SPRING 1997 THE BRYAN CAM4ViUS LIFE CENTER OPEN FOR B NESS From The Rhodes_ (ISSN #1075-3036) is Giving and Getting published four times a year in winter, spring, summer and fall by Rhodes College, Rhodes has a long history of giving—and receiving. From the 2000 N. Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112-1690. college's beginning in Clarksville, Tenn., in 1848 to its move to It is published as a service to all alumni, students, parents, faculty, staff and friends of the college. Memphis in 1925 as well as today, clergy, benefactors, trustees, Spring 1997—Volume 4, Number 2. administration, faculty, students, alumni and citizens have sought to Periodicals paid at Memphis, make it the preeminent college of its place and time. And setting its Tennessee, and additional mailing offices. sights even higher, the Board of Trustees recently amended its aim to EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF make Rhodes "one of the finest colleges of the liberal arts and sciences MEDIA RELATIONS: Gil Hayes in the world." EDrroR: Martha Hunter Shepard '66 Three features in ART DIRECTOR: Kevin Barre this issue of Rhodes CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Susan McLain are about gifts both Sullivan given and received: PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Kevin Olsen • The Bryan DESIGN CONSULTANT: Eddie Tucker Campus Life Center POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: is open at last. Built Rhodes, 2000 North Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112-1690. for the ages, it is a magnificent gift to CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Please mail the completed form below and label from this issue of Rhodes Rhodes that gener- to: Alumni Office, Rhodes College, 2000 North ations of students, Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112-1690. faculty and staff will enjoy. (Page 2) • The Kinney Name Program, celebrating Street 40 years of campus outreach, is stronger City State Zip than ever. Since the program began in Home Phone Business Phone 1957, Rhodes student volunteers through Employer The Benefactors' Circle in the Cloister of their gifts of time and Palmer Hall. Photo by Kurt Ullery compassion have Title made a profound CLASS NOTES: Please send all Class Notes news including marriages, births and obituaries difference in people's lives, both locally and globally. (Page 10) to: Alumni Office, Rhodes College, 2000 • International exchange programs in 14 countries give Rhodes N. Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112-1690. students unparalleled opportunities to become citizens of the world. Phone: (901)843-3845 Fax: (901)843-3474. (Page 26) E-mail Sally Jones, director of alumni: Much has been given to Rhodes, and much is returned to the world [email protected] every May when each member of the new graduating class joins the LETTERS To THE EDITOR: Please address commencement recessional. It is a long and proud history. postal correspondence to: Martha H. Shepard, Editor, Rhodes Magazine, Rhodes College, —Martha Hunter Shepard 2000 N. Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112-1690. E-mail: [email protected] Phone: (901)843-3544 Fax: (901)843-3553. Cents FEATURES 17 The Ties On The That Bind Subject of Cloning 25 Anywhere You Want To Be DEPARTMENTS 2 CAMPUS NEWS 24 PROFILE News of Rhodes events, faculty, students and friends History comes alive in Will Coleman's '81 Class A-1 ALUMNI NEWS 30 ATHLETICS Features, Class Notes, For the Record 22 IN PRINT 32 CALENDAR New books by faculty and alumni COVER—The Bryan Campus Life Center. Rhodes is printed with soya ink Photo Illustration by Kevin Barre. • on recyclable paper. Campus News The Bryan Campus Life Center - Open For Business he long-awaited dedication of the Bryan Campus TLife Center was held in winter. The occasion hon- ored a host of donors, including Catherine Wilkerson Bryan of West Point, Miss., whose children provided major funding for the facility. Students returning from spring break found the new Lynx Lair up and running. Meetings and dinners (including the Homecoming '97 Friday night party) Catherine Wilkerson Bryan, her sons George (left) were immediately booked in the ballroom. and John '58 by her portrait which is located in Intramural basketball games now dominate the the Bryan Campus Life Center lobby. Photo by Russell Hays multi-use forum. Exercise machines hum to the pace of headline news on the exercise room's wall-mounted TV, and faculty, staff and students alike give new meaning to the word "competition" on the squash and racquetball courts. The most ambi- tious construction project in the col- lege's history, the $22.5 million, The dedication gathering in the new Lynx Lair 140,000-square-foot provided by L. Palmer Brown Ill. Photo by Russell Hays facility boasts 80,000 square feet in new construction Special guests at the dedication were Mrs. Corella Bonner of and 60,000 square Princeton, N.J. (left), and Eppie feet in the reno- Lederer (Ann Landers), a friend of vated Mallory and the Bryan family. Photos by Russell Hays Hyde Gymnasiums. Hallie Lanier '97 and Brandon Barr '99 in the Virginia and Robert McCallum Ballroom. Photo by Kevin Barre The Cardiovascular/ Resistive Exercise The collegiate Gothic theme Room provided by Ellen runs throughout the building, and Kenneth Clark including the Brenda and Photo by Steve Jones Lester Crain Reception Hall. Photo by Kevin Barre Spring 1997 CampusNews Five Receive Honorary Degrees At Commencement onoring leaders in the church, of folklore, American literature, said in a New York magazine Neducation field and entertain- fiction and photography. He has article a few years ago, "the ment industry, Rhodes conferred 15 documentary films to his names you hear most are five honorary degrees at com- credit, one of which, the 1983 Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep mencement. Mississippi Blues, was featured at and Morgan Freeman." Receiving doctor of fine arts the Cannes Film Festival. He has Freeman is known primarily degrees were William R. Ferris, served as a consultant on such for his role as Hoke Colburn in director of the Center for the films as The Color Purple and Driving Miss Daisy, both on stage Study of Southern Culture at the recently received the Charles and in film. He has also given University of Mississippi; award- Frankel Prize from the National unforgettable performances as winning actor Morgan Freeman; Endowment for the Humanities. John Rawlins in the Civil War and Isaac Tigrett, film epic Glory co-founder of the (his favorite original Hard work) and Joe Rock Cafe and Clark, the tough founder of the high school prin- House of Blues. cipal in Lean on The Rev. Eliza- Me. He has a beth Caldwell '69, Golden Globe the Harold Blake Award and three Walker Professor Obies (one for of Pastoral Theol- Driving Miss ogy at Chicago's Daisy), along with McCormick Theological Sem- one Tony and three Acad- inary, received a doctor of emy Award nominations (for divinity degree, and Gerry Miss Daisy, The Shawshank House, superintendent of Redemption and Street Smart). Memphis City Schools, was Born in Memphis, Free- honored with a doctor of man grew up in the Chicago humanities degree. area and Greenwood, Miss., William Ferris, who has where he made his acting headed the Center for the debut at age eight as Little Study of Southern Culture Boy Blue in a school produc- since 1979, is perhaps best tion. His first professional known for the Encyclopedia of Top row: Elizabeth Caldwell, William break came in 1966 when as Southern Culture, the criti- Ferris, Morgan Freeman. Bottom row: an understudy, he had the cally-acclaimed 1,600-page Gerry House and Isaac Tigrett. chance to play the lead in a tome he co-edited with Charles He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in touring production of The Royal Wilson in 1989. U.S. News & folklore from the University of Hunt of the Sun. After that, he World Report said the book was Pennsylvania, M.A. and B.A. in once said, his "acting career just "the first attempt ever to describe English literature from North- took off." every aspect of a region's life and western University and Davidson Isaac Tigrett, founder of thought, the impact of its history College, respectively. House of Blues and Hard Rock and politics, music and literature, New Yorker film critic Pauline Cafe, says his primary goal is to manners and myths, even the Kael once referred to veteran promote racial harmony while iced tea that washes down catfish stage and film actor Morgan celebrating one of America's and cornbread." Freeman as the greatest actor most supreme and enduring Ferris is the author of more in America. "When profession- musical traditions—the blues. than 100 publications in the fields als talk range," a film director House of Blues, he says, is "a sta- Spring 1997 Rhodes 3 CarDpuse.w..s, ble haven where great Blues, dents of all ages. She and Earle phis City Schools, the 15th largest original Delta folk art and South- Hilgert co-authored the Horizons school district in the nation. The ern culture peacefully coexist." Bible Study for Presbyterian longtime educator and adminis- Tigrett launched the first Hard Women, Prayers for a Faithful trator had previously served as Rock on London's Hyde Park Journey (1993-94). Her most superintendent of the Chapel Corner in 1971. Twenty-one years recent book is Come Unto Me: Hill-Carrboro (N.C.) School Sys- later he opened his first House of Rethinking the Sacraments for Chil- tem for seven years. Blues in Cambridge, Mass. dren (United Church Press, 1996). In 1990, she was selected as of He is the founding trustee of Her work on Hulda Niebuhr, one 22 educators by the BellSouth the Rama Foundation of Zurich, Hulda Niebuhr: A Mysterious Man- Foundation to help the founda- which funded the creation of a tle, was published in 1992 by Pil- tion examine its role in support- free hospital for the rural poor in grim Press.