Tanner Chapman, a recent Rhodes College graduate from The Woodlands, TX, has been awarded The Steve and Riea Lainoff Crop Trust Fellowship in Honor of Cary Fowler ’71. The fellowship is made possible thanks to the generosity of Steve and Riea Lainoff, parents of Rhodes graduates Brian Lainoff ’11 and Mark Lainoff ’15.
Chapman earned a bachelor’s degree in history/international studies and religious studies (double major) and is the recipient of the departmental Religious Studies Award. Beginning in August 2026, he will support work of the external affairs team at the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Bonn, Germany. Previous fellows have assisted in planning conferences and events, developing communications materials, and even accompanying deposits to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault located in Norway.
“The beauty of spending four years at a liberal arts college like Rhodes is the multifaceted expertise you gain throughout your course of study,” said Chapman. “Rhodes provided me the ability to learn from professors at the top of their respective fields, meaning I was gaining invaluable knowledge about how the world works, and how to conceptualize the abstract.”
Chapman previously worked as a social media intern for First America Homes in The Woodlands, where he generated marketing content through site visits across the greater Houston area and supported corporate advertising campaigns to enhance brand visibility.
At Rhodes, Chapman was active in various roles, including working with the residence life staff as a resident assistant and serving as a teaching assistant in the college’s Liberal Arts in Prison Program. He also has been a student tour guide, an alumni ambassador, the secretary of the International and Immigrant Students Association, an event chair for A.S.I.A. (All Students Interested in Asia), and president of the Rhodes chapter of the Theta Alpha Kappa religious studies honor society. In addition, he has served on a number of college committees, including as the student representative for the Jameson M. Jones Award for Outstanding Faculty Service, and on the senior gift committee. He was chief of staff for the Mid-South Model United Nations hosted by Rhodes’ Department of International Studies.
Chapman also has received several accolades, including being a recipient of the Dean’s Scholarship and a recipient of the James Reeves Hyde Award in Religious Studies, which funded a research project in Thessaloniki, Greece, where he explored the realities of Sephardi Diasporic Jewish communities in Thessaloniki.
In the Fall of 2025, Chapman spent a semester abroad at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, where he worked on an original project exploring food culture and its religious connections in Greece. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, exploring local coffee shops, hanging out with his friends, and learning more about the world.