rhodes magazine fall 2013

THE MAGAZINE OF RHODES COLLEGE FALL 2013

A Galaxy of Potential

Renovated science facilities promise to attract the best and brightest.

Plans for the renovation of

Rhodes Tower include new labs,

classrooms, offi ces, and physical

plant improvements. An architect’s

cutaway illustrates the range of

potential uses for the six-story,

21,660-foot space.

THE FUTURE

UNFOLDS

2 FA L L 2 0 1 3 • R H O D E S r h o d e s . e d u

VOLUME 20 • NUMBER 3

is published three times a year by Rhodes College

2000 N. Parkway Memphis, TN 38112

as a service to all alumni, students, parents, faculty,

staff, and friends of the college.

Fall 2013—Volume 20, Number 3

EDITOR

Lynn ConleeGRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Larry AhokasRobert Shatzer

PRODUCTION EDITORS

Jana Files ’78Carson Irwin ’08

Charlie KennyKen Woodmansee

CONTRIBUTORS

Lauren Albright ’16Richard J. Alley

Justin Fox BurksJulia Fawal ’15

Jim KiihnlMichelle Parks

Jill Johnson Piper ’80 P’17Elisha Vego

EDITOR EMERITUS

Martha Shepard ’66

INFORMATION901-843-3000

ALUMNI OFFICE1 (800) 264-LYNX

ADMISSION OFFICE1 (800) 844-LYNX

84 A Message from the President

6 Campus News Briefs on campus happenings

30 Student Spotlight

34 Faculty Focus

36 Alumni News Class Notes, In Memoriam

The 2012-2013 Honor Roll of Donors

Rhodes TowerPhoto illustration by Larry Ahokas Photo by Jim Kiihnl

FALL 2013

r h o d e s . e d u FA L L 2 0 1 3 • R H O D E S 3

16

8 Situating Beloved Texts: A Trip to Berlin Impacts Search Faculty

Enhancing the liberal arts experience—this time for professors!

75 Rhodes and BeyondTucked between Alumni News and the Honor Roll lies a special story about a growing college treasure.

16 By Design: Full Renovation to Transform Rhodes Tower

With its quirky architectural history and planned renovation, Rhodes Tower tells the tale of two centuries in science education.

75


A MessAge froM the President

Welcoming our very talented Class of 2017 this fall provided a most meaningful reminder of how much the Campaign for Rhodes matters

to our students and our college. Increasingly, our stu-dents arrive on campus from all across our country and all around the globe. Rhodes is affordable to many of these students because of the scholarships provided by alumni, parents, and friends of the college. Newly fund-ed opportunities for research, internships, and service proved to be the deciding factor for many of them to attend Rhodes. Funds donated for faculty support and new faculty positions help ensure that students learning experiences will be exceptional.

So many of you have given and continue to give generously to help us achieve our goals to provide the best possible support for students and faculty. Thanks to you, much has been accomplished to enhance the student experience and make our great college even better. But our work is not yet done. We extended our Campaign for Rhodes and expanded our goal to $303.5 million for student and faculty support. We added a component essential for the continued success of our

students—updated and expanded science facilities.As you read in this issue the storied history of

the Peyton Nalle Rhodes Tower, many of you will be reminded of the opening of the Frazier Jelke Science Center in 1968. So very much has changed since then.

Our track record of student success in the sci-ences and our partnership with truly world-class institu-tions such as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has created unprecedented student interest in the sciences. More than 40 percent of the Class of 2017 intends to major in the natural sciences.

With all we have to offer, our science facilities simply have not kept pace. Since Frazier Jelke Science Center was built, student enrollment in the sciences has tripled. We are now ranked in the top 10 of liberal arts colleges nationally for graduates in the natural sciences. We are very proud of the great work of our faculty and students, but they must have the facilities they need to continue this momentum.

While student interest has increased dramatically, changes in how science is taught are even more signifi-cant. Science today has become more interdisciplinary.

the Campaign for rhodes


Historically, all science majors at Rhodes graduated in either biology, chemistry, or physics. While these ma-jors remain prominent in our science curriculum, new interdisciplinary science majors, including biochemistry and molecular biology, neuroscience, environmental sci-ences, and environmental studies, are among some of our fastest-growing majors.

Lab work has also become more project oriented, experimental, and interdisciplinary. Instead of the tra-ditional “lab partner” approach, our students engage in more collaborative group work with other students and as research assistants with faculty members. Many of our students present their research at national confer-ences and are listed as co-authors on articles alongside our accomplished faculty. To maintain this new focus on collaboration, our facilities must support new ap-proaches to teaching and learning.

We are committed to giving every student the best education possible in the classroom and the best chance to grow and develop both on our campus and beyond our gates through truly exceptional opportuni-ties. We do that particularly well in the sciences. You

would be so proud of the testimonials we receive from our Memphis partners about how our students excel. The integration of the sciences, humanities, and social sciences—and their interconnectivity—makes the sciences unique at Rhodes.

The continued support of our entire college com-munity is critical as we aim to raise $42 million to reno-vate and expand our science facilities. With the recently announced $4.4 million Plough Foundation grant, we have received about $10 million in philanthropic com-mitments toward this goal. We ask you to join us in achieving our goals for the sciences and our overall cam-paign. Each of us benefi ts when bright young minds take what they have learned and experienced at Rhodes and begin to impact the world. With your help, I am confi dent we will soon have the science facilities that best support the students and faculty at Rhodes. Please do all you can to help us with this important initiative.

Contact Vice President of Development Jenna Goodloe Wade at 901-843-3850 or [email protected] for more information.

Peyton Nalle Rhodes Tower, dedicated to the study of physics


CAMPUS NEWS

To support fi rst-year students and sophomores in their college journeys, two new programs hit Rhodes College campus this year. Known as Fob into Five and S’MORES, the programs work differently, but both are aimed at capitalizing on what the college already offers and adding to the student’s college experience.

Fob into Five emerged after a group that included student affairs staff leaders and students Brooke Bierdz ’15 and Rhodes Stu-dent Government President Sallie Handley ’14 came together to brain-storm ways to improve the fi rst-year experience. The group realized that Rhodes offers a variety of programs and events, so they wanted to fi nd a way to bring them all together into a fi rst-year program.

Fob into Five encourages fi rst-year students to swipe their key fobs at a series of 45 social and educational events throughout the semester. For every fi ve events they “fob” into, their name gets thrown into a raffl e for prizes ranging from Rhodes apparel to a $300 travel voucher. But what is getting most of the students talking (and fobbing) is one of the bigger prizes: a ticket to see Justin Timberlake when he graces the FedEx Forum stage in November.

S’MORES is a similar program for sophomores, though it is geared more toward helping them learn about themselves and prepare for their futures beyond Rhodes. The initiative combines activities ranging from “Managing Personal Relationships” to career-oriented programming such as “Creating Your Individual Professional Brand.” S’MORES also offers a prize incentive for attending events. But for both programs, the biggest prize of all is developing a real connec-tion to Rhodes and everything the community has to offer.

In late August, a celebration took place in the renovated lobby of Frazier Jelke Science Center. Students, faculty, staff, and special guests arrived to honor the Plough Foundation for its $4.4 million grant to help fund renovations to Rhodes’ science facilities. The grant was the second-highest one ever given by the foundation.

Phase 1 is the renovation of Rhodes Tower. In May 2014, the Department of Physics will move to temporary quarters on Rhodes’ extended campus in the former Evergreen Presbyterian Church facilities. The renovation is expected to take 15 months and to be completed in time for the 2015 academic year. Once the work is done, the tower will be transformed. (For more on the Rhodes Tower renovation, see page 16.)

Plans for Phase 2 are still very much in the works, but will result in a new three-story science facility in the parking lot currently west of Briggs Student Center. Briggs itself will be repurposed as academic space. All the science buildings will be connected underground so that movement from one facility to another can be done without concerns about inclement weather. These renovations follow the Rhodes master plan, which features an academic campus core encircled by residence halls.

New Student Programs Hope to Enhance College ExperienceBy Julia Fawal ’14

Plough Foundation Awards $4.4 Million GrantBy Lynn Conlee


Relying on the convenience of technology, Rhodes Alumni Relations created two virtual chapters this summer that now unite alums all over the world.

“We are really trying to engage as many alumni as we can,” says Direc-tor of Alumni Relations Tracy Vezina Patterson ’84, P’17. “These virtual chapters are a way for them to stay connected to the community.”

The college’s first virtual group launched in June 2013 to support Rhodes’ LGBT alumni. EquaLynx, with a group page on Facebook and the Rhodes alumni website, is open to friends, supporters, and members of the Rhodes LGBT community. The chapter plans to start its own mentor program, and is hosting a career panel and cohosting (along with the college’s other LGBT organizations) a reception for alumni and students on Saturday, Oct. 26, during Homecoming/Reunion Week-

Virtual Chapters Link AlumniBy Julia Fawal ’14

end. To get involved or for more information, contact Patterson at [email protected].

The newest chapter, fittingly launched on July 4, 2013, is for Rhodes alumni in the military. Titled Red, Black and True, the chapter consists of a Facebook group and a spot on the alumni website. The chapter is open to former military members as well, giving active-duty personnel the chance to turn to retirees for advice as they transition back into civilian life.

To verify that your military service is reflected in your record, please review your information on Last-ing Lynx or contact the Alumni Relations Office at [email protected].

8 FA L L 2 0 1 3 • R H O D E S r h o d e s . e d u8 FA L L 2 0 1 3 • R H O D E S r h o d e s . e d u

8

Equestrian statue of King Frederick II of Prussia on the boulevard Unter den Linden in

Berlin; created between 1839 and 1851 by the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch.

SITUATING BELOVED TEXTS

KYLE

GRA

DY

A Trip to Berlin Impacts Search Faculty

r h o d e s . e d u FA L L 2 0 1 3 • R H O D E S 9r h o d e s . e d u FA L L 2 0 1 3 • R H O D E S 9

By Dr. Geoff Bakewell

SITUATING BELOVED TEXTS

reat ideas are not born in a vacuum; they

have contexts and consequences. United

in this conviction, 20 faculty members

from the Search for Values in Light of Western History

and Religion program visited Berlin in May. Our goal was

to enhance our teaching of the liberal arts that lie at the

heart of a Rhodes education. Founded in 1945 and focused

on works from the ancient Near East to the modern West,

Search has encouraged generations of students to investi-

gate “questions about the meaning and purpose of life.” Its

many thousands of alumni still benefi t from its academi-

cally rigorous training. And they cherish the ideas they en-

countered and the friendships they made in its classrooms.

A Trip to Berlin Impacts Search Faculty

Dr. Bakewell is director of the Search for Values in Light of Western History and Religion program at Rhodes College.

9


earch program faculty are volunteers drawn from many departments at the college

and bring a wealth of professional expertise to the program. I, for instance, am a classi-cist, trained in the languages and cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. But my colleagues include linguists, medievalists and Shake-speareans, Platonists and Kantians, American historians, experts on the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, political scientists, and his-torians of art and music—to cite but a few. Each year we gather for two weeks in May for the George Porter Douglass Seminar, which mirrors life in our classrooms. Put differently, we search. We spar intellectually; discuss our pedagogical past, present, and future; and recommit ourselves to the program and its goals.

This year, however, we chose to do something different. We wanted to situate our beloved texts more concretely. So for eight

Glazed brick decoration on the Ishtar Gate, Babylon

days we visited Berlin, taking in sites and museums, hearing lectures formal and infor-mal, and talking among ourselves about our vocations as teacher-scholars. We returned to Memphis reinvigorated, eager to share our new learning with colleagues and students alike. In what follows, I offer five brief exam-ples of how the Berlin trip will inform our teaching. Similar moments could be adduced almost ad infinitum by any of those present.

Gilgamesh

On our first full day in Germany’s cap-ital, we visited the Pergamon Museum, locat-ed on Museum Island in the middle of the River Spree. The building derives its name from the monumental altar and sculptures removed from the precinct of the Temple of Zeus in the ancient city of Pergamon (in modern Turkey). It houses other wonders as

Fran

cesca Tron

chin


well, including the reconstructed Ishtar Gate from Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. What struck me most deeply, however, was the exhibit titled “Uruk: 5000-Year-Old Megacity.” This collection of architectural remnants, sculpture, and small fi nds brought to vivid life the civili-zations that gave birth to Gilgamesh, our fi rst text in Humanities 101, the beginning semester of Search. We learned fi rsthand about the ca-nals and water driving the agricultural revolution in the Fertile Cres-cent. We grasped how timber, metal, and mud brick enabled Uruk’s famous walls and temples to rise.

Above all, we saw the centrality of writing, not just for record-ing agricultural surpluses and listing occupations, but for preserving the legend of the city’s greatest king. Over the years, scholars have used numerous clay tablets (most of them fragmentary, written in diverse cuneiform languages, and sometimes smaller than a deck of playing cards) to reconstruct the many versions of his tale circulating in the ancient Near East. To see before me some of these same tablets, several inscribed over three millennia ago, was to glimpse the only immortality Gilgamesh ever achieved, despite his arduous search.

Iliad

On another day we visited the Antiquities Collection housed in the Altes Museum, a glorious structure designed and built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the 1820s. Among its many holdings is a su-perb set of Greek vases, including the famous Berlin Foundry kylix (drinking cup) made in the early fi fth century BCE. Its interior shows a scene familiar from Book 18 of the Iliad. The god Hephaes-tus is presenting a new set of armor for Achilles to his mother, the nymph Thetis. Generations of Searchers have pored over Homer’s description of the famous shield,

From top:Athenian vaseCorinthian helmetClassical Greek bust of AthenaA marble kore, or statue of a maiden

KYLE GRADYFRAN

CESCA TRONCH

IN

Whether it was the church doors in Wittenberg or the Stasi

prison in the former East Germany, the visual reminders that

ideas have consequences were fascinating.

—Dr. Patrick Gray, Associate Professor | Religious Studies

KYLE GRADYKYLE GRADY


comparing its depictions of cities at war and at peace.

But the vase in Berlin does something truly extraordinary, for its exterior depicts the everyday goings-on at a real-life bronze foundry in ancient Athens. In gazing at the cup, I imagined the wealthy aristocrats, taught by memorizing Homer, who put it to their lips at the ribald drinking parties (“symposia”) common in the classical city. But even as they did so, these men were simultaneously (and involuntarily) raising their cup to other, less celebrated contempo-raries—the poorer craftsmen, often immi-grants and sometimes slaves, who made the arms that the wealthier donned.

Martin Luther

We also visited a different sort of arms depot, the ornate Zeughaus, now housing the German Historical Museum. Its numerous exhibits document the astonishing highs and ghastly lows of the country’s history. My favorite was the presentation of Martin Luther in his milieu. I fi rst focused on a copy of his famous, unsmiling portrait made by Cranach the Elder. But my understanding of the man soon deepened and changed. For one thing, hanging right beside him was an equally large portrait of his unsmiling wife, Katharina. Together the two paintings were a forceful reminder of Luther’s break with the medieval practice of clerical celibacy and of the increased space afforded women and family life.

Moreover, I learned that Luther did not nail his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg in 1517. The myth likely arose during the subsequent

Above: Fra Angelico’s The Last Judgement altarpieceBelow: The French Cathedral on the Gendarmenmarkt

KYLE GRADYKYLE GRADY

r h o d e s . e d u FA L L 2 0 1 3 • R H O D E S 13r h o d e s . e d u FA L L 2 0 1 3 • R H O D E S 13

Rhodes Russian studies professor Valeria Nollan walks through the Garden of Exile, part of the Jewish Museum.

Nollan was in a Displaced Persons (DP) Camp with her Russian parents in Hamburg after the war. Her father was a prisoner-

of-war in a POW camp, and her mother was a forced laborer brought to Germany against her will. More than 12 million

Russians and Ukrainians died in Germany in POW and DP camps, according to statistics of Slavic POW and DP camp refugees compiled at the University of Hawaii.

13

KYLE GRA

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Topography of Terror, an extensive indoor/outdoor museum erected on the site of the former Gestapo headquarters on Prince Albert Street. The photographs and docu-ments there trace in moving detail the rise of the Nazis and their persecution of Jews, homosexuals, communists, Poles, Russians, Romani, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the hand-icapped, among others. Particularly chilling was the copy of the sole surviving agenda from the Wannsee Conference, where mil-itary offi cers and Reich bureaucrats plotted the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” over lunch.

On another day, we toured the haunt-ing Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Its 2,711 stone monoliths, blank and evenly spaced in rows of varying height, were commissioned and paid for by the Ger-man government. They provide an eloquent, silent commentary on the nearby Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate. And on almost every city block, visitors trip over the “Stolper-steine,” small metal plaques set into the pavement to record the acts of inhumanity that transpired on those particular spots.

My colleagues and I came away stunned by Germa-ny’s darkest hours. But we were also inspired by the earnestness of its attempts to come to terms with the past (“Vergangenheits-bewältigung”). We talked about how far American soci-ety still has to go in acknowledging our

confl ict between the church’s defenders and its would-be reformers. The new movement was fueled by politics as much as religion. As the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire increased, monarchs and electors strove with one another for power. The Thirty Years War that devastated central Europe in the early 17th century was one of the chief results. Throughout all the strife, common people played an increasingly important role.

Luther was, of course, not the fi rst to criticize the Roman Catholic church, nor to violate its ban on translating scripture from Latin into the vernacular. But Gutenberg’s printing press and his invention of movable type made possible the widespread distri-bution of Luther’s works and increased the ferocity of the ensuing propaganda war. The exhibit also did full justice to the anti-Semitic strain that emerged in Luther’s later writings.

Haunted History and Modern Totalitarianism

No visitor to Berlin can escape the city’s somber past. Reminders of it are ev-erywhere. On one afternoon we went to the

Search faculty members discuss how the Berlin

humanities seminar will impact their teaching.

KYLE GRADY


First, the trip to Berlin reminds us, crucially and concretely, of the interconnectedness of the humanities and of the artifi cial nature of the boundaries we impose between historical eras, academic disciplines, and individual works. Second, it speaks to the importance of place. The texts we study arose, are per-petuated, and must be interpreted in diverse material contexts. Finally, it testifi es to a truth that all humanities students know: the search for values is ongoing and lasts a life-time.

country’s own historical misdeeds. And we refl ected that the Search program itself was born as a response to the horrors of World War II. Critical engagement with crucial Western texts remains one of the most im-portant means of preserving our humanity.

Finally, a visit to the Hohenschönhau-sen Memorial brought home for us the hor-rors of modern totalitarianism. Until 1989, the East German Stasi (Ministry for State Security) used the site to confi ne and inter-rogate political prisoners. Abandoned amid the chaos of reunifi cation, the buildings were eventually acquired by a group of for-mer inmates, many of whom now conduct tours there. While physical torture was not unknown, most of them remember far more vividly the intentional psychological duress that was a distillation of much of everyday life behind the Berlin Wall. In touring the grounds, we saw how versions (some would say perversions) of Marxist thought joined with Prussian effi ciency to create an environ-ment inimical to democratic individualism.

So what is the ultimate payoff to Search and to Rhodes of our expedition?

KYLE GRA

DYK

YLE GRADY

The Reichstag, meeting place of the German parliament, the modern Bundestag

Marble double herm from the fi rst half of the 3rd century CE, showing the philosophers Seneca (l) and Socrates (r), Pergamon Museum

KYLE GRADY

KYLE GRADY


16

JUST

IN F

OX B

URK

S


By JILL JOHNSON PIPER ’80, P’17

17

BY DESIGN FULL RENOVATION TO TRANSFORM RHODES TOWER

When students arrived for classes

on September 16, 1968, there

had risen in the east a brand new

star in the firmament over Southwestern’s

Collegiate Gothic campus: a customized

six-story tower dedicated to the study of

optical physics. Part of the brand-new


Frazier Jelke Science Center, the tower was a visual expression of the growing national

excitement over the sciences, which had been fueled in part by the space program and the race to the moon. Fast-forward some 40-plus years and a different type of excitement surrounds the physics facility.

Today, Rhodes Tower joins the rest of the Frazier

Jelke Science Center as the core of a planned renovation project that, upon conclusion, will usher in a new era of scientific endeavors, made possible by the most advanced laboratories and classrooms available on any campus. The renovations are being funded in part by a $4.4 million grant from the Plough Foundation, awarded in August, and will begin in May 2014. Securing ongoing funding for the project is a major part of Rhodes’ current capital campaign.

Built Like an Aircraft Carrier

At the 1968 opening convocation, President David Alexander dedicated the $2.5 million Frazier Jelke Science Center, which represented a three-fold expansion of space for the sciences

on campus. The three major fields—biology, physics, and chemistry—had all shared space in Kennedy Hall since the 1920s. “The Frazier Jelke Science Center is the realization of a

dream four decades old,” the Southwestern News (the predecessor of Rhodes magazine) proclaimed in an article titled “Science Center is High Wide and Handsome.”

Anchored by the existing Kennedy Hall on the west, the science complex included 89,250 square feet for biology (the portion below grade), physics (the six-story tower on the east), and mathematics (Ohlendorf), leaving Kennedy for the chemistry department. Much of the buzz was about the wonders in the new tower. A “coelostat” (pronounced seal-uh-stat) allowed students to observe sunspots and solar flares through a series of mirrors placed in a vertical shaft running from the rooftop of the tower into an interior room on the second floor of the physics building. Students constructed their own “spectrometer,” a tool for analyzing the light reflected from a planet or beamed by a star, saving the college some $30,000 by building it themselves. Some of the new departmental equipment was so sensitive, it could register vibrations from the elevator or from traffic on North Parkway. Most amazing of all were the twin observatories on the roof, which made Southwestern the largest star-gazing facility in the south. The observatory featured both a student telescope for experimenting and a research telescope for faculty use.

Hallam Boyd, president of the philanthropic Frazier Jelke Foundation, was instrumental in securing an initial gift of $500,000 to construct the new complex. In 1965, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission exceeded that amount with their largest single construction grant, $593,748. The Ford Foundation supplied another $1.9 million.

Stauffer was so excited about

the prospect of teaching

physics at Southwestern, he

took a cut in pay from his job

as engineer for Westinghouse

in Baltimore.


Perhaps because it was the only building on campus with two names, many students believed “Frazier Jelke” honored two scientists from the college’s Clarksville era. “Oh heavens no,” says Fritz Stauffer, retired associate professor of physics (1964-1990). “No scientist would have had that kind of money in the ’60s.”

Stauffer was so excited about the prospect of teaching physics at Southwestern, he took a cut in pay from his job as engineer for Westinghouse in Baltimore. He noted the new facilities were “twice as big” as those at Johns Hopkins University, where Stauffer studied and worked in the ’50s, having finished a master of science degree in physics

The observatory atop Rhodes Tower, circa 1975.


at Bucknell University in 1952. “Many people are in awe of physics,” he said. “But it’s not so much a matter of brains as it is a

matter of interest.”

Among the new bells and whistles in Rhodes Tower were a machine shop, an electronics shop, an optics shop, and a complete collection of photographic portraits of Nobel Prize winners for physics, among them Albert Einstein, Pierre and Marie Curie, Enrico

Fermi, and Donald Glaser, who developed the “bubble chamber” after observing the behavior of bubbles in a glass of beer.

Even the offi ce equipment was designed for physics. Lynda Gayle Teague Deacon ’69 worked for a year after graduation as the departmental secretary in the new building. “I had a brand new IBM Selectric with the fl ying ball. One of my jobs was to type faculty research papers, and the professor of astronomy would write these astronomy equations that could last for pages and pages. You had to start typing in the middle of the line and count back to the margin so the type was centered on the page.

There was a different fl ying ball for each task, with Greek symbols, physics symbols, and mathematics symbols, and still another with parentheses, stars, and triangles,” recalls Deacon. “Sometimes it

would take me a whole day to type up one page of equations and I would have no idea what they meant. Then the astronomer would come in the next day and say, ‘I’ve changed the equation. Now everything that was an X is a Y.’”

The twin observatory domes and the exterior design of the physics building differentiate it from its neighbors. Although refl ecting the stunning architecture of Palmer Hall and Kennedy Hall, Rhodes Tower lacks the many architectural angles and adornments that make Collegiate Gothic so arresting. But its box-like structure came about intentionally. Explains Stauffer, with optical physics (the behavior of light), ambient light from any direct source could skew the results of the exacting experiments the students did. Therefore, on the east side, windows admit light into only the stairwells, while on the west side, windows illuminate faculty offi ces or classrooms.

The building’s interior was equally quirky. Dr. Jack Taylor envisioned it that way. Taylor (d. 2012) graduated from Southwestern in 1944 and returned to join the faculty in 1956 at the invitation of his mentor, Dr. Peyton Nalle Rhodes. Taylor taught physics until his retirement in 1992. In his History of the Department of Physics, he wrote: “I would like to take this opportunity to state for the record

refl ecting the stunning architecture of Palmer Hall and Kennedy Hall, Rhodes Tower lacks the many architectural angles and adornments that make Collegiate

about intentionally. Explains Stauffer, with optical physics (the behavior of light), ambient light from any direct source could skew the results of the exacting experiments the students did. Therefore, on the east side, windows admit light into only the stairwells, while on the west side, windows illuminate faculty offi ces or classrooms.

“I would like to take this

opportunity to state for the

record that Peyton Rhodes,

who was then president, gave

the Physics staff an almost

free hand in the design of the

Physics Tower from a systems

point of view.” Dr. Jack Taylor ’44


that Peyton Rhodes,

who was then president, gave the

Physics staff an almost free hand in the design of the

Physics Tower from a systems point of view. Another way of putting this might be to say that the design of a physics building is too important to trust to an architect.” Having served at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C. during World War II, Taylor applied the concepts he learned there to the physics building. The original blueprints were reconfi gured, and the interior design pushed in the direction of less Collegiate Gothic, more aircraft carrier.

“It (the tower) has six stories, including one below ground level, and, in cross section, is similar to an aircraft

carrier,” Taylor wrote. “The toilets, stairwells, elevator, pipe shafts, vertical duct systems, etc., have all been located on one side in what would correspond to the island on an aircraft carrier . . . This width conforms generally with the other buildings on the campus, all of which are of Collegiate Gothic type.” Taylor had little interest in frills. “What have washrooms to do with science? Nothing,” Taylor told the Commercial Appeal. “So we put them out of the way.”

president, gave the Physics staff an almost

free hand in the design of the Physics Tower from a systems point of

view. Another way of putting this might be to say that the design of a physics building is too important to trust to an architect.” Having served at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C. during

Left: An early architectural model of the new science complex shows it located north of Briggs Student Center. Above: The actual structures, seen during construction, occupy the heart of the campus’ academic core.

WEB EXTRASRead Dr. Jack Taylor’s history of the early Department of Physics: rhodes.edu/physics/history.See an interview with Dr. Jack Taylor at rhodes.edu/magazine.


In 1981, the college dedicated the tower to former president Rhodes, one of the college’s two presidents who were physicists (the other being the college’s very first president, William May Stewart). Dr. Rhodes was brought to campus in 1926 to head up the physics department by then President Charles Diehl, himself a physics major in college, and went on to take Diehl’s place as college president in

1949. In 1984, the college was renamed in his honor.

Many physics-related college names pepper the campus landscape, but they are not the department’s only brush with fame. Even the occasional celebrity would drop by, recalled Stauffer, whose other passion besides physics was baseball. (Stauffer Field was named to pay honor to his coaching years, which lasted from 1968 to 1977.) “I was going up the stairs one day, when

down comes Jack Taylor with actor William Shatner. Shatner had come to check out the observatory for some project, but I don’t think anything ever came of it.”

Positrons & Pedagogy

Newton’s Law is still Newton’s Law, but the teaching of science has changed since the 1960s. At Rhodes, enormous changes have taken place, especially in the last

decade, and the physics department has responded accordingly.

Since the 1960s, the student population has doubled and the number of students studying some area of science has tripled. About 30 percent of Rhodes students indicate interest in the health professions and around 40 percent plan to major in the natural sciences. As part of Rhodes’ Foundations curriculum, all students must take a course focused on scientific approaches to the natural world, so improvements to the science facilities affect, literally, every single student.

The sciences have adapted in many other ways to the changes of the past 40 years. Through the addition of “topics” courses to the physics curriculum, for example, the department has created “broader appeal on campus for physics,” says Brent Hoffmeister, chair of the Department

“Colleges are expected to involve students in research, and it’s a

challenge to do that with a facility from 1968.” Brent Hoffmeister


of Physics. A student wouldn’t have found Physics of Music in the college catalog in 1969-70. This course involves the sounds and vibrations involved in the creation and performance of music, he explains.

“I want the students to understand how acoustic instruments make music,” says Hoffmeister. Every student is required to make an original musical instrument, write a technical paper explaining the physics behind it, and then play it as their final exam. “Some of the ‘music’ you wouldn’t necessarily recognize as musical,” he notes, but the instrument has to be playable.

Medical physics is also a newer course of study, reflecting the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of science teaching at Rhodes. A PET scan shows how organs and tissues are working through the use of positron emission tomography. Explains Hoffmeister, “I tell students the only widespread application I know of antimatter, which was once the stuff of science fiction, is in the hospital. The ‘P’ in PET scan stands for positron, which is the antimatter equivalent of the electron.”

“Colleges are expected to involve students in research, and it’s a challenge to do that with a facility from 1968,” says Hoffmeister. But as a testament to the dedication of both students and faculty, despite the obstacles, Rhodes remains at the forefront of student research. The Rhodes Chapter of the Society of Physics Students has earned recognition from the national society for some 15 consecutive years. The group builds a moon buggy and participates in NASA’s Great Moon Buggy Race each year and conducts demonstrations during Rites of Spring. Through the department’s

Memphysics class, taught by Dr. Shubho Banerjee, physics students go into the city’s schools to demonstrate physics and raise awareness of the discipline to young learners. And, you have not experienced Christmas until you are caroled by Rhodes physics students, who have reworded holiday classics with physics-themed lyrics delivered with heart-warming zest.

Overcrowding of current science center facilities has meant utilizing the wide hallways of Frazier Jelke for refrigerated storage.

JuStin FOx Bu

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1 Research Lab Suite2 Research Lab Suite3 Animal Suites4 Neuroscience Lab5 Ecology/Environmental

Studies and Sciences Lab6 Offi ce/Research Lab Suite7 Offi ce/Research Lab Suite8 Offi ce9 Introductory Lab10 Theoretical Labs (2)11 Faculty Offi ces (3)12 Academic Resources13 Advanced Lab14 Experimental Labs (2)15 Offi ces (3)16 Studio17 Intermediate Lab18 Faculty Lounge19 Seminar Room20 Offi ce21 Experimental Lab22 Optics & Electronics Lab23 Astronomy Lab 24 Observatory25 Observation Deck

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No More Cookbook Experiments

One of the more timeless features of October on campus is the annual pumpkin drop, conducted from the rooftop of Rhodes Tower. Students perform an experiment involving

a frozen pumpkin, tremendous height, and curious onlookers below. The point of the experiment is to measure any tribo

luminescence at the moment of impact. Tribo luminescence, Hoffmeister explains, is the same effect you get if you bite down on a wintergreen breath mint before a mirror in a darkened room—you may see a few blue green sparks.

In the pumpkin drop, theory suggests that if you freeze a pumpkin thoroughly with liquid nitrogen to about -200 degrees F, when the pumpkin shatters, it should

Proposed Rhodes Tower fl oorplans


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produce light, or tribo luminescence. So far, students at Rhodes have not recorded any detectable luminescence at the point of impact, although it is possible ambient light could make it hard to see. However, repeating the experiment despite a consistent negative result has become a campus tradition. The pumpkin drop exemplifi es the kind of creative, collaborative experiment that has come to characterize the student experience of the sciences at Rhodes.

“In the 1970s, the teaching model was ‘cookbook’ experiments,” explains John Olsen, associate dean of Academic Affairs and a biologist by specialty. Industry standard back then was for students to replicate results that had been

“We give the students amazing experiences,

but the laboratory spaces were not designed to

maximize the kinds of technical and scientifi c

equipment that are in the current labs.” John Olsen

demonstrated in the lab many times over, just like following a recipe. “We knew what the outcome was going to be,” Olsen says. “Now, with faculty guidance, students design their own experiments. Science is a much more open-ended discussion.”

Olsen adds that, “It also means that a lab that was designed to produce a certain

For information on naming opportunites, contact Jenna Goodloe Wade at 901-843-3852 or [email protected].


set of results is obsolete.” Students no longer work side-by-side in pairs reproducing predetermined data; rather, three or four students may share high-tech resources at a “pod” or collaborate on the construction of a moon buggy.

The interdisciplinary sciences have also led to the creation of four new majors since 2005: biochemistry and molecular biology, neuroscience, environmental sciences, and environmental studies. These disciplines reflect the more collaborative aspects of current and future education

in the sciences that eschew the old “lab partner” model for project-oriented and experimental lab research.

“We give the students amazing experiences, but the laboratory spaces were not designed to maximize the kinds of technical and scientific equipment that are in the current labs,” Olsen says. “We realized we had a mismatch between modern pedagogy and dated facilities.”

According to Olsen, Rhodes has already created a conceptual bridge to the “interdisciplinary hub” idea, with Frazier

Drawings of the optical equipment included in the newly constructed physics tower helped illustrate the extent to which the 1968 science center brought Rhodes into the then-modern era.


Through the department’s Memphysics class, taught by Dr.

Shubho Banerjee, physics students go into the city’s schools

to demonstrate physics and raise awareness of the discipline to

young learners.

Jelke at the center and Kennedy, Ohlendorf Hall, and Rhodes Tower as the spokes. “It’s already true that Frazier Jelke has become a hub in an intellectual sense, in a way that shows the interconnectedness of the sciences.”

The next step in the process is to renovate the science center buildings to mirror new pedagogy and carry the college into the still-young 21st century. Overall, the goal for science facility improvement is $42 million, which will fund first-class, state-of-the-art labs and classrooms for all disciplines connected to the sciences through planned renovations and, ultimately, construction of a new science building.

Some of these improvements may seem a long way off, but in Olsen’s view, they are light years closer than they have ever been: “To those of us who have been here a long time, the renovation was something we’d do in the distant future. I’m excited that this is going to come true within the next couple of years. We are going to make something happen in the sciences.”

Perhaps it is appropriate to conclude with the words of Jack Taylor: “It has been my experience since coming to Southwestern that if you have a worthy project, or idea, that there is very likely someone somewhere who will be willing to give you support.”

Members of the Plough Foundation joined President William E. Troutt and members of the Rhodes community to celebrate the foundation’s $4.4 million grant to help fund science facilities improvements. Sharing the special moment were L-R: Bob Wallace, Mike Carpenter, Johnny Moore ‘88, Diane Rudner P’07, and Dr. William E. Troutt.


28


RHODES TO ALASKABy Richard J. Alley

In late June 1963, a group of intrepid would-be scientists and faculty—soon to include Peyton Rhodes—set off from the Rhodes (Southwestern) College campus headed for the interior of Alaska. Through a contract with the Air Force, the two graduate and four undergraduate students and company would be living

in a make-shift camp at World War II-era Gulkana air fi eld to view a solar eclipse.

The group’s surviving members will be meeting at Rhodes this fall for the 50th anniversary of the solar eclipse trip. Back on campus, they will reminisce about the trip and speak to physics students to try and imbue them with the sense of adventure and possibilities they felt at the time.

“The students in the physics department have heard about the Alaska eclipse expedition and, for most of them, it’s total fantasy,” says Charles Robertson ’65, Rhodes trustee and founder of NanoDrop Technologies, which he sold to Thermo Fisher Scientifi c in 2007. “It’s back in something like the dark ages, and so I think the object is to partly bring it out of the dark ages and just kind of inspire students with what you can do if you really set your mind to do it.”

As one of the students on the excursion, Robertson remembers the project well.

“Solar eclipses have always been an opportunity to study the solar atmosphere, even today, in a way that’s not easily doable even from space,” Robertson says. “The object that is blocking out the bulk of the light of the sun is not in the atmosphere and, consequently, there is no scatter light associated with it. And that blocking thing is moving across the face of the sun, so you can sort of, if you’re very quick, pick your moment and how much of the sun you’re seeing.”

For four weeks, the team from Rhodes developed a real sense of camaraderie as they lived in tents, hiked the Copper River, and fought off mosquitoes. “They were big and very aggressive,” Robertson remembers. To survive on their per diem, the college students found Swanson TV dinners for a dollar a piece in a nearby supermarket and ate them four times a day.

The anniversary celebration takes place on Oct. 24 , with a public reception from 3:30 to 4 p.m. in Rhodes Tower 226 and a panel discussion featuring members of the expedition at 4 p.m. in Frazier Jelke-B. 29

For information contact Jenna Goodloe Wade at 901-843-3852 or [email protected].


The student spotlight feature for this issue shines not on an individual student but rather

on the entire Class of 2017. As in recent years, the college attracted a diverse lineup of fi rst-years, who have a half-semester behind them by now. Over time, their accomplishments will no doubt appear on these pages. Until then, we will let the numbers and names do the talking.

A total of 545 fi rst-year stu-dents enrolled this fall. Multicul-tural students make up 22 percen of the class. Fifty-one percent of the class attended public high schools, while 49% attended private schools.

Half of our new students graduated in the top 10% of their class. Three-fourths had grade point averages of 3.5 or above.

As always, we continued our efforts to recruit a class with wide geographic diversity. Strong states and cities for the Class of 2017 included Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, with growing interest noted in the northeast and middle Atlantic states, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, and parts of California. Additionally, we gained 35 international students.

“Once again, Rhodes has attracted a stellar incoming class for

the fall,” says J. Carey Thompson, vice president for enrollment and communications and dean of admission. “While many liberal arts colleges have experienced declines in enrollment and quality, Rhodes has become increasingly selective while enrolling somewhat larger classes than expected and attracting students from more distant locales. The quality of the student coming to Rhodes continues to be impressive.”

— Lynn Conlee

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

The Class of 2017

The Class of 2017 assembles for Opening Convocation

JUSTIN FOX BU

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Connor AbdolhosseinzadehIman AbdulkadirClaire AdamsOzakh AhmedGrace AkangbeMaddie AlagiaSam AllenKerry AndersonLily Kate AnthonyVirginia AriailZainab AtiqAlex AtkinsFord AurEmily AyersAsad AyubSamuel BaderdeenErin BaileyAthena BakerJames BakerJay BakerAllie BaldassaroPeter BaricevSarah BarnesEmma BarrJake BarrettDJ BarrowTrey BatesBailey BattleNick BeachyKristina BeallJoel BeckErica BeckerCaroline BellWilliam BensonBen BentleyReid BeschErin BestLiam BittingAubrey BlackstockDylan BlissAnnie BoberJoseph BoltucLaura BondsCaroline BorronPrianka BoseAlexa BosleyDane BourgeoisDylan BoutwellBrandon BoxLucy BradleyBianca Branch

Weston BreayJeana BricknerKennedy BrislinMackensie BrislinRobert BrooksMason BrownLisle BrunsMadalyn BryantAndrew BuckmeierWill BudnerJim BuggDrew BurfordOlivia BurtonMackenzie BusbyMonica BushongCaroline ButlerKatie ButlerMurf ButlerOlivia ButlerRyan CalkinsNalan CallonasErica CarcelenHelen CarmodyClaire CarrZa’na CarterJoey CartonHenry CastnerHunter CatesKatiebeth ChapmanMalcolm CharlesXuyan ChenYuan ChenChristina ChoiLizzie ChoyMason ChurchSharadyn CiotaMichael ClarkPatrick ClarkSam ClarkAnna Grace ClaunchSaira ClaytonRachel CofieldMicah CohenRebecca ColeTori ConklinLindsey ConleyBecca CookRobin CoppleLiam CoyleJefferson CrabtreeEmily Crenshaw

Amanda CristHogan CrosbyLexie CrossElise CrosswhiteMary CrowellJamie CrowleySamhitha CurpadKira CurryMadeline DavisJustin Davis-MorganMichael DecindisEric DeckerAmanda DellaGrottaDaulton DePatisBrendan DePoyGraham DerricksonDane DeSpainLaura DewPetra DhinakaranChristina DiFeliceAshley DillRebecca DillErika DillmanAngela DirghangiCarolyn DishuckJohn DoddTyler DouglasMcKenzie DrakeJessica EalyAndrew EarleGrant EbbesmeyerSheldon EbronMichael EdwardsLilly ElkinMatt EllisLizzy EppsGracie ErwinMarissa EvansSara EwelRejina FahhoumMonica FalconChristine FarhaMackenzie FarringtonVon FeltonSarah FergusonSarena FernandezSamie FetzerArnon FischerMeaghan FogartyEmily FougereVeronica Francis

Justice FranklinJill FredenburgOlivia GackaLaurel GalatyWyatt GaleNatalie GalindoTyler GeeJustin GeezaNico GentileBucky GersonLindsay GessRachel GlazerNicolette GliddenKatie GoebelMikey GonzalezMeredith GrafRuthilah GraffAika GrahamAlex GravesAlexandra GreenwayEliza GriffeyCatherine GrimesElise GrisoniBen GrossJoseph GrossAlaina GrundyKevin GuevaraCassidy GuidaJohn GulbinErica HadleyJack HagedornMcCall HaglerNick HallmarkJulia HamiltonTucker HanemannEmily HansonGeorgia HarrisRachel HarrisBenjamin HarrisonTyler HarveyRebecca HaskinsCorena HasselleBen HaugenRob HawkesJazzy HawkinsGrant HechingerJay HedgesAlli HeinemeyerJake HeltHannah HendersonKorey Henkle


Austin HenyonRobert HerefordHannah HernandezLaura HernandezAlana HeyranaJacob HillCarolyn HilleySam HilleyStuart HinesErin HiseySophie HoffmanSam HolderEmma HoltzmanMichael HouleAlex HowellCarissa HowieAndrew HughesOlivia HughesChristine HumeRyan HuntAlaina HurleyAngie HurlowKayleigh HynesJack IngallsNikki IsaacsonMaddie IzardMG JadickJennie JaggersEilidh JennessAugie JohnIan JohnKyle JohnsAllie JohnsonLogan JohnsonSeth JohnstonEthan JonesMatthew JonesSam JordanAlex JunqueraGrady KableZach KauffmanMax KeetonKatie KellerNolan KellyBecky KempfRoz KennyBirchAnum KhanImran KhanSehrish KhanNatey KinzounzaMatt Koch

Rosie KopmanBailey KramerDavid KrollPiyush KumarJocelyn LabombardeJosh LaddAlonzo LagrangeAdrienne LambBrooks LambSara LaMonicaZac LangeDan LanzaAlex LascoPatrick LeaveyCharlie LeBlancHarrison LeesonAnnie LeonardiMatt LevyTrevor LewEdie LewisSandra LiEmily LichtenbergerYu LinTierney LinvilleForrest LloydBen LoPrimoSiena LoprinziJackson LourieAndrew LowrieNicholas LowrimoreElise LowryAlex LunyongAaron LynchParker LyonsMaren MabanteEmma MaccurdyLuke MalanchukKendall MaloneMiriam MaloneyCooper ManleyPeyton MarshallAlec MarshmanDavid MarsicanoTanner MartinMatt MarvickMary Elizabeth MasseyAmelia MathisKatie MatneyXavier MayJoey MayoRitika Mazumder

Michael McCanlessJamie McCoyBrad McCulloughJackson McDanielMatthew McDonaldMalerie McDowellPrice McGinnisDaniel McGowanMaddie McGradyPalmer McGrawBryce McPhersonKate McPhersonMary Kate MeachamMaddie MechemRebecca MengAngel MercadoJoel MichelsonPryce MichenerColton MillerMaris MillsPrasaad MilnerJack MinahanClare MiskoNicole Mohey-el-dienConor MonksZach MonroeAlexis MooreJohn MooreTaylor MorrisJack MorrisonMaKenzie MosbySavannah MuirIsabelle MulderColleen MullaneyEmily NealeIsabelle NelsonBrynna NewkirkTucker NicholsMeredith NoahAbbie NorrisClaire NortonBennett NotestineMiranda NowellIsabella NugentMatthew NungesserGinika NwokoTrey O’BannonShannon O’BrienRyan OliveEmma OliverDaniel Olivier

Jazmin Otaduy-RamirezAlex OverstreetJoseph OzmentShannon PaaymansJennifer ParkCarolyn ParksMargo ParksMary PassmoreAlisha PatelJeesha PatelMira PatelShaun PatelJosh PattersonSwathi PavuluriAnna PearsonBrandon PeltsRahul PeravaliRegan PerrodinCaylon PettisCaitlin PettmanJohn PilonCalli PinckneyKenneth PiperSam PittmanLucy PittsNathaniel PlemonsAlec PollardSam PolzinJaylen PowellNathan PowellShreve PrattRosalia PreissJimi QuattrocchiNicole QuinonesJordan QuintinDonny RamierSami RamseySaniya RashidAnnie RebbeBobby RectorKendall ReedSpencer RegelsonRashad ReismanMatt RenzoAlexus RiasKyle RichterTripp RiddleEmily RifeLucy RightKaeli RivesAnna Rodell


Kassie RoeserJess RogowiecAmanda RubinMaddie RussoCaroline RyanSarah SabinMaiar SalamehKatelyn SanchezMary SandersonLee SandsDavid SarkanAdrian ScaifeConnor ScanlonErica SchellerJulia SchicianoPaul SchifaniCharles SchneiderHenry SchottMadison SearsSandro SecinoBilly SeibelSamantha ServidioKristen ShacklefordAmit ShahMorgan ShawElizabeth ShearonClare ShelburneCaleigh ShepardMimi ShepleyMarni ShepsRoc SherrellHarris ShortKayla ShortenPete ShowalterMyrna SidarousAustin SiegfriedLee SilberbergAnna SingletaryKK SlattenJoanna SmilariArden SmithBlaire SmithHenry SmithMichelle SmithNathan SmithSara SmithSophie SmithErica SmytheBreanna SommersSylvie SontheimerDrake St. John

Matthew SterbaHannah StevensLuke StevensHarper StilesJulian StinsonWill StrongJimmie StuckeyBrennan SullivanAlex SutphinCaroline SuttonCayce SweatKelsey SweeneyLauren SylwesterOmid TaghaviCaroline Taufi cAlex TaylorJared TaylorEmily TeagueErika TeahanMary Madison TeslerAnnie ThomasNoah ThompsonCole ThorntonBrittney ThreattKayla TinnonConner TiptonTyler TisdaleHaider TiwanaCJ TooheyAmanda ToumayanMaddie TowneEvan TuckerMeredith TuftonMary Beth TurnerAlbert VacheronNathalie VacheronEmily ValentinoKirkwood VangeliSarahanne VaughanAnna VolkovKatie von Salza BrownSarah WachterMeaghan WaffAnna WahlgrenDJ WalkerJohn WancowiczJolie-Grace WarehamHenry WeinreichJ.J. WeirCharlie WelshPatrick West

Grace WhelanMorgan WilkinsAdrian WilliamsAndrew Williams Bakari WilliamsBrandon WilliamsCullen WilliamsMichael WilliamsonEthan WillifordDanielle WilsonKayla WilsonMac WilsonMcKenna WilsonMason WindattClaira WingetIsabel WittmanEvan WladisAnania Woldetensaye

Jonathan WooMaria WoodrowGinger WoodsHailey WoodsCorbin WynnJean XiongHong XuHaobo YangSam YarboroughAndrew YoungRobert YoungerMaria YousufNancun YuAnnie YungmeyerYantao ZhangLeo ZhouJessica Zweifel

JUSTIN

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Our Faculty Focus for this issue falls on the new members joining us this year. As usual, Rhodes

attracts a diverse and talented group of academicians, and we are happy to welcome them to the campus.

Treena Basu joins the Depart-ment of Mathematics and Computer Science as assistant professor. Basu has a PhD in applied and computational mathematics from the University of South Carolina. Most recently, she was a visiting assistant professor at Ithaca College, where she taught statistics and calculus courses.

Sarah Boyle will continue her work in the Department of Biology in a tenure-track position as assistant professor. Boyle has a PhD in biology from Arizona State University. For

the last four years, she has been a visiting assistant professor at Rhodes teaching animal behavior, plants and people, and geographic information systems courses.

Brandy Brown joins the Depart-ment of Modern Languages and Liter-atures as instructor of French. Brown expects to receive a PhD in French and Francophone studies from The Penn-sylvania State University in the spring.

Chien-Kai Chen joins the De-partment of International Studies as assistant professor. Chen has a PhD in political science from Boston University. Most recently, he taught undergraduate courses for Boston University’s Department of Political Science and Department of Interna-tional Relations.

Courtney Collins ’05 joins the De-partment of Economics as assistant professor. A Rhodes alumna, Collins has a PhD in economics from Texas A&M University. Most recently, she was an assistant professor at Mercer University, where she taught courses in macro and microeconomics and introductory econometrics.

Jonathan Cook joins the Depart-ment of Psychology as assistant pro-fessor. Cook is expected to receive a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Missouri in the spring. Cook most recently worked at the Coalition Against Rape and Domestic Violence in Fulton, MO.

Sujan Dan joins the Department of Commerce and Business as assis-tant professor. Dan has a PhD in mar-

FACULTY FOCUS

New Faculty

Jim kiiH

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L-R. bottom: Julia Hanebrink, Chien-kai Chen, Brandy Brown, Catherine Welsh, Courtney Collins ’05, and Erin kaplan. middle: Renée Johnson, Ryan mattson, mary Doherty, Elizabeth Young, Erin Dolgoy, Leah mcGray, and Treena Basu. Top: Andrew Gardner, Geoffrey maddox, Andrew Zagorchev, Sujan Dan, Peter Hossler, and Jonathan Cook.


keting from Texas A&M University. Most recently, he was an assistant pro-fessor of marketing at the University of Tennessee, where he taught courses in global marketing strategy and product and service management.

Mary Doherty joins the Depart-ment of Biology as assistant professor in environmental biology with a spe-cialty in microbial ecology. Doherty has a PhD in organismic and evolu-tionary biology from the University of Massachusetts. Most recently, she held a postdoctoral position at the Univer-sity of Maryland Center for Environ-mental Sciences.

Erin Dolgoy joins the Depart ment of Political Science as the Thomas W. Smith Foundation Post-doctoral Fellow. Dolgoy has a PhD in political science from Michigan State University.

Andrew Gardner joins the De-partment of Biology as a postdoctoral fellow. Gardner has a PhD in botany from the University of Wisconsin- Madison.

Julia Hanebrink joins the Depart-ment of Anthropology and Sociology as assistant professor. Hanebrink expects to receive a PhD in anthropol-ogy with a concentration in disasters, displacement, and human rights from the University of Tennessee this year. Hanebrink also is codirector of the National Institutes of Health, Minority Health International Research Train-ing Program at Christian Brothers University.

Peter Hossler joins the urban studies program as assistant professor. Hossler has a PhD in geography from the University of Georgia. Most re-cently, he was a research associate in urban political economy in the School of Geographical & Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow.

Renée Johnson joins the Depart-ment of Political Science as assistant professor in political economy. Johnson has a PhD in political economy/public policy, American government, and methodology from SUNY at Stony Brook. Most recently, she was assistant professor of political science at Kent State University, where she taught graduate and undergraduate courses in public policy and political economy.

Erin Kaplan joins the Department of Economics as assistant professor. Kaplan has a PhD in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Most recently, she was visiting lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh.

Geoffrey Maddox joins the Depart-ment of Psychology as assistant profes-sor. Maddox expects to receive a PhD in cognitive psychology (aging and de-velopment) this year from Washington University in St. Louis, MO.

Ryan Mattson joins the Depart-ment of Economics as assistant profes-sor. Mattson has a PhD in economics from the University of Kansas. Most recently, he was a research associate at the Center for Financial Stability in New York, NY.

Leah McGray joins the Department of Music as assistant professor. McGray expects to receive a PhD in conduct-ing from Northwestern University this year. In 2012, McGray received the So-cial Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship. She is cofounder and conductor of Windago, a Toronto-based wind and choral ensemble.

Catherine Welsh joins the Depart-ment of Mathematics and Computer Science as assistant professor in bio-informatics. Welsh expects to receive a PhD in computer science from the University of North Carolina this fall. Most recently, Welsh taught under-graduate computer science and assisted in a graduate-level data mining course for the University of North Carolina.

Elizabeth Young joins the Depart-ment of Physics as assistant professor. Young expects to receive a PhD in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University this year. Young received a graduate fellowship in aerospace engineering from the Na-tional Science Foundation.

Andrey Zagorchev joins the Depart-ment of Commerce and Business as assistant professor. Zagorchev has a PhD in finance from Lehigh Universi-ty. Most recently, he taught principles of managerial finance, financial man-agement, and principles of investing and personal financial planning cours-es at Concord University.

We advance science, relieve su� ering and question the deepest mysteries of the human condition.

Dr. Randall R. Rhea ’77Alumnus. Trustee. Physician. Patient Advocate.

Committed to his Patients.More than 30 years of experience and recipient of 2006 Volunteer Physician of the Year for the state of Virginia by the Virginia Academy of Family Physicians

Committed to his Community.Sixth term as president of the Bradley Free Clinic. Founding member and vice-chair of Project Access of the Roanoke, a program where physicians agree to see a limited number of indigent patients at no charge. Recipient of the 2009 Unsung Hero Award—Physician, awarded by the Virginia Health Care Foundation. Named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Club.

Committed to his Alma Mater.Campaign gi� to support the sciences and scholarships for students. Second term on the Board of Trustees. Longtime member of the Charles E. Diehl Society and Bellingrath Society.

When we combine the accomplishments of alumni with the dreams and ambitions of our current students we can impact the world. Please join us in our e� orts.

2000 North ParkwayMemphis, TN 38112-1690

www.rhodes.edu

NONPROFIT ORGUS POSTAGE

PAIDSENATOBIA MSPERMIT NO. 109

Now and then: The Rhodes College Pep Band at Homecoming/Reunion Weekend 2012 (top) and as red-coated troubadors in 1972 (bottom). Alum Ed Uthman ’74 photographed the group

during his tenure at then Southwestern.

JUSTIN

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rhodes magazine fall 2013

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