[4] The college's early growth halted during the American Civil War, during which its buildings served as a headquarters for the Union Army throughout the federal occupation of Clarksville.

[5] Hoping to reverse the institution's fortunes, the board of directors hired Charles E. Diehl, the pastor of Clarksville's First Presbyterian Church, to take over as president.

[7] During Diehl's tenure as president, he would add more than a dozen Oxford-educated scholars to the faculty, and their style of teaching would form the foundation of the modern Rhodes curriculum.

[5] The move provided an increase in financial contributions and student enrollment, and, despite the Great Depression and World War II, the college began to grow.

[5] During Rhodes' sixteen-year presidency the college admitted its first Black students; added ten new buildings, including Burrow Library, Mallory Gymnasium, and the emblematic Halliburton Tower; increased enrollment from 600 to 900; founded a campus chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society; and grew the endowment to over $14 million.

[10] Additionally, the school has built partnerships with numerous Memphis institutions to provide students with a network of research, service, and internships opportunities.

[23] More than 80 percent of Rhodes students are involved in some form of community service,[26] and the college has the oldest collegiate chapter of Habitat for Humanity and the longest student-run soup kitchen in the country.

[21] Rhodes' Kinney Program provides students with a direct connection to service and social-action opportunities in Memphis by cultivating relationships with about 100 local partners.

[26] Rhodes also offers Summer Service Fellowships that award academic credit to students working full-time with Memphis community organizations and non-profits.

[31] Past students have worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce in France and Croatia, the German Marshall Fund in Belgium and Poland, taught English through nonprofit organizations in Cambodia, and helped a U.S. firm set up operations in China.

[32] Additionally, the Political Science Department offers semester programs in Washington, D.C.[33] The Institute of International Education's Open Doors Report, listed Rhodes as one of Top 35 Colleges in the United States for Students Who Study Abroad.

[35] The college's Buckman Center for International Education maintains a list of affiliated programs that Rhodes students can attend for one semester with no additional tuition or fees.

[36] Through the areas of preservation, research, leadership, and civic responsibility, the Institute provides support and opportunities for students and faculty, in partnership with the community, to experience and celebrate what Mr. Curb calls the "Tennessee Music Miracle.

In March 1956, Elvis Presley purchased his first home—a four-bedroom ranch house at 1034 Audubon Drive in Memphis—with the money he earned off the royalties of "Heartbreak Hotel".

During this time, Elvis would make his iconic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, record such hits as "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel," and begin his storied movie career.

[37] Rhodes students produce, film, record, and edit the shows alongside professionals such as New School Media and producer/engineer Doug Easley, and partners such as the Levitt Shell and Stax Museum of American Soul Music.

[38] After 4 years as a web series, the show has now evolved into a program that launches nationally to public arts television stations through a collaboration with NECAT.

The 2016 Rhodes College Course Catalogue offers this description the Search course: Throughout its sixty-six year history, Search has embodied the College's guiding concern for helping students to become men and women of purpose, to think critically and intelligently about their own moral views, and to approach the challenges of social and moral life sensitively and deliberately.

Students are encouraged to engage texts directly and to confront the questions and issues they encounter through discussions with their peers, exploratory writing assignments, and ongoing personal reflection.

[7][40] The curriculum has included readings from: The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Bible, the Quran, Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Thucydides, Euripides, Livy, Plutarch, Horace, Ovid, Lucretius, Seneca, Cicero, Augustine, Dante, Aquinas, Chaucer, Machiavelli, Petrarch, More, Luther, Shakespeare, Descartes, Locke, Milton, Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Goethe, Swift, Burke, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Kant, Marx, Emerson, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, de Tocqueville, Nietzsche, Darwin, Huxley, Planck, and many more.

Often cited for its beauty,[41] the campus design is notable for its stone Collegiate Gothic buildings, thirteen of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Every building on the Rhodes campus is built from three types of stone: the walls are sandstone from Arkansas, the roofs are slate from Vermont, and the door/window frames and decorative carvings are crafted from Indiana limestone.

[5] Additionally, each slate roof is built at a precise 52 degree angle and every structure (except for the visual arts building) has leaded stained-glass windows.

[44] When the first buildings were being planned in the early 1920s, architect Henry Hibbs chose for the walls a uniquely colorful sandstone with a range of reds, yellows, and browns from a quarry near Bald Knob, Arkansas.

Every student is required to sign the Code, which reads, "As a member of the Rhodes College community, I pledge my full and steadfast support to the Honor System and agree neither to lie, cheat, nor steal and to report any such violation that I may witness."

[49] Rites of Spring is Rhodes' annual three-day music festival in early April that typically attracts several major bands from around the country.

[52]The exchange of the Edmund Orgill Trophy was added to the series in 1954, and the prize takes the form of a large silver bowl that is engraved with the result of each year's game.

[44] Each features the same Arkansas sandstone walls, Vermont slate roofs, Indiana limestone trim, and stained glass windows as the rest of campus.

As a result, Rhodes' fraternity and sorority rows are composed of domestic-scale Gothic lodges featuring variations on the college's distinctive architecture.