C. Service
Members of the Faculty serve Rhodes in many ways that go beyond formal teaching duties and scholarship. This service is essential in creating the community within which one’s work is best accomplished.
Careful attention to academic advising of students is among the more important of these forms of service. There are routine dimensions in academic advising: monitoring academic progress, reviewing course grades, responding to notices of academic warning, making registration materials available, reviewing petitions concerning academic regulations. However, academic advising is not just the performance of these activities; it is an opportunity to help a student realize his/her academic potential and to utilize the resources at the College available to the student, to assist a student in envisioning and shaping his/her longer term goals, and to counsel and nurture a student as he/she confronts the inevitable challenges of a collegiate environment. This is a daunting task to which the College expects Faculty members to bring their expertise as mentors to those engaged in academic pursuits.
The mission of Rhodes, to provide a quality liberal arts and sciences program for its students, can only be realized by ensuring that the Faculty of Rhodes is given and carries out a major role in the planning and implementation of the academic program of the College. Faculty members must assume obligations within the governance structure of the College by attending Faculty meetings, serving on committees and providing leadership on committees, carrying out departmental functions, and other special assignments that work to ensure that the College provides a quality educational program for its students. Faculty members demonstrate support for the intellectual life of the College through organizing and participating in events, such as guest lectures, symposia, workshops and seminars, etc. In addition, Faculty members serve in ways that develop and nurture a viable Faculty cohort, such as recruitment of Faculty and reviews of colleagues.
The College is an institution whose mission includes service within the greater Memphis community. The College, therefore, values the services rendered by Faculty members who apply their professional skills to the work that benefits the larger community. The spirits of community citizenship and volunteerism motivate this service. In valuing service within the greater Memphis community the College acknowledges that the life of the mind is never separated from a concern for the well-being of the society that makes the life of the mind possible.