Cross & Crescent

On April 14, 2000, Dr. William E. Troutt (Union 1970) was formally inaugurated as the 19th president of Rhodes College’s, a perennial top-tier liberal arts college located in Memphis, Tennessee.

Over the next four years, he led the college community in the creation of the widely endorsed Rhodes Vision, which charts the institutional course for the foreseeable future.

Troutt’s tenure as Rhodes’ president has already been remarkably successful. Among other accomplishments, the college has:

• Climbed to the top tier of national liberal arts colleges
• Achieved higher retention and enrollment rates
• Increased diversity on the campus
• Developed a student research partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
• Secured the largest gift in Rhodes history — $42 million to build the Paul Barret Jr. Library.

“When I arrived, Rhodes was obviously a very strong institution,” Troutt says. “And we’re even stronger today….We have been able to recenter the campus around arguably the best new library on any college campus — the Barret Library.

In addition, the school is focused on a number of other improvements, including a $250 million financial campaign primarily for fellowships and scholarships.

“We’ve raised more cash than in the history of school and are very optimistic about that,” he says. “That’s allowed us to bring terrific students here. We have built some fantastic partnerships beyond the campus. For instance, if you’re here in the sciences you have a chance now as a Rhodes student to spend 15 months in a very close relationship with a world class scientist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.”

“We’ve been able to connect opportunities for students beyond the classroom that are really extraordinary in a number of areas that really make the Rhodes education unique.”

As a result, the college’s applicant pool is up now to about 4,000 students for 460 places, resulting in tremendous geographic diversity.

At Rhodes, about half the students choose to affiliate with a fraternity or sorority.

“I think we’ve got just a terrific relationship between the administration and the Greek organizations,” Troutt says. “We work together. I’m really proud of what chapters here are doing in philanthropy in particular…what they raise every year for the St. Jude Children’s Hospital through the Greek organizations is very impressive.”

Rhodes prides itself on being a college where a high percentage of students are involved in community service.

“I give our fraternities and sororities a lot of credit for helping sustain that and encourage that,” he says. “Obviously, I’m proud of what they do on the leadership front. We have a great relationship here.”

Troutt believes Greek life is important at Rhodes.

“It’s a wonderful situation at Rhodes where if students want to affiliate it’s a normative thing to do and if they don’t want to affiliate that’s normative also,” he says.

Belmont Legacy

Prior to becoming president of Rhodes, Troutt served as president of Belmont University from 1982 to 1999, where he was named one of the nation’s most effective college presidents in a study funded by the Exxon Foundation.

Belmont is a private, coeducational, liberal arts university located in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the largest Christian university in Tennessee and the second largest private university in the state.

Becoming president of Belmont was a dream come true for Troutt, and it occurred when he was just 32 years old. This made him the youngest college president in the United States.

During his tenure at Belmont, Troutt was named one of the nation’s most effective college presidents in a national study funded by the Exxon Foundation.

“I think first of all it’s humbling because it came from an assessment that was driven by peers,” he says. “So you are always grateful when other people, other college presidents, think you are doing something useful.”

“I expect it was a combination of being able to change the trajectory of Belmont in a dramatic way,” he says about the recognition. “When we came, the average ACT score was 15, and when I left it was 25. And we were able to really strengthen the college remarkably in terms of its finances. We were able to build a number of buildings. We were able to renovate pretty much the campus and do some things that changed the way Nashville, in particular, looked at Belmont.”

He also supported the decision to move up to Division I athletics during his time there, which some people saw as a bold move for a smaller institution.

“I think we were able to take a college that was small, very local-oriented, tightly affiliated with the Baptist church, and it became certainly a school with a national reach and a place with some very distinctive programs in music, in music business in particular, graduate programs in business and the health related professions that really shaped its identity, made it a much stronger institution than it had been.”

In honor of his 17-year service to Belmont, the university recently named a new theater in honor of Troutt and his wife, Carol.

Higher Ed Financial Advocate

Well known nationally for his contributions to higher education, Troutt chaired the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education in the late 1990s.

This commission was an 11-member panel charged with addressing public concerns about rising college prices and making recommendations for keeping American higher education affordable.

The commission’s findings and recommendations, which received bipartisan Congressional support and the endorsement of the higher education community, served as a guide for the Higher Education Reauthorization Act of 1998.

“No. 1, I think the contribution we made in our study has helped change how people at least think about the challenge,” Troutt says.

Higher education economics is a concept that most people do not understand because it’s so different from the world of business.

“In the world of business, price equals cost plus profit.” he says. “In education, it’s fundamentally different. Price equals cost minus subsidy. It’s been very difficult for policy makers and the American public to really understand it.

Troutt has been on a personal mission through Congressional testimony to help raise this issue. He also works very hard on this issue at Rhodes.

“On the other side, I’ve tried to lead the way on how we can manage our costs and align our aid in ways that help with this difficult challenge that American families have,” he says. “I think colleges also have to be consistently attentive to being creative in thinking about how we manage costs and add value.”

Union and Lambda Chi

In high school, Troutt did so well in physics his high school physics teacher wanted him to attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

“But I was a very much involved as a young person in my local church, and my pastor really gave me a compelling argument that I should be a minister,” he says. “So I put aside physics and engineering and elected to go to a local Baptist college.”

But as things often go, especially when others tell you what you ought to be doing, you discover what your own talents are.

“Along the way, I decided that I definitely did not want to be a minister but became enamored with the college experience, and obviously my Lambda Chi experience was part of that,” Troutt says. “And I really set my sights as a college senior that I wanted to be a college president.”

When Troutt decided to join Lambda Chi at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, the chapter was in a rebuilding process, and by the time he graduated they had completely revitalized the chapter.

“It was just the attraction of an opportunity to be part of something that was making a difference,” he says about joining the Fraternity.

At Lambda Chi, he found many lifelong friends and brothers, and he learned many life lessons from his experiences. He also had the opportunity to develop his leadership and communication skills by serving as the chapter’s scholarship chairman.

“In communication, you don’t just say something once, you say it at least a dozen times.”