that challenge. This, says Gary Lindquester, Biology Department chair, is one of the reasons that teaching at Rhodes is so rewarding.
Xiao Wang, an international student from Beijing, describes his biology career at Rhodes and how Rhodes has led to his success.
The study of the natural sciences at Rhodes is implied in a name: Dr. Peyton Nalle Rhodes, the physicist who taught at the college from 1926-49 and served as president from 1949-65. In 1984 the college, with a long reputation of excellence as a liberal arts and sciences institution, changed its name from Southwestern at Memphis to Rhodes College. It could be we’re the only top liberal arts college in America named for a physicist.
Dear Friend
This issue features some recent Rhodes “academic milestones.” Many of us recall one of our own major milestones—graduating from Rhodes surrounded by family, friends, classmates and revered faculty members. On May 12, 393 members of the class of 2012 walked across the stage in Fisher Garden to receive their diplomas, as generations of Rhodes students have done before them.
As the newest members of the Alumni Association, these young men and women have joined an extraordinary community of individuals with shared values, memories and experiences.
MARK BEHR
Associate Professor
Department of English
Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient: Written in beautiful, poetic prose and carried by a host of memorable and empathetically drawn characters, the novel offers a new look at European history from the Renaissance to a moment near the end of the Second World War. Set in the ruins of an Italian villa and moving between there and North Africa, Ondaatje’s novel engages European art as emblematic of Western civilization by exposing the intersections between aesthetics and violence.
Students who engage in Rhodes History courses venture back in time to various periods and destinations. They learn the stories of monarchies and democracies, leaders and rulers, revolts and reformation, and so much more in understanding how societies and civilizations come to be.