Seven seniors’ portraits will be added to Rhodes’ Hall of Fame, housed on the second floor of Southwestern Hall. They are Abbey Bako, Dorian Canales, Katie Clark, Adam Cruthirds, Tony Eskridge, Annie Ouyang, and Jackie Paiz.
Selection to the Hall of Fame, established in 1931, is based on individual merit, leadership in student activities, service to others, and overall contributions to the campus community. Honorees are chosen by their peers.
Abbey Bako, an English major from Lafayette, LA, has led social justice advocacy work around issues of sexual violence as president of Rhodes’ Culture of Consent and as a student representative on the Sexual Misconduct Prevention Working Group and the President’s Alcohol Task Force. She has been committed to providing survivors a platform to voice their opinions and feel respected. She also is committed to initiatives in the community that make a difference. These involvements include Girls Inc., inHealth Strategies, The Bridge street newspaper, and Choose 901. On campus, Bako has worked as a resident assistant and for the Office of Communications and the Summer Writing Institute. She currently is a social media marketing Intern for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – ALSAC.
Dorian Canales, an economics major from Memphis, TN, has established himself as a dynamic campus leader as a Class of 2020 Senator, the president of Men of Distinction, a Finance Student Trustee, and president of the High School Outreach Program. Born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Canales came to Rhodes as a Bonner Scholar. As part of the scholarship, he has served as a tutor to area elementary and middle school students for Rhodes’ Learning Center, as well as a tutor for Streets Ministries and Memphis Athletic Ministries. Canales has sought new opportunities and challenges to strengthen his leadership skills by working as a global planning and engineering technology intern at FedEx Express and participating in the 2019 Harvard Business School Summer Venture in Management Program. For the 2019 Rhodes homecoming, Canales was voted “Rhodes Royalty.”
Katie Clark, an art history major from Rumson, NJ, initiated Rhodes’ chapter of Kappa Pi International Art Honor Society, founded in the spring of 2019. She was elected the chapter’s first president. Through a fellowship with The Lynne and Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes, Clark has conducted research and created an online game using a 3D model of ancient architecture from 1550 BCE in Greece to educate users on Minoan culture. Clark’s summers during her time at Rhodes have been spent as an intern for High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Cristea Roberts Gallery and the Sarah Myerscough Gallery, both located in London, England. Clark also has spent a semester abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark. Outside of creative endeavors, she is captain of the women’s lacrosse team, president of the Mortar Board Honor Society for seniors, and a Senior Fellow in Rhodes’ Office of Admission.
Adam Cruthirds, a political science major from Memphis, TN, reached his goal in 2019 of raising one million dollars for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. After being diagnosed with leukemia at age 16 and undergoing chemotherapy treatment, he founded Adam’s Army to help end childhood cancer. Cruthirds entered Rhodes as a Clarence Day Scholar dedicated to making a positive impact on Memphis. On campus, he has served as a student representative of the Green Dot Bystander Intervention program and a member of the Rhodes Activities Board and Rhodes College Diplomats. Cruthirds also has served as a clerk and an intern for ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude. He currently is a development intern for Just City, whose focus is the criminal justice system. In 2019, Cruthirds was honored by Leadership Memphis as a Change Maker.
Tony Eskridge, an urban studies major from Memphis, TN, has served as president of the 2019-2020 Rhodes Student Government. He entered Rhodes as a participant of the Clarence Day Scholar program, in which students are involved in campus and community events related to the Day Foundation and Memphis leadership initiatives. He has served as chairman of the Class Council and a student mentor in the First-Year Seminar and Serving Our Students (SOS) programs. As a 2018 Summer Service Fellow, he worked for BLDG Memphis, which supports the revitalization of Memphis neighborhoods through organizational capacity building, public policy and advocacy, and community education and engagement. In the Rhodes Institute for Regional Studies, he researched the historic devaluation of black neighborhoods and the urgency to address poverty in Memphis.
Annie Ouyang, a biology major from Lakeland, TN, has been conducting research with Dr. Elaine Frawley of the biology department for the past three years, with a focus on transport systems in Salmonella Typhimurium. She is this year’s recipient of the department’s Award for Outstanding Research in Biology. Ouyang has been a teacher’s assistant for the Introductory Biology Lab and Analytical Chemistry Lab, as well as an organic chemistry and analytical chemistry tutor. She also has served as an SOS mentor and president of the student group ASIA. Off campus, Ouyang has served as an intern in the oncology department of Methodist University Hospital, worked as a medical assistant at the Raleigh Group Pediatrics Clinic, served as a volunteer at Memphis’ Refugee Empowerment Program, and helped establish the Memphis Colleges Service Coalition, a group dedicated to bringing together local colleges to serve community needs.
Jackie Paiz, a psychology and Spanish double major from Chicago, IL, has conducted research focusing on the healthy development of children; how religious and sexual identities influence health disparities; and mental health treatment disparities present for minorities. As an intern for Prevent Child Abuse America, she helped lead a research initiative investigating the psychological effects of separations at the border on immigrant Latino/a/x youth. During the summer of 2018, she participated in a Spanish language immersion program in Cuenca, Ecuador. A first-generation college student, Paiz served as a co-president of the Latinx Student Association and a member of the SOS Mentor Program on campus. She also represented Rhodes’ National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) on the Sexual Misconduct Prevention Working Group and the Student Title IX board during her presidency of NPC. Since 2018, Paiz has been a Rhodes Student Associate for the Language Learning Center.