Members of the Faculty serve Rhodes in many ways that go beyond formal teaching duties and scholarship. Faculty service is essential in creating the community within which our shared work is best accomplished.
Student advising is a critically important service activity. Faculty members will serve as advisors to students majoring in their disciplines, but will also regularly serve as liberal arts advisors. Faculty members affiliated with master's programs will also serve as advisors for students in the relevant graduate programs. Academic advising includes the routine activities of meeting with advisees, monitoring academic progress, reviewing course grades, responding to notices of academic warning, making registration materials available, and reviewing petitions concerning academic regulations. However, academic advising is also an opportunity to help a student realize his/her academic potential and to utilize the resources at the College 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.
Faculty members at Rhodes are appointed to a department or program (or in the case of a joint appointment, to two). Faculty serve their department(s) and/or program(s) by participating in departmental and/or program meetings, and other activities such as participation in faculty reviews (even while on sabbatical), curriculum assessment, curriculum reviews, and implementation of curriculum changes; overseeing library and other academic resources; aiding in the recruitment of students and new faculty; and supporting departmental and/or program co-curricular activities.
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 and providing leadership on standing and ad hoc committees, task forces, or working groups, as well as other special assignments that work to ensure that the College provides an excellent educational program for its students. Faculty members demonstrate support for the intellectual life of the College by organizing and participating in events, such as guest lectures, symposia, workshops and seminars. 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 and expertise as a teacher-scholar to work that benefits the larger community.