Richard J. Alley

Feature story for Rhodes Magazine

Summer 2012

Last year the joint department of Economics and Business split in two, becoming separate departments: One is now called Economics, the other, Commerce and Business—in part because of the steady growth of each. The sheer size of the faculty and student body was such that, managerially, one department was becoming unwieldy.

Economics

Any liberal arts institution prides itself on a wellrounded education. It’s an education that is made up of literature, history, science, religious studies and the humanities. At Rhodes, the study of economics is increasingly gaining favor among students as a major of choice.

“Rhodes offers this classical liberal arts education and, on top of it, you add courses maybe in economics, accounting, finance and business, which makes our students very, very attractive to the market,” says Marshall Gramm, department chair of Economics.

“It provides a different way of thinking, a different way of analyzing people’s decisions and business’s decisions, and I really enjoy it,” says Alex Petraglia ’12 of his major in Economics … (read more)

Feature story for Rhodes Magazine

Summer 2012

The past academic year saw a new interdisciplinary program in the Rhodes catalogue with the introduction of Political Economy, a major that explores important ideas that are the foundations of economic and political systems throughout the world. It is, basically, the study of economics without the math. It brings a more philosophical approach to how and why markets work—or don’t work.

Political Economy is the perfect storm of five different departments coming together: Economics, Political Science, History, Philosophy and International Studies. Others, such as Psychology and Greek and Roman Studies, contribute courses as well. According to the catalogue, “The program and the associated major will study the many ways that politics, principles and economics interact in the formation of policy choices and actual policies. It will further look at the impact of political and economic choices on the prosperity and well-being of those who organize their society under various systems.”

The program is supported by program founders Thomas Garrott, chairman and CEO emeritus of National Commerce Bancorporation; Fred Smith, president and CEO of FedEx Corporation; and founder of AutoZone, J.R. (Pitt) Hyde III … (read more)

Feature story for Rhodes Magazine.

Winter 2012

 … how does the college work within the community? How do the philosophy and theory from textbooks, lectures and the Internet seep from the campus into the surrounding neighborhoods, the arms of the city, the region of the Delta? Consider that almost three-quarters of the Rhodes student body come from places other than Tennessee and the question becomes, “How do we encourage our students to become part of the Memphis community at large and engage with our culture, people and causes?”

There are a number of ways students garner knowledge from real-world experiences and activities, and several Rhodes institutes and groups are leading the charge in ensuring that the college contributes to the greater community … (read more)

Feature profile with special emphasis on construction for The Daily News

Feb. 13, 2012

A Memphian born and raised, Reid Hedgepeth takes great pride in his city’s institutions, whether they be the tangible of medicine and education, or the more intangible of sports and politics.

The District 9 Memphis City Council member and owner of Hedgepeth Construction attended Christian Brothers High School and the University of Memphis where he played football and majored in sales marketing.

Sales, he says, enters into play no matter the job.

“You’ve still got to be able to sell something to somebody,” he said. “You put your bid in, you’ve got to be in the price range that they want to spend, or the cheapest price, but they’ve still got to feel comfortable with you and know that you can get the job done and succeed in it. You’ve got to be able to sell the job.” … (read more)

Annual “20 under 30″ issue highlighting 20-somethings making great strides in the city for The Memphis Flyer

Jan. 19, 2012

These 20-somethings are the denizens of a city many of us may not even recognize. It’s a place that we might as well call “New Memphis” for all of the positive changes occurring — the planned revitalization of the Overton Square theater arts district, an Overton Park Conservancy, omnipresent bike lanes on city streets, urban gardens sprouting like weeds, private and government grant money pouring into coffers, and a general attitude shift more powerful than the New Madrid fault. They’re not of an older lineage of “can’t-dos” but one of a new breed: the “why-nots.” Those on the list this year are stepping out and taking risks in careers and community. They’re bettering themselves now to be more productive, creative, and helpful later on.

On this list of 20 people in their 20s are painters, actors, and an athlete. There are musicians, three former members of the military, a handful of radio show hosts, a seamstress, and a conductor of orchestras. They are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. We have five entrepreneurs, a dancer, an elected official, and those who dream of one day being elected. They write, they tweet, they meet, they talk and preach, and mingle.

It’s a list whose members are as different as dry rub and wet, Isaac and Elvis, Midtown and Germantown. Yet there are common denominators that cut through this list like Big Muddy itself. First and foremost, they’re all Memphians. Though some weren’t born here — Lahna is from Canada, Samilia from North Carolina, Siphne from New Orleans, and Christian from Austria — they’ve made Memphis their home. Even those whose talents and careers could carry them across the country stay here by choice.

And that brings us to the second common denominator: They each want to make Memphis a better place. These young people have studied, practiced, traveled, and returned to a place they call home, New Memphis. They are faces you’ll be seeing and voices you’ll be hearing, whether you buy tickets at a box office, stop in at an art gallery, watch a political debate, or listen to neighbors in your community. Pay attention. You’ll want to know them … (read more)

Contributor of copy and editorial direction for Memphians coffee table book

The Nautilus Publishing Company; Oxford, MS

ISBN 978-193694603-7

2011

Feature story for Rhodes Magazine

Fall 2011

It sounds like a pitch for a new reality show: a random group of college students occupying one house for a year, getting to know each other and engaging in their community. But this ensemble has much more purpose, separating their situation from similar roommate situations on college campuses across the country.

This is The Ruka, a team of six like-minded seniors living together and participating in programs and lifestyles to better their community, the environment and themselves. Last year, these women became a group with positive intentions that would leave them with the necessary resources to present in last spring’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Symposium, or URCAS.

“The symposium is an opportunity for students to tell the campus community what they’ve been doing, either in or outside the classroom,” says Dr. Ann Viano, the J. Lester Crain Professor of Physics and chair of the URCAS planning committee.

Throughout campus on a crisp, spring day in April, 180 students held forth on disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, fine arts and natural sciences. In addition, some student presentations dealt with working within the community to improve it and gain a better understanding of the human condition. As they have been since 1996, presentations were given both visually and orally … (read more)

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

Aug. 4, 2011

We’ve come to the end of another summer. The very words stick in my throat like hot tar considering the thermometer still reads 101 degrees. Yet here we are trying to grind the gears of vacation backward and calibrate ourselves to the school year’s hours.

During summer break, my family enjoys later bedtimes and sleeping in, breakfast and lunch eaten when we’re hungry, not necessarily when the clock summons us to eat. Dinner is grilled while the children play nearby, unconcerned with homework or tomorrow’s quizzes.

At summer’s end, we find ourselves trying once again to fit our circular summer selves into the square peg holes of school days.

Alarm clocks will sound, sleepy heads will be rousted, and the days will begin several hours earlier than what my kids have grown used to. To facilitate this difference in time, I’ve been trying to wear these kids out with swimming all day and forced marches to the neighborhood playground for climbing and timed races in the evenings. The desired effect of them dropping earlier and easier into bed, and naturally rising earlier, has been mixed; it’s a hard-headed crew whose stubbornness has only deepened along with their tans these past months.

Changing their biological clocks is not a science, but more like Superman flying backward around the Earth to make time reverse and remind them, after eight weeks off, what 6 a.m. looks like. I have assured my kids that, like it or not (they do not), they will come to know the darkness of morning again … (read more)

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

July 7, 2011

After watching an old black-and-white movie on television one night last week, I resisted flipping through the other hundreds of stations and instead watched an old Bob Hope “Command Performance” from the 1940s.

We’ve all seen the film footage of the players on stage as they broadcast over the Armed Forces Radio Network. The scene is one of Hope and a parade of stars holding scripts before oversize microphones and in front of a lucky group of GIs dressed in olive drab, many holding rifles as if just having marched in from the front. The venue is always standing room only.

I was out of town last week, and when Hope introduced Judy Garland to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” I was reminded of my 5-year-old daughter singing that song in her preschool’s end-of-the-year program a couple of months ago. She continues to sing it at random times these days, and it made me miss her and look forward to seeing her in a few days’ time.

In the spirit of Hope’s show, I thought of the men who had watched and listened in remote outposts, and how they must have missed their own children, how painfully they must have missed their families.

I was home from my trip in time for the Fourth of July holiday weekend. I walked in the front door to hugs from my kids after my safe travels that posed little or no danger other than the possibility of a flat tire or hot coffee spill … (read more)

But many didn’t return home, and their travels, their very jobs, are so much more dangerous that it defies comprehension for most of us who will never experience war or stare down that sort of frightening and unknown road.

Victoria Ford, a child of the Memphis political dynasty, survived her parents’ disgrace to stand on a stage in Carnegie Hall and accept a national writing award

Feature profile for Chapter 16 (an online journal about books and writers, sponsored by Humanities Tennessee)

June 29, 2011

“You may not understand this now, but she isn’t coming back. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Day after that. And no, she hasn’t left anything behind—a sticky note on the refrigerator door or a quick message for the answering machine, her voice a distant echo calling your name and mine. Nothing.”

So begins the award-winning essay “To a Restless Little Brother Calling for Mama in His Sleep,” one of the five essays that last month helped Victoria Ford, eighteen, win a national Scholastic Art and Writing Award—and a $10,000 college scholarship. Past winners of the prestigious award include Sylvia Plath, Joyce Carol Oates, and Truman Capote. For Ford, the awards ceremony, held May 31 in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, was a moment to remember, one that surely marks the beginning of a life of creativity and success.

Victoria’s last name might not be so well known as the literary giants who took home the Scholastic prize years ago, but it already carries a kind of notoriety in her hometown of Memphis. Harold Ford Sr., the first African-American Tennessean elected to Congress since Reconstruction, was her uncle. Harold Ford Jr., now retired from Congress, is her cousin. Other family members have been elected to the city council, the county commission, and the school board in Memphis. Victoria’s father, John Ford, was a state senator for three decades, another cog in the familial political machine.

Among young African Americans growing up in Memphis, Victoria’s story is far from typical. Memphis is a city with higher-than-average rates of poverty, drug use, single-parent homes, and criminal recidivism, but Victoria grew up in a two-story brick home with a mother and father. She attended an above-average city school … (read more)