Rhodes magazine

THE MAGAZINE OF RHODES COLLEGE

A LEGACY OF SCIENCE

SUMMER 2015

AN OLD-FASHIONED LOVE STORY

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l THE RHODES VISION Rhodes College aspires to graduate students with a life-long passion for learning, a compassion for others, and the ability to translate academic study and personal concern into effective leadership and action in their communities and the world.

We will achieve our aspiration through four strategic imperatives: Student Access To attract and retain a talented, diverse student body and engage these students in a challenging, inclusive, and culturally broadening college experience.

Student Learning To ensure our faculty and staff have the talent, the time, and the resources to inspire and involve our students in meaningful study, research, and service.

Student Engagement To enhance student opportunities for learning in Memphis.

Adopted by the Rhodes Board of Trustees January 17, 2003

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Student Inspiration To provide a residential place of learning that inspires integrity and high achievement through its beauty, its emphasis on values, its Presbyterian history, and its heritage as a leader in the liberal arts and sciences.

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE S U M M E R

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24 Inside the Withers Collection Museum & Gallery (from left) Dominique DeFreece ’18, Rosalind Withers, Tiegst Ameha ’16, and Ernest Sawyer—museum director, son of Rosiland Withers, and grandson of Ernest Withers.

DEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

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E-Portfolios Give Students a Place to Reflect

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27 29 56

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Editor’s Note Under the Oaks Keep up with events on campus from end-of-year awards to updates on Rhodes in the city.

4 Arts Roundup 6 Faculty Focus LynxStrong 9 Sports Roundup 10 Student Spotlight 11 Rhodes in the City 12 Rhodes & Beyond 13 Campus Footprint

A Lasting Image: Rhodes Students Preserving the Work of Memphis Photographer Ernest Withers

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Legacy of Science: An OldFashioned Love Story

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Alumni Perspective Class Notes, In Memoriam Ask Rhodes

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EDITOR’S NOTE

THE MAGAZINE OF RHODES COLLEGE

SUMMER 2015

“Wow!”

A LEGACY OF SCIENCE

AN OLD-FASHIONED LOVE STORY

On the Cover: Artifacts from Charles and Lola Robertson reflect lives devoted to science.

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.

Summer 2015— Volume 22, Number 2 EDITOR

Lynn Conlee GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Larry Ahokas Charlie Kenny Bob Shatzer

PRODUCTION EDITORS

Jana Files ’78 Justin McGregor Ken Woodmansee COPY EDITOR

Anna Acerra CONTRIBUTORS

Arielle Carpenter ’15 Dr. Felix Kronenberg Chris McCoy ’93 Caroline Ponseti ’15 CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

EDITOR EMERITUS

Martha Shepard ’66

INFORMATION 901-843-3000 ALUMNI OFFICE

1 (800) 264-LYNX

ADMISSION OFFICE 1 (800) 844-LYNX

rhodes.edu/TakeNote

W. Mellon Foundation Faculty Innovation Fellowship Program, which leads to our next new thing: a podcast.

Take Note will look in-depth at topics current to the Rhodes community by conversing with the people in the know.

Our first podcast features Dr. Elizabeth Thomas, executive director of the Memphis Center and Plough professor of urban studies/director of urban studies.

(With that range of responsibilities, she might be appearing frequently!) Joining her is Wendy Trenthem ’93, information services librarian. Both are members of the steering committee that oversees distribution of the The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant. Give Take Note a listen at rhodes.edu/TakeNote.

Some things will never change. From retirements to cruises to career shifts to babies to weddings, it’s all covered in Alumni News. Keep up with your former classmates. Let us know what you’re doing.

Want to be a class reporter? Contact alumni@rhodes.edu.

We hope you enjoy the revamped magazine. Our fall issue takes a look at Rhodes’ 90-year history in Memphis—a little walk down memory lane for everyone.

See you then.

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Justin Fox Burks Jim Kiihnl Corey Nolen Allison Rodgers

We hope that exclamation tumbles from your lips as you flip through the pages of this summer issue of Rhodes magazine. We’ve made some changes! It is our wish that they will serve to improve your reading experience. Up front, we have a new section called Under the Oaks. In it you will find short articles designed to keep you abreast of the many goings on here on campus. At the end, we have a new column called Ask Rhodes. We encourage you to submit questions about the history of the college and how it got to be the way it is.

The quirkier, the better.

Our features for this issue reflect the cornerstones of what Rhodes is all about— fantastic alumni, engaged faculty and students, and community partners. What could be more entertaining than a great, old-fashioned love story? We’ve got that!

Robertson Hall, our new science facility currently under construction, has a history already, as you will learn in “Legacy of Science: A Rhodes Love Story” on page 14. “E-Portfolios Give Students a Place to Reflect” and “A Lasting Image: Rhodes Students Preserving the Work of Memphis Photographer Ernest Withers” each tell about projects that enable our students and faculty to interact with the world writ large to bring fuller meaning to their classrooms.

Both projects are funded by The Andrew

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C A M P U S

N E W S

Commencement Awards

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nnual awards were presented at the 166th Commencement Exercises of Rhodes College on May 16 on campus.

Rhodes graduate Philip Luke Spinolo was awarded the Peyton Nalle Rhodes Phi Beta Kappa Prize, the college’s highest academic honor, and the Clarence Day Foundation and Trustees J. Richard Buchignani, William G. Griesbeck, and C. Thomas Whitman received the Rhodes College Distinguished Service Medal.

Rhodes graduates Katelyn Brooke Dagen and Alex Patrick Galloway, and Rev. Dorothy Sanders Wells ’82, priest-in-charge at St.

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Luke Spinolo and Dr. Teresa Beckham Gramm

George’s Episcopal Church in Germantown, TN, received the 2015 Algernon Sydney Sullivan Awards.

The awards are presented

annually to two graduating seniors (one male and one female) and one non-student who have given selflessly to others and the college.

Sen. Robert P. “Bob” Corker (R-Tenn.) received an Honorary Doctor of Humanities.

The Rhodes Music Department, led by

Dr. William Skoog, produced 50 concerts this past academic year, most free to the public. A total audience of more than 11,500 enjoyed a wide variety of music. rhodes.edu/music

Postgraduate Awards

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ach year, Rhodes students compete for highly competitive, nationally prestigious postgraduate honors to offset the cost of an advanced degree or to teach, study, or research abroad after graduation. This year, four recipients were selected: Arielle Carpenter ’15, Fulbright U.S. Student Award/English teaching assistantship to Germany; Bailey Heldmar ’15, Fulbright U.S. Student Award/English teaching assistantship to Macedonia; Micah Leonard ’15, Rotary Global Education Grant for graduate study abroad; and Dianne Loftis ’15, Watson Fellowship for travel and study abroad.

Clockwise from top left: Arielle Carpenter, Dianne Loftis, Micah Leonard, and Bailey Heldmar

Rhodes hosted the 10th Annual

Memphis Children’s Theatre Festival in May.

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More than 2,200 people attended events and exhibitions this past year, including four professional exhibitions and three student exhibitions, lectures, thematic guided tours, poetry readings, and a knitting circle.

Gallery Hours: September-May; Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. (closed Sundays & Mondays) rhodes.edu/art

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Clough-Hanson Gallery

For more than 30 years, the McCoy Theatre has been the production arm of the Department of Theatre. This year’s performances included Thebes: Contending with Gods and Contemplating Sphinxes. rhodes.edu/theatre

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F A C U L T Y

F O C U S

Clarence Day Awards

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r. Loretta Jackson-Hayes and Dr. Chris Seaton received Rhodes’ highest faculty honors for outstanding teaching and research.

Jackson-Hayes, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, received the Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Teaching.

Seaton, an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and

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Computer Science, received the Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Research and/or Creative Activity.

The awards, first given in 1981, were established by businessman and Rhodes alumnus Clarence Day and are provided by the Day Foundation.

Since joining Rhodes in 2003, Jackson-Hayes has become known across campus as a demanding, caring, energetic, inspiring,

and—most importantly— transformative teacher.

One student commented that “Dr. Jackson-Hayes is a phenomenal teacher.

But what sets her apart is natural ability to inspire, an enthusiasm to soak up knowledge, a desire to ask questions and think critically.”

In addition, alumni have expressed the impact Jackson-Hayes has had on their lives. “Once an unconfident student, I am now a leader that guides students of my own,” wrote one graduate of the college who has been accepted into medical school. “She has taught me a new way of learning, a new way of thinking, and a new way of living . . . Dr. JacksonHayes has put me on a path for success in life and has taught me how to be an effective leader that will change the world.”

The long-time subject of Seaton’s research has

all lynx are strong Emily Clark ’15 Lacrosse team member Emily Clark features photos of her peers looking fierce and competitive in an Instagram project done for her Feminist Theory class. instagram.com/alllynxarestrong

been the study of orbifolds that can be formed, for example, by starting with an entirely smooth surface and folding that surface in on itself. An example is a cone that can be made by folding a smooth sheet of paper in on itself. The orbifolds Seaton studies include seven dimensional surfaces in 10 dimensional space.

Seaton, who joined the Rhodes faculty in 2004, has presented his work nationally and internationally, including seminars in Brazil, Korea, Denmark, and China, and he has served as a referee for international journals. Six of his manuscripts have featured undergraduate coauthors. One of his colleagues wrote, “The magnificent work that Chris did mentoring is a shining example of what Rhodes offers to its students when it is at its best.”

Collaborative Effort

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group of Rhodes students, alumni, faculty, and former faculty worked together on the third edition of the book Neighborly Adversaries: Readings in United StatesLatin American Relations, co-edited by Associate Professor of History Michael J. LaRosa and former Rhodes faculty member Dr. Frank O. Mora, now professor of international relations and politics at Florida International University.

The updated edition released in March; the first edition published in 1999.

Matthew LaFevor ’98 authored an original essay for the book that focuses on

the environment. LaFevor completed a PhD in geography at University of Texas in May 2014.

His father, Bill LaFevor, of Nashville, worked as photo editor and advisor as the book project unfolded; he also shot the cover photograph while in Mexico with his son David LaFevor ’03. Lance Ingwersen ’03 and LaRosa co-authored an essay for this book, “Waiting on Reform: A Brief History of United States-Latin American Immigration.”

Ingwersen is

completing a PhD in history at Vanderbilt University, focusing on the history of Mexico.

Christopher Hanewald ’14 worked during his senior year as a paid researcher under the college’s student research assistant program, Timothy Garton ’14 assisted with research and read final page proofs, Abigail Hicks ’16 provided technical assistance, and Jeffrey A. Knowles ’06 compiled the book’s index.

“Published research rarely occurs in isolation,” says LaRosa, “and this third edition would never have published without the talent and generosity of the Rhodes alumni network.”

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So Long, Farewell

By Lynn Conlee

The close of many academic years brings about the departure of longtime faculty. At the end of fall semester 2014, we said goodbye to Dr. John Planchon, associate professor of commerce and business.

Spring semester 2015, we bid farewell to Dr. David Jeter and Dr. Bette Ackerman. Rhodes magazine caught up with them for some words of wisdom before they got away.

David Jeter 42

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Position

Associate Professor of Psychology

“I was walking to my first faculty meeting and saw this man on campus and I asked him, ‘Which way is Clow Hall?’ and he quickly told me it was pronounced ‘Cluff.’ Of course, I didn’t know at the time that it was Dr. Peyton Nalle Rhodes.”

A Rhodes Memory

“I love the staff. You know, there isn’t really anyone who won’t go out of the way to do something for you and they’ll do such a good job. Pretty fabulous.”

“I haven’t been worrying a lot about what comes next. There are still lots of things I am interested in, lots of things I can do.”

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Years at Rhodes

Professor of Chemistry

“The college has enabled me to do things I never would have dreamed I’d be doing in addition to teaching. I’ve been involved in admission and financial aid.

Over the years, there have just been all different kinds of talents that the college has nurtured.”

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Bette Ackerman

“Chemistry has been very good to me.”

Favorite Thing about Rhodes

Plans for the Future

Best Line from Interview

“I really loved everything about Rhodes, to tell you the truth. I was really grateful to have some opportunities.

I was chair, I was associate academic dean for a very brief time, and I was dean of students. Not many people get those opportunities.”

“I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s two years ago. The best thing for me is to spend more and more time exercising. It’s the only thing that protects your brain.

The medicine stops the tremors, but only exercise protects your brain. And the neuro-research on that is really strong. I’ve been making more and more time to do tai chi.”

“Kids who have heart turn out to be our best students.”

SPORTS Rhodes athletics boasted a huge year, winning the coveted Southern Athletic Association (SAA) Presidents Trophy by a narrow 845-830 margin over Centre. The Lynx were also ranked No. 1 in the number of student-athletes earning All-SAA Honor Roll.

How did we do it?

EIGHT SAA CONFERENCE TITLES Baseball Women’s Lacrosse Women’s Golf Women’s Track and field Women’s Basketball Men’s Basketball Field Hockey Women’s Swimming and Diving

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S T U D E N T

S P O T L I G H T

2015 Student Hall of Fame

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ix members of the graduating class of 2015 were selected to the Hall of Fame for their significant impact on the college.

Emily Clark, a native of Hudson, OH, was an English major with a concentration in creative writing. She worked as a writer in the college’s Office of Communications and was managing editor of The Bridge Bridge, a student-

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run newspaper addressing homelessness, and a contributor to the website Her Campus. She helped transition women’s lacrosse from a club sport to a viable varsity sport; this year’s team won the conference championship and made a run in the Division III NCAA tournament.

Chigozie Emelue was Kinney Coordinator for special services and a member of the Bonner program. He now calls Memphis home but originally

hails from Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria. A psychology major, he has been very active on campus as an advocate for disability services, working with Special Olympics and the Lynx Club and volunteering for the Exceptional Foundation of Tennessee.

Leah Ford was named Planned Parenthood’s National Young Volunteer of the Year in 2015, and her activism for reproductive justice has been a hallmark of her years at Rhodes. An anthropology/sociology major from Bartlett, TN, she was a member of the LGBT Working Group

Focusing on the human experience of the Memphis and Mid-South region, the Memphis Center provides support and resources for interdisciplinary scholarly activity and student research. rhodes.edu/memphiscenter

the Rhodes Institute for Regional Studies, the Rhodes-Brooks Fellowship, and the Ruka Intentional Community. She was captain of a revitalized crew team and a leader in Reformed University Fellowship.

Caroline Ponseti was a co-founder of The Bridge and the first student editor for Rhodes magazine. As a political science major, the New Orleans native successfully merged classwork with job experience, as she interned with both a U.S. senator and federal court judge, and worked as media buyer for a political consulting firm.

Taylor Sieben came to Rhodes from Oakland, CA, and brought with her a love of environmental sustainability. She helped start a community garden on campus and worked to bring a farmers market to life on campus, as well. A Spanish and environmental science major, Taylor was a member of the Bonner program From left: Abbey Judd, Taylor and conducted Sieben, Chigozie research in Emelue, Leah Ford, Overton Park Emily Clark, and Caroline Ponseti and at the Memphis Zoo.

and a campus advocate for LGBT equality.

Abbey Judd, an urban studies major from Altamonte Springs, FL, is known among her peers as a community builder. She participated in six fellowships during her tenure at Rhodes, including Summer Service,

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R H O D E S

A N D

B E Y O N D

Honors Research Revisits Integration of College

By Caroline Ponseti ’15

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all of 1964 was a pivotal year for Rhodes College, then known as Southwestern at Memphis.

That was the semester the college accepted its first black students. Fifty years later, Jenna Sullivan ’15, a religious studies major and Africana studies minor, decided the critical era formed the perfect topic for her honors thesis.

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“It was really exciting to me that this was going to be my senior year, and it seemed like a great opportunity to do more research on the college that I loved and a period of history that I was really fascinated

by,” says Sullivan.

Drawing mostly from Sou’wester articles and board of trustees meeting minutes from the 1960s, Sullivan focused on the influence of the Presbyterian Church and the college’s religious culture in its decision to

integrate. She worked closely with her advisor, Dr. Stephen Haynes, whose research also looks at the role of the church in the civil rights movement.

“The decision to integrate the college was complicated, and even though the larger Presbyterian denomination had mandated that higher education institutions integrate in 1954, there were 10 years of debate and struggle at Rhodes before change really happened,” she explains.

Both Sullivan and Haynes felt the occasion should be marked by a commemoration and, together with other Rhodes faculty, organized a panel discussion at Homecoming/ Reunion Weekend in October 2014 featuring prominent alumni, including Dr. Coby Smith ’68, a well-known community activist who was one of the first African Dr. Coby Smith ’68 and Jenna Sullivan ’15

RHODES COLLEGE

ARBORETUM

American students to attend the college. Sullivan continued her work with Smith, interviewing him on camera to capture his memories for the college’s Crossroads to Freedom digital archives.

“To me, it was really interesting that in the next few months, Rhodes began a series of discussions around campus climate and that I found even more inspiration to do my

research and hopefully enrich the discussion around campus climate with some historical understanding of our college’s integration,” Sullivan says.

Sullivan plans to continue her work as a theologian and church historian when she enters the Wake Forest School of Divinity this fall.

1950s

The Rhodes Arboretum begins.

120 Species

Class IV

The late Dr. Rosanna Cappellato led efforts to certify Rhodes as a Class IV Arboretum, the highest designation granted by the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council.

As of 2015 the Arboretum boasts over 120 tree species and more than 1,500 individual trees.

Labeled

Most trees are labeled with tags to identify their common and scientific names.

New Species

Every year new species are planted to increase the diversity.

Small Army

Self-guided Tour

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Arboretum brochures, containing a map and campus guide, are available in Burrow lobby.

S UMM E R 2015 • R HODE S

Questions?

Contact Assistant Professor Kimberly Kasper at: kasperk@rhodes.edu.

It takes a dedicated small army of workers to maintain the Arboretum. Currently the responsibility resides with the Urban Forestry Fellowship Program, overseen

by Dr. Kimberly Kasper of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology.

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| By Lynn Conlee

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Dr. Charles Robertson, Jr. ’65

his is a love story. It is not a typical story about the sciences.

Or a stone-by-stone account of a new building. Or merely a tale of successful alumni. Yet, science and buildings and alumni play the main characters in this story.

Other key characters are education and gumption. And that makes this a perfect love story about Rhodes College.

It is hard to say when the story begins. There is the Ellis family, a well-known name in Memphis from as far back as the late 1800s. W.C. Ellis & Sons, a machine shop, opened in 1862 at Seccond and Gayoso before moving to its current location on Front Street near Beale. Meanwhile, a family by the name of Robertson moved from the heartland of southern Illinois/northern Indiana to Arkansas and on to Memphis, where the father of a young man named Charles Robertson became the secretary/treasurer of E. L. Bruce Company, a hardwood flooring manufacturer that later spawned Terminix.

The two families came together at Lindenwood Christian Church. And that’s where Charles Robertson caught the eye of one Lola Ellis. It is tempting to say that is where the story begins, but that version would exclude the role that a college education and gumption play in bringing the two together.

You see, Charles Robertson came from parents who attended college. Lola Ellis’ parents had not. In fact, the men in her family were largely master machinists.

“She was given art lessons so she would have a career if she ever needed something to fall back on,” recalls their son, Dr. Charles Robertson, Jr. ’65. That quote constitutes a small spoiler alert, but it doesn’t diminish the love story at all.

LEGACY OF SCI ENCE:

Robertson Hall naming connects college’s past to its future.

Lola Ellis Robertson ’33 Charles Robertson, Sr. ’29

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Back at Lindenwood, Charles’ sisters conspired to help 16-year-old Lola Ellis snag young Charles. “Mom decided she was going to marry my Dad,” Charles, Jr. says. “He wasn’t quite in agreement with that. If you knew my mother, you would know that when she gets set on something, it’s hard to disrupt her.”

Charles, however, was not focused on marriage.

The year was 1925 and he had just begun classes at the new liberal arts college in Memphis, known then as Southwestern, the College of the Mississippi Valley. His field of study was biology. And he thought he had deflected Lola’s attentions for a while by throwing her an emotional curve ball.

“He pretty much told her he wasn’t going to marry anyone who didn’t have a college education. I don’t know what he was trying to do. Maybe turn her off,” laughs Charles, Jr. If so, it didn’t work. In 1929, Lola Ellis enrolled in Southwestern. Her field of study? Biology. “Her father wasn’t very happy with it,” says Charles, Jr. “He’d put all this money into an art education, and now she was going to get this college degree.”

By then, Charles had graduated Rhodes and was planning to leave for graduate studies at New York University. Expecting Charles would be at the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA, for the summer, Lola signed up for the MBL embryology

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course. She was very surprised when Charles instead came back to Memphis to be an instructor at Southwestern that summer.

Lola finished up the course work required for her major at Southwestern and took on the challenge of getting a job in New York City, Charles’ requirement for the two of them to get married.

“That was 1932. Guess what the economy was doing then? But Mom got a job in New York,” Charles, Jr. relates.

Lola and Charles were married in June following her junior year and began married life in New York City.

Here is where the story transgresses time a little

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“In that day and age, you looked through a microscope and made india ink line drawings.”

—Dr. Charles Robertson, Jr.

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Lola Robertson at work (top) and sample of her art (right).

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bit. Just as with students at the Rhodes of today, “Lola had gotten real-world experience working on campus as an illustrator for Dr. Lackey in the Southwestern Biology Department doing his publication drawings,” says Charles, Jr. “In that day and age, you looked through a microscope and made india ink line drawings using stipling and other techniques to make formal scientific drawings. That job paid off in helping get the job in New York at a time when many degreed people were selling apples on the street to survive. Dr. Horace Stunkard of New York University wanted a lab tech who could do his drawings.

So she went to work for him at NYU while Charles completed his studies.”

Together, Charles and Lola had a good life in New York. When Charles completed his PhD, they moved to Eureka, IL, where he taught biology at Eureka College in the late 1930s.

“My parents lived a nomadic life in Eureka because of wartime efforts and the difficulties completing their house,” he says. “My dad was teaching at Eureka College, but he was working at night teaching Army pilots to fly using Link Trainers at the old Chanute Air Force Base. He couldn’t fly, but he knew how to teach. He also worked part time at Caterpillar Tractor Company as an analytical chemist.”

Because of her training as a biology lab technician, Lola became part of a major medical development that grew out of wartime efforts— the mass manufacturing of a new miracle drug called penicillin.

A team of British biochemists had been working to find a way to mass produce penicillin. Conditions of the war made their research difficult in England, and so they were brought to the United States and set up in a government research lab in Peoria, IL, the Northern Regional Research Lab. A call went

later moved to Evansville, IN, where he taught biology at Evansville College for the rest of his career. One might be tempted to think that Lola would have considered her lifetime’s work complete having contributed to a project as large as the mass production of penicillin. Not so.

After attending Rhodes, finishing her classes at NYU, returning to Rhodes to graduate in 1936, moving to New York, finding a job during the Depression, marrying Charles, having children, and making a significant contribution to pharmaceutical science, Lola still had another career to go. She began teaching special education in a private school, then returned to college at night to get her teaching credentials. She taught special education in the public school system in Evansville for the next 15 years. After retiring, she was active in many community organizations.

Charles, Jr. followed largely in his parents’ footsteps.

He came to Rhodes in 1961 and graduated in 1965 with a degree in physics. He was on campus during a golden

S UMM E R 2015 • R HODE S

out for lab technicians, and Lola was hired to work with famed biochemist Norman Heatley.

Under Heatley’s direction, a group of United States fermentation biochemists conducted successful experiments that resulted in discoveries leading to more fruitful penicillin production techniques. Soon, pharmaceutical companies saw enough progress to warrant interest in the new drug and, with the biochemists’ full support, took over production research so that the drug, much needed for fighting infection in the combat theater, could become widely available.

The arrival of Charles, Jr. in 1943 ended Lola’s work on penicillin. Soon after, she and her family moved to Charlotte, NC, where Charles, Sr. taught biology at Queens College. They

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“The building will be used largely for biology,” he explains, “so it is named after two Rhodes graduates who were very successful in biology. I hope that it will encourage young people to do good things.”

—Dr. Charles Robertson, Jr.

era in physics when noted professors Jack Taylor ’44 and Fritz Stauffer led the department. He was among a group of student-scientists who participated in a trip to Alaska to observe a solar eclipse, a story that is a rich part of Rhodes’ physics lore.

During Robertson’s college years, physics occupied the basement of Kennedy Hall, the place where the major came alive for him. “For me, the big value in the physics department was the stuff we had to experiment with,” he says. “I did a number of experiments on my own, some of which were beyond the usual, it seems. I cannot imagine taking physics and doing only the formalized laboratory experiments and not going beyond on my own. I believe it was the ‘going beyond’ that made me what I am today.”

That “going beyond” propelled him to graduate school at Florida State University, where he was able to do a lot of instrument design work, the same kind with which he’s involved to this day. Robertson worked for the DuPont company for 29 years, before founding NanoDrop Technologies, which was sold to Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2007. Under his leadership, NanoDrop pioneered microvolume instrumentation techniques that allow scientists to quickly and

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The Robertsons

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In keeping with his colorful personality, Dr. Charles Robertson, Jr. made sure to sport the Rhodes red and black in his typically inventive way for the Robertson Hall groundbreaking ceremony.

easily quantify and assess the purity of small volume liquid samples, such as solutions of proteins and nucleic acids.

A Rhodes trustee, Robertson has more than kept up with the sciences at Rhodes. In honor of one of his mentors, in 2005 he and his wife, Patricia, members of the Benefactors Circle, established the Jack H. Taylor Fellowship in Physics. In addition, there is the Dr. Charles W. Robertson, Jr. Endowment for Student Research and Engagement in Physics and a state-of-the-art Zeiss Confocal Microscope System he provided the biology department. Grateful for his untiring support, in 2008 the college awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal.

As steeped as the Robertson name is in Rhodes’ past, it is about to become a vital part of Rhodes’ future. Because when you combine love, education, gumption, science, buildings, alumni, and Rhodes, the denouement of this love story will be Robertson Hall, a state-of-the-art science building set to open in 2017. A “groundbreaking” ceremony took place in April, attended by Charles, Jr. and Patricia.

But the building is not named after Charles, Jr. His generous gift to the college makes it possible, but the Robertson name attached to it is in memory of his parents, Charles and Lola.

“The building will be used largely for biology,” he explains, “so it is named after two Rhodes graduates who were very successful

Providing state of the art: Research Labs (7) Teaching Labs (6) Smart Classrooms (3) Faculy & Staff Offices (8) Support Rooms (15) Special Purpose Rooms (4)

On hand for the Robertson Hall groundbreaking were (from left) Shelley Choudhury ’15; Dr. Charles Robertson, Jr. ’65; Patricia Robertson; President William E. Troutt; and Dr. Mary Miller, director of the biochemistry and molecular biology programs.

in biology. I hope that it will encourage young people to do good things.”

For an example of doing good, students of today and the future need look no further than the legacy of the Robertson family and the story of their love for Rhodes and for each other. It is a love story that provides a rich history for Robertson Hall even before the cornerstone is officially laid.

Construction on the threestory building began in May. It will connect underground with Rhodes Tower and Frazier Jelke Science Center.

State-of-the-art labs will occupy much of Robertson Hallʼs interior. The buildingʼs footprint is just under a half-acre.

See complete floor plans at rhodes.edu/robertson.

RIELLE

JUSTIN FOX BURKS

A

CARPENTER ’15

CREATED AN E-PORTFOLIO TO REFLECT ON HER WORK AS A

GERMAN TEACHING

INTERN DURING HER SENIOR YEAR.

PASSAGES FROM THE

E-PORTFOLIO, QUOTED HERE, SHOW THE RANGE OF TOPICS STUDENTS MIGHT TOUCH UPON IN THEIR WRITING.

“The topic of this class was the student residence hall.

After Professor Kronenberg showed the class a picture of a German student’s room on the overhead, he pointed at objects and said their names several times, clearly enunciating the words. Some of the students would then try to

JUSTIN FOX BURKS

mimic what they heard.”

“As a day in the Language Lab, the students worked on a

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voicethread, a useful

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Carpenter’s e-portfolio contains monthly summaries of Prof.

Kronenberg’s teaching methods.

tool that allows them to record and type over pictures. But first, they spoke together about what they like to do: ‘was machst du gern?’ ”

E-Portfolios Give Students a Place to Reflect

By Dr. Felix Kronenberg Enhancement of the learning experience through reflection lies as close as the nearest keyboard for students participating in the Mellon Grant-funded e-portfolio project.

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few years ago, President William E. Troutt commissioned the Common Table Advisory Group to bring students, faculty, and staff together to talk about important issues at Rhodes. One of the Common Table’s sub-groups, of which I’m a member, dealt with learning in the 21st century. Many ideas about how we learn have changed in the more than 150 years that Rhodes has existed, and the group’s discussions reflected the dynamics of those changes. We discussed many ideas during that year, but one that stuck was the idea that the liberal arts and a more careeroriented education do not have to be on opposite ends of the educational spectrum. Rather, linking the two approaches would increase the value of being a Rhodes student.

It also became clear that not all students had certain skills that are increasingly valuable in the 21st century: being comfortably able to publish a wide variety of media on the web in more formal ways (meaning not just as social media updates) and the ability to build and curate a public identity (sometimes referred to as a personal brand). Many students also reported that they were looking for more ways to link their different courses and make connections between their content. Rhodes students and faculty also

expressed the wish to make learning visible, especially for learning experiences that are not classes in a traditional sense, such as study abroad, work on campus, fellowships, internships, independent study, and research.

One of the results of these the findings is a project funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and aimed at helping students create online portfolios that provide a place for commentary and reflection about academic efforts on and off campus. Coupled with a traditional résumé, these e-portfolios may also present potential employers with a broader view of the full person and more accurately demonstrate the value of the liberal arts.

WHAT IS A PORTFOLIO? A reflective portfolio is a flexible approach to address many of the issues and needs raised by the Common Table discussions. It is a collection of evidence of learning, often in an electronic format, hence the term e-portfolio. Portfolios can provide creative spaces for reflective learning and can create opportunities for students to practice and showcase 21st-century skills such as creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning, commuS UMM E R 2015 • R HODE S

Dr. Felix Kronenberg is an assistant professor of modern languages and is the director of the Language Learning Center at Rhodes. He is one of 10 faculty members working in an interdisciplinary faculty cohort that explores ways to engage students through digital technologies, integrative education, and engaged scholarship. The cohort’s work is funded through the Mellon Faculty Innovation Fellowship Program. For more on the Mellon grant, tune in to Take Note, a podcast available at rhodes.edu/TakeNote.

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nication and collaboration, information and communications technology (ICT), and information literacy.

The Mellon Faculty Innovation Fellowship Program provided a platform and funding for several professors to look at innovative ways to engage students in and out of the classroom. My project focused on working with students to develop e-portfolios for learning experiences outside of regular classes during the JUSTIN FOX BURKS

2014-2015 academic year. Rhodes Student Associates (RSAs), students studying abroad, and a student learning through two directed inquiry courses created e-portfolios.

The project focused on three aspects of portfolios: the reflective or developmental aspect, the portfolio as an assessment piece, and its use as a showcase. Portfolios are one way of creating a community of student-scholars who share their work, strengths, and unique experiences and learn from each other.

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Dr. Kronenberg working with students in the Language Learning Center

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FIRST PORTFOLIO PROJECTS After returning to Rhodes in the fall of 2014 from a year at the Universität Tübingen, one of Rhodes’

two partner universities in Germany, Arielle Carpenter ’15 enrolled in two directed inquiry courses on second language pedagogy and teaching German as a second language. As part of her directed inquiry working with me, Arielle worked as a German teaching intern, regularly attending a German 101 course as an observer, planning parts of lessons, and even teaching parts of some class sessions.

She started an e-portfolio, writing down her thoughts and experiences and collecting materials and handouts. The portfolio became the basis of our directed inquiry discussions.

Arielle collected the handouts she created for two 101 sessions and kept all versions as she improved them through multiple edits. As she moved on to work her directed inquiry under Dr. Elizabeth Bridges, the portfolio moved on with her. This aspect of portability is a crucial feature of portfolios: they transcend the individual course, making them an ideal tool in a liberal arts education.

Other portfolio projects gave further insights into how portfolios might be a beneficial learning tool and concept. One student chronicled his trips through Germany and his internship in a vineyard before he even started classes at Landau, Rhodes’ other partner university. He also decided to collect a list of important and curious German idiomatic expressions. Two RSAs working in the Language Learning Center reflected on lessons learned through e-portfolios, continuously changing and editing them after their weekly staff meetings. Like most student employees at Rhodes, they gained many new skills in their workplaces on campus, and e-portfolios allowed them to reflect on their learning experiences and share them with their co-workers and supervisor.

NEXT STEPS During the 2015-2016 year the students still at Rhodes will finalize their portfolios—at least as much as they can, because, as reflective practices, they will never be final but rather exist in different stages. Many of my colleagues are very interested in using portfolios in classes and programs, and more meetings and workshops are planned.

Plans are under way to develop support structures for the college.

Student fellows financed through the Mellon grant are working to provide technical support and conduct more research about the multimedia possibilities of e-portfolios, including web 2.0 tools and social media integration. The student fellows will also be useful in helping their peers with creative choices and with the overall design of the portfolios.

There will certainly also be discussions about developing ideas, structures, and examples that could be used in other learning scenarios: regular courses, community-based projects and programs, or as part of a major or minor (e.g., in a senior seminar). I intend, for example, to utilize portfolios in my upcoming first-year writing seminar “Stereotypes in Advertising” in the fall of 2015.

This portfolio project will hopefully also initiate conversations about how portfolios could provide campuswide benefits as part of career planning or preparation for graduate school, or even as a way to allow students to connect their liberal arts learning experiences and reflect on their learning as a whole throughout their undergraduate career, rather than merely focus on individual classes. Such holistic assessment can only further the richness of the liberal arts experience.

JUSTIN FOX BURKS

“In the beginning, I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew that I enjoyed tutoring, but sitting in German 101 as an assistant was an entirely different and eye-opening experience. When I first began learning German, I wasn’t paying attention to the effort my teachers put into creating their lessons or the numerous ways they

Carpenter’s daily December summaries of Prof. Kronenberg’s German 101 class.

encouraged me to learn and improve.”

JUSTIN FOX BURKS

“Through learning about the language, culture, and history of Germany, students develop a sense of understanding, appreciation, and interest in a country that is not their own. In turn, this challenges understandings and perspectives of the world, and even their own identities.”

Carpenter’s e-portfolio also offers links to a variety of demographics used in classes, such as this page displaying differences between East and West Germany.

S UMM E R 2015 • R HODE S

students to expand their

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JIM KIIHNL

Funding for the initial phase of the Ernest Withers project was provided through the Mellon Faculty Innovation Fellowship Program.

A Lasting Image

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Rhodes Students Preserving the Work of Memphis Photographer Ernest Withers

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By Chris McCoy ’93

JIM KIIHNL

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wife to move here, and they are just grinding it out every day. To me, that’s a really compelling story. She’s an extraordinary person.”

Rosalind Withers showed Daggett the full extent of the archive. “I was just really blown away,” Daggett says.

“I found out that the archive had about a million pieces— photographs, notes, papers—that had not been digitized.

There’s this huge mass of material.”

Rosalind knew the materials needed to be organized but was still seeking team members, labor, and the funds to do it. Daggett assembled a small team that included Ameha; Sophia Mason ’16, another Memphis native; Dominique DeFreece ’18; and Rosie Meindl, visual resources curator in the Rhodes Department of Art. “We went into the archives and did a general sweep,” says Ameha. “We would just pull open a drawer to see what was in it. This one has black-and-white negatives, this one has color negatives, this one has 8 X 10 pan developed . . . whatever happened to be there, we would write it down. We could have gone through the process faster, but we kept stopping to say, ‘Oh! Who is this?’ Roz Withers would come up and say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s so and so.’ She would tell us whole family histories, and we would be like, ‘Let me write this down!’ ” Every drawer pulled revealed treasures. “It’s unbelievable,” says Daggett. “There are images of Martin Luther King, Jr., we’ve never seen. We’ve seen images [Withers] took during the Sanitation Worker’s Strike that are amazing. You literally have a play-by-play of what’s happening. You can see the disappointment on Martin Luther King’s face when the march got violent.

You can see these images of the looting of a clothing store, and the cop who’s trying to stop it is kind of out of shape. He starts running after the one guy who actually stole something, but he can’t catch him, so S UMM E R 2015 • R HODE S

Tiegst Ameha ’16 (opposite page) and Ernest Withers note on Beale Street (above)

JIM KIIHNL

hen photographer Ernest Withers passed away on Oct. 15, 2007, he left behind an unprecedented legacy. Not only was he a key figure in recording the civil rights movement, but, for most of his 60-year career, he was one of only a handful of photographers documenting everyday African American life in Memphis and the Mid-South. And now, thanks to initial funding by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a group of Rhodes students is working to make sure that pictorial history stays alive.

“I had always seen his pictures, growing up in Memphis,” says Tiegst Ameha ’16. “But I didn’t really know who took them.” The English major was working in Rhodes’ Memphis Center last year when she was contacted

by Assistant Professor of Art Elizabeth Daggett. “She said she had a project for me, and it turned out to be this enormous thing.”

Daggett had met and interviewed Withers when she was an undergraduate at the University of Memphis. As a filmmaker, she thought his long and colorful life would be the perfect subject for a documentary. That was not in the cards, but when she later took some students from the Midtown North Emerging Artists Camp, funded by the Rhodes Center for Outreach in the Development of the Arts program, to the Withers Collection Museum and Gallery on Beale Street, she had a fateful meeting with Withers’ daughter, Rosalind (Roz).

“Roz was doing well in Florida; she had her own life,” Daggett says. “Then when her father passed, she felt compelled to come back here to save his work, to save these images. She’s someone who is trying to do right by her family, and she uproots, asks her son and his

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S UMM E R 2015 • R HODE S

King was a real person.

He was just a piece of this really complex fabric of the community.”

Ameha says, “This is why we’re doing these oral histories. People might think they’re run of the mill, but they’re really not.”

As the summer goes on, the team is meticulously cataloging the items, preparing for the digitization phase that lies ahead.

“It’s nice to know you’re doing work that is meant to last,” says Ameha. “A whole lot of things won’t last.

But this thing—its whole purpose is to last.”

JIM KIIHNL

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spent a lot of time figuring out who does what and how it’s supposed to be done. After countless meetings—big meetings with 10-15 people at the table— we decided to start taking histories of people who were in the photographs.”

Daggett led the team in filming interviews with the Withers subjects who came forward. “The students are amazed, because in the middle of an interview, people will say ‘Oh, we had dinner with Martin this one night,’ and they would be like, ‘Martin Luther King?’

JIM KIIHNL

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just starts beating on somebody else.”

One image of Dr. King stood out for Ameha. “It was from a day that we already had a picture of, one that’s hanging in the gallery,” she says. “He had a straw hat and white shirt.

He was standing in the middle of a crowd of 200300 people. He’s all the way across the crowd, and he’s looking straight at Withers.

They have this connection.

It’s this spooky moment that was captured on film.

He’s in this mess of people, and Withers captured this one perfect moment. Hey, here’s Martin Luther King standing in the middle of a crowd making direct eye contact with you the viewer.

It gives me chills when I look at it.”

But there is more to the archive than just civil rights history, Daggett says. “There are beautiful images of weddings and office parties—any kind of gathering. Ernest Withers worked. He took so many images. He was of value to people in a lot of different ways. There wasn’t an aspect of living that he didn’t touch upon.”

After three weeks of preliminary work, the team paused to determine the best course of action.

“There are a lot of players,” says Ameha. “We just wanted to make sure we were doing it the right way and taking everyone’s best interests into account. We

Rosalind Withers and Dominique DeFreece ’18

MARK. YOUR. .

S R A D N CALE E G E L L O C S E RHOD /REUNION WEEKEND HOMECOMING

5 1 0 2 , 4 2 & 3 2 OCTOBER 65 1970 9 1 0 6 9 1 5 5 9 REUNIONS : 1 1995 0 9 9 1 5 8 9 1 0 1975 198 10 2015 2000 2005 20 r homecoming fo / u d .e s e d o rh Visit odations and m m o c c a d te n discou ent details. up-to-date ev

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r hSoUdMeMs .EeRd u2 0 1 3 • R H O D E S

S U M M E R 2 0 1 3 r•h oRdHeOsD. eE dS u

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ASK RHODES

Dear Ask Rhodes, Late at night, I sneak up to the southeast door of Palmer Hall to raid the soda and candy machines. I ring the doorbell and ring the doorbell, but no one ever lets me in.

Why is the doorbell even there, if you aren’t going to answer it?

Respectfully, Sugar Rush Dear Sugar, While all of us truly do love it here at Rhodes, faculty and staff actually do go home for the evening. So late at night, there’s no one here to let you in. That wasn’t the case in the days of old, however. Back when we had fewer buildings, the Palmer basement offered a place for the offices of student publications, like the Sou’wester and the yearbook. Student worker bees, who compiled campus news or favorite memories into a book that now has that peculiar musty smell, would ring the bell so their peers could let them in. Today, the basement of Palmer serves as storage space, and we all rely on smart phones and text messages to communicate. Relics like that doorbell serve as reminders of simpler times. Speaking of simpler times, you might want to add some fruits and fresh vegetables to your diet. Just a thought.

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Dear Ask Rhodes,

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I’ve noticed robed faculty carrying a blue, glowing orb atop a fancy stick at many occasions over the years. I wonder if it isn’t true that Rhodes really is Hogwarts, after all?

Yours truly, Hermione Granger Ah, Hermione! You’ve got us this time. Yes. Yes, we are magical and mysterious in our ways. The glowing orb of which you speak is the college mace, a ceremonial component of

our more formal events, such as Commencement.

In the Middle Ages, the mace was considered a weapon. You might have noticed that ours is always carried by the senior faculty member at the front of our processionals. This is to prevent junior faculty farther back in line from carrying it and possibly retaliating for little slights left over from departmental meetings and the like. Or, rather, it’s to honor the senior faculty member. I’m not sure.

At any rate, our mace was commissioned in 2000 and designed and crafted

by Memphis artist Brian Russell ’83. The shaft is black walnut topped with a bronze collar that surrounds a glass orb engraved with symbols from the college seal. The open bronze Bible atop the deep blue lead crystal orb is taken from the very center of the seal. The other symbols from the seal are placed around the orb, and the words “Rhodes College 1848” and “Truth-Loyalty-Service” are engraved on the bronze collar.

The bronze leaves surrounding the orb represent the oak and laurel on the college seal, emblematic of strength and victory.

Imagine how different Hogwarts might be if He-Who-MustNot-Be-Named had a lovely mace like ours instead of those silly wands. And with that, Ask Rhodes is off for a round of Quidditch!!!

Do we have skeletons in our closets? Well, at least one. Think you know where this spot is on campus?

Write Ask Rhodes at askrhodes@rhodes.edu and let us know. And don’t forget to send in your questions!

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T H E P OW E R O F

S E N D E T WO R O H R E K TH

On the day of pricing for the bond issue used to finance the construction of Robertson Hall, Chuck Ellingsworth ’97 and Elizabeth Zuelke ’13, lead investment bankers on the bond issue, invited current Rhodes students John Alar ’16, Connor Bishop ’16, Max Zhang ’17, Braxton Carr ’16, Sue Eltayech ’16, Olivia Menick ’15 and Grace Mahood ’16, along with Commerce and Business Professor Andrey Zagorchev to watch the bond sales process. This experience gave the students a rare opportunity to see financial markets at work and serves as an illustration of Rhodes’ commitment to provide an education “beyond the gates.”

Three decades of Rhodes students working together on a project that will benefit generations to come. Just another example of the power of the Rhodes network.

Front row, from left: Elizabeth Zuelke ’13, Sue Eltayech ’16, Olivia Menick ’15, and Grace Mahood ’16. Back row, from left: Josh McCoy ’08, municipal finance consultant, Chuck Ellingsworth ’97, John Alar ’16, Connor Bishop ’16, Max Zhang ’17, Professor Andrey Zagorchev, Braxton Carr ’16.

THE RHODES NETWORK rhodes.edu/alumni

2000 North Parkway Memphis, TN 38112-1690 www.rhodes.edu Together, Lola Ellis Robertson ’33 and biochemist Norman Heatley worked to find a way to mass produce penicillin. Long after leaving the U.S. to return to England, Heatley continued his correspondance with her, as this and other letters reflect.

Read more about their efforts—as well as Lola Robertson’s life—on page 14.