Richard J. Alley

Memphis Standout profile for The Memphis Daily News

April, 5, 2013

John Bass earned a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Memphis.

Specifically, the degree is focused on 16th century music compared to modern jazz pedagogy and how musicians then might have been taught improvisation.

Where does one go with such a degree?

Bass has taken it across Midtown to Rhodes College where he is the director of the Mike Curb Institute for Music. The Curb Institute was established to preserve and promote the distinct music traditions of the South, as well as research its effect on history, economy and social systems.

What better place than Memphis, the genesis of so much in popular music? And what better place for a musician from Mobile, Ala.?

Bass’ father was a physician by trade and also an after-hours banjo player, so Bass grew up with music in his ears and, eventually, a guitar in his hands.

After a typical adolescence spent playing in garage bands around town, Bass took the not-so-typical turn of seriously studying jazz. His high school band director suggested the University of Southern Mississippi, where Bass majored in jazz guitar.

He and his wife, Johnnie, considered Memphis for their respective pursuits and programs. She is an audiologist now with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and he received his master’s in jazz guitar from Memphis before pursuing his doctorate.

While working on that advanced degree, Bass began teaching guitar as an adjunct professor at Rhodes College, which doesn’t offer a degree in music, per se, yet in the liberal arts tradition students can graduate with a Bachelor of Arts and a major, or emphasis, in music … (read more)

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

March 14, 2013

Shayla Purifoy majored in urban studies – a mixture of history, political science and sociology – at Rhodes College. Her senior seminar was on community policing.

“It was so much fun, it was so exciting,” she said about her time spent shadowing police officers on the job. “They were helping people and they really were impacting that area, which was the Madison Heights area.”

With this experience, and the mentorship of Mike Kirby, her professor at Rhodes, a goal was realized.

“I decided that I was going to be a cop and no one could tell me any differently,” she said. “I started gun training, I started doing pushups and sit-ups, I was crawling over the wall at the police academy so I could run on their track to be prepared. And then I changed my mind.”

She’d stopped along the way to the police academy just long enough to take the LSAT, she said, “just in case.” It would turn out that law school had a stronger pull than the police academy and she found herself at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. She took a social welfare and policy course, and entered into the general civil litigation clinic to work on domestic violence cases.

The clinic is held now at the law school, but was held at Memphis Area Legal Services Inc. at that time … (read more)

Cover story for the Rhodes Magazine

Winter 2013

In the 1920s, the college published a code for athletes. Heading the list:

“As an athlete I am determined to play the game to the limit of my capacities, giving each detail the greatest care and attention.”It holds true today, as then, at play and in the classroom.

At the far north end of the Rhodes College campus stands a citadel of sweat, an acropolis of aches and a fortress of fortitude. The Bryan Campus Life Center (BCLC) is where the athletic administration offices can be found, past fitness rooms and down long hallways adorned with trophies and plaques and photos of athletes who won them for the college.

The tradition doesn’t stop with photos, though; it is also in the air, mixed within the mortar and stone and on polished woodwork. The William Neely Mallory Gymnasium, built in 1954 and dedicated to the 42 alumni who perished in World War II, is where the men’s and women’s basketball teams tip off, and the volleyball team rallies, atop the Lynx paw at mid-court. If nearby Paul Barret Jr. Library is the brain of the campus, then the BCLC is its muscle, flexed daily and stretched with dedication and passion by the student-athletes within. In its shadow, a bright light in its own right, is Crain Field, which was refurbished with state-of-the-art synthetic FieldTurf, a gift of Brenda and Lester Crain Jr. ’51 in honor of his father, J. Lester Crain Sr. ’29, at the start of the 2012 football season … (read more)

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

Jan. 24, 2013

These young people have graduated from their teens with a sense of responsibility beyond their years, and it is driving them to do good, to leave Memphis a better place. Within their ranks, there are advanced college degrees and long hours spent learning and perfecting a craft. The members of this group can dribble a ball, carry a tune, cook a meal, tell a joke, take a picture, book a show, raise money, raise awareness, and raise us all up if we put ourselves in their capable, young hands.

Each is an ambassador for our city. They are giving their best to make themselves and their community a better place to live and to visit.

News of violence and scandal can make the future seem bleak, but we can rest easier knowing that these 20 men and women are a part of that future. Keep an eye on them and watch what they can do when they put their minds and hearts to it … (read more)

Flyer cover 2013

The Sciences at Rhodes – Past, Present and Future

Fall 2012

The Biologists

A profile of former biology majors, current students and department head

(For the full texts, please click this link)

Gary Lindquester
Chair, Rhodes Department of Biology

Rhodes students today are constantly challenged, and they constantly rise to that challenge. This, says Gary Lindquester, Biology Department chair, is one of the reasons that teaching at Rhodes is so rewarding.

“It happens in the classroom with rigorous course material and complex ideas, it’s in the teaching laboratory where we develop exercises that train them in the scientific method and in various techniques … and it carries over into the research laboratories for students who work there,” he says. “The students are highly competent, they are interested and they have a good work ethic.”

Anahita Rahimi-Saber ’13

Anahita Rahimi-Saber was born and raised in Denmark and moved with her family to the United States, and Memphis, in 2000. She attended Lausanne Collegiate School and considered other colleges when the time came to make that important decision.

“I thought I wanted to study outside of Memphis, that I knew it too well and had outgrown it by the age of 18,” she says. “But when it came down to what I wanted to study, and finances and everything, Rhodes just made the most sense. It was the best decision I’ve ever made. I realized how important it is to have a family close by, and when I moved to campus it was kind of eye-opening and refreshing to learn how great Memphis really is and how much it has to offer.”

Veronica Lawson Gunn ’91, M.D.
Vice President of Population Health Management,
Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin

“I felt smarter when I stepped on campus,” Veronica Gunn says as she reminisces about her first visit to Rhodes. Though laughing, she insists there is some truth to that. “My visit at Rhodes was what undoubtedly convinced me that that is where I needed to go, and not to any other place.”

Not only did the aesthetics of the campus and the academic curriculum draw her in, but the professors—including Alan and Carolyn Jaslow in Biology, with whom she remains friends—“are examples of the faculty’s commitment to students, their full development and their full potential.”

Brian Wamhoff ’96
Vice President of Research & Development,
Co-Founder, HemoShear, LLC
Associate Professor of Medicine & Biomedical Engineering,
University of Virginia

Brian Wamhoff points to the atmosphere, the opportunity to play soccer and chiefly to members of the faculty such as Jay Blundon and Dee Birnbaum when asked what led to his interest in Rhodes College. It was these professors’ respective departments—Biology and Business—that would build the foundation for his life’s work.

Having attended the University of Missouri-Columbia for graduate school before the University of Virginia for his fellowship, Wamhoff recently took a path of entrepreneurship and biotech, while balancing life as an academic professor.

 

The Physicists

A profile of former physics majors, current students and department head

(For the full texts, please click this link)

Lars Monia ’15

After only one year at Rhodes, Lars Monia was given the keys to the moonbuggy, so to speak. The Great Moonbuggy Race is a NASA project for high school and college students who build simulated lunar rovers. It’s a challenge, says NASA, “to inspire them in Engineering and explore Engineering opportunities and possibilities.”

Monia was asked to recruit other students, put together a team to manage, and was given a prospective budget by Physics chair Brent Hoffmeister.

“Hosting a team for the first time was pretty challenging,” says Monia. “I had to teach everyone how to do the engineering programs and how the design process works and what the project even was—what in the world is a moonbuggy?”

Charles Robertson Jr. ’65

For Charles Robertson, a Rhodes education began not when he walked on campus for the first time as a freshman, but when his parents did as students. Thanks to Charles William Robertson Sr. ’29 and Lola Ellis Robertson ’33 being scientists themselves, Charles Jr. may have been looking at a preordained career.

“I had some interest in Engineering, but by the end of my senior year in high school I was pretty much hooked on Physics,” Robertson says. “My father, though a biologist, had a significant interest in the physical sciences and encouraged my interest in Physics.”

Harry Swinney ’61
Sid Richardson Foundation Regents Chair
The University of Texas at Austin

Harry Swinney heard about Rhodes College—then Southwestern—from several people, including the family doctor, James Gladney ’38, in his Presbyterian church in Homer, LA.

“I asked my parents if I could visit Southwestern and they drove me there for a two-day visit in the spring of 1955,” Swinney recalls.

He never considered any other option and enrolled with plans to obtain two bachelor’s degrees in five years in the 3-2 plan, with three years at Rhodes followed by two at Georgia Tech. In his freshman year, however, he took a Physics class from professor Jack Taylor ’44 and “became excited about the subject.” It was a class that would turn his plans, and life, around. In honor of Taylor, Swinney in 2000 established the Jack H. Taylor Scholarship at Rhodes for students majoring in the physical and biological sciences.

Brent Hoffmeister
Chair, Department of Physics

Research teams in Geneva, Switzerland, recently provided proof of the elusive Higgs Boson particle, making the kind of news that gets physicists, and future physicists, excited. Closer to home, Rhodes Physics professor and department chair Brent Hoffmeister is excited about newer courses being offered, including Nuclear Physics, Engineering Physics, Medical Physics, and Fluid Dynamics. This semester, a course on Accelerator Physics, the sort of science that gave the world the Higgs Boson, is being offered for the first time.

Passing along his passion for the sciences is paramount in Hoffmeister’s teaching. “Personally, I like how teaching and scientific research have fused together to become the same sort of thing for me at Rhodes,” he says. “I really enjoy involving students in my research, and I think it is an important experience for the students too. A great way to learn about science is to function as a scientist.”

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)

Discovery 901 feature for The Downtowner magazine

Feb. 2012

Feature article on the Shelby Foote collection of papers, manuscripts, notebooks, artwork and ephemera now housed at Rhodes College in Memphis. (read more)

The Downtowner, Feb. 2012

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)