News and information about the Rhodes campus experience.

Rhodes College President Marjorie Hass announced today that Dr. Meghan Harte Weyant will join the college’s senior leadership team as Vice President for Student Life beginning July 1, 2020. The appointment is the result of a national search led by a campus committee composed of faculty, staff, and students.

The Rhodes College Board of Trustees unanimously adopted the college’s new ten-year strategic plan, Achieving Our Best: A Strategic Vision for Rhodes College 2020-2030. The plan will strengthen the college’s commitment to provide a decidedly residential liberal arts and sciences education and maps the college’s objective to facilitate growth sustainably while maintaining and enhancing the academic and creative excellence that gives Rhodes graduates an edge that they carry throughout their professional life. 

Rhodes student leader Dorian Canales ’20 has set his sights on leading businesses into the future and empowering others to succeed. This past summer, he worked as a global planning and engineering technology intern at FedEx Express, as well as attended the Harvard Business School Summer Venture in Management Program. “Rhodes has helped me develop a strong foundation and the necessary transferable skills to thrive in any industry,” says Canales.

Rhodes College launched a new Athletics Giving Challenge on Oct. 22, and the results are in—$71,232 in donations and 568 donors. “The outpouring of support we’ve received in our inaugural Athletics Giving Challenge was overwhelming and proves how special the Rhodes community is when it comes to our student-athletes,” says Matt Dean, director of athletics. “We can’t thank our alumni, parents, and friends enough for surpassing our initial goals.”

Visiting assistant professor and internationally-renowned music director, conductor, and scholar Zak Ozmo's Arts Entrepreneurship class, which has brought together students from a vast array of disciplines, seeks to broaden students' understandings of careers in the arts and expand their professional networks. The class includes a lectures series featuring Memphis leaders who work at the intersection of arts and business and is open to the entire Rhodes community.

Although Africans had a presence in the Americas in the 1500s, it is the year 1619—with the arrival of Africans in Virginia— that is commonly used as a starting point for teaching about slavery in the United States. The story of these captives 400 years ago has set the stage for discussions about the institution of slavery and its aftermath. Professors Trimiko Melancon, Gordon Bigelow, Kijan Bloomfield, and Charles McKinney are joining in Oct. 21 with a panel discussion on campus.

Rhodes excels among national liberal arts colleges in the number of graduates accepted into medical schools. Over the past six years, 86 percent of its graduates with a GPA greater than 3.4 and an MCAT score above the 57th percentile have been accepted into medical schools.The 2019 application cycle includes 44 Rhodes graduates offered admittance to medical schools, with Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, George Washington University, and University of Chicago among the list.

The National Science Foundation awarded Rhodes College $650,000 to increase the academic and career success of lower-income, academically talented STEM students at Rhodes. The eighteen students selected will receive a scholarship to reduce, or even eliminate, their need for federal student loans, participate in a new course on applications of computational thinking and a science-focused first-year writing seminar together, engage in grant-funded summer research experiences, live together in a designated residence hall, and receive peer mentoring.

Dr. Valerie M. Hudson, an expert on gender and international security and a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, will present “The First Political Order: Sex and World Politics” Oct. 24 at Rhodes College. In her forthcoming book, The First Political Order: Sex, Governance, and National Security, Hudson has researched how the subordination of women in social and political structures has wide-ranging implications for global security and development.

U.S. News & World Report has named Rhodes College one of the nation’s most innovative national liberal arts colleges in its 2020 Best Colleges rankings. Rhodes was also recognized as a “Best Value College” and on the list of national liberal arts colleges with the “Best Undergraduate Teaching Degrees.”