This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Meeman Center for Lifelong Learning. The adult education center began in 1944 when Rhodes was still known as Southwestern at Memphis and offered the college’s traditional curriculum to the community through evening classes. Since then, the program has expanded and currently offers 20 different classes.
John Rone ’71, director of college events, currently heads the program. Having been a student at Rhodes, Rone had been familiar with the Meeman Center. However, it wasn’t until teaching one of its courses that he got to see the benefits of the center first hand. Rone says that he has thoroughly enjoyed “getting to interact with a wide variety of people who have a desire to learn and be a part of an intellectual environment.” Even as director, Rone still finds the time to teach classes. He attributes this to the fact that the “experience of watching people enjoy learning is so tremendously rewarding.”
Beyond finding personal fulfillment from the Meeman Center, Rone says that the program also benefits the Rhodes community as a whole. “People look at Rhodes as an institution with a high standard of intellectual excellence, thus to open our doors to those who are no longer in college but want to go back into an intellectual environment is a wonderful gift to the Memphis community, and it creates goodwill for the college.” He adds that providing someone who has no connection to Rhodes the opportunity to take a class from a Rhodes professor engages a different demographic in the Rhodes community.
But above all, Rone is happy to be a part of a program which serves to satisfy a need to learn in community members. “The dedication of students of the Meeman Center often suggests that learning can be as important to people as having food or shelter,” says Rone.