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eric o
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 3:29 am
from wmctv.com
Music mogul makes large investment in Rhodes College
Oct 5, 2006 05:18 PM
A music mogul announced Thursday that he wants to invest in the Bluff City. Producer Mike Curb announced he would give Rhodes College a $5 million grant to fund a music institute, to focus on Memphis' rich musical legacy.
"Our hope is that this new institute for music at Rhodes can study history- music history primarily," Curb said.
A key focus of the new program will be research projects that study the history of Stax Records, and its formula for success. Students will also study the history of Sun Records, Hi Records, and other aspects of the Memphis music scene.
"It's very important to know where music has been, and how it was created, if we are going to understand where we are going to go in the future," Curb said.
Students in the Mike Curb institute will also visit schools like the Stax Academy, mentoring youth and helping them choose career paths in the music industry.
"You develop a relationship," said Russ Wiggington of Rhodes College. "You develop a bond, and these young students at Stax Academy are already starting to think about college."
The institute will be headquartered on Rhodes campus. Curb recently purchased Elvis Presley's first home on Audubon Street in East Memphis, and plans are underway to use that house for music workshops.
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sherman
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 4:04 am
Rumor is radio rhodes is back up on this plan too...
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elle
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 5:00 am
neat. i wish that i could go study music history there. that'd be a cool major. i don't want to necessarily be in the music industry at all. i just like the history of music here in this city. pretty cool stuff. too bad it costs a bazillion dollars to go there to rhodes.
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eric o
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 6:16 pm
yeah. how many students at rhodes are from memphis?
rhodes is an asset to the city. but the students there have a bunch of opportunities. i think helping the music dept at the university of memphis just makes more sense and gives some kids opportunities who could use 'em.
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sherman
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 7:19 pm
That's a tough one. U. of M. is in such perpetual mediocre mode that it's tough if you're a big donor to want to give a nice donation like this to the school, knowing it might be shelved for lack of funding or interest. Self-perpetuating mediocrity. I don't disagree that they need it more, but I'd be loathe to give anything to u. of m. seeing how they run things over there.
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sherman
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 7:24 pm
P.S. Before anyone gets all hot & bothered about the revitalized radio station, I've also heard it's gonna be a lotta talk/arts crap. Boring!
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elle
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 8:23 pm
u of m is in a perpetual mediocre mode. they find it a better idea to use money to revitalize campus buildings than they do to invest that money in the students and education. it sucks.
i hate that i sit in the shittiest building to go to class every single day, when they're rebuilding the uc building. the fed ex sponsored building (housing the business school) has all these bells and whistles and the history building doesn't even have proper heating and air conditioning. going to class in either winter or summer is miserable. another building for the law school has a leaky library! it's insane what they decide to fix and not fix. the building they're fixing really wasn't that bad off. i can think of a lot of other places that could use upgrades instead of knocking down a building and putting something else in its place.
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Buck Wilders
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 11:00 pm
I doubt there are any students at Rhodes who even know who Mike Curb is.
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sherman
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 11:34 pm
I doubt there are any U. of M. students who do either.
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elle
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 11:37 pm
ahem. i go to u of m. :P
and i'm sure there are more.
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Mark Rochambeaux
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 11:43 pm | Edited by: Mark Rochambeaux
Rhodes might remind Curb of Belmont, which is where probably half of his staff went ...
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sherman
Member
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Posted: Oct 6, 2006 11:46 pm
My point was just a follow-up to Buck's neither-here-nor-there point--that he is not that well-known outside the music industry, and I would submit that 99.9% of any college population would never have heard of him without his donations to Rhodes and a couple other Tennessee colleges.
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eric o
Member
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Posted: Oct 7, 2006 1:49 am
all right, then maybe create a self-serving and kick-ass music business school... doesn't fed ex have some technology building, and holiday inn have hotel management curriculum? i don't know. ????
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Mark Rochambeaux
Member
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Posted: Oct 7, 2006 1:55 am
they've already got one, eric. It's a pretty good program.
Sherman's right, though -- the kids just don't like Debby Boone these days.
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fierydrunk
Member
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Posted: Oct 7, 2006 2:25 am
What would be really beneficial and interesting to attempt to do is allow a shared program of sorts so that people from U of M could take courses within that program at Rhodes that count for credit toward a minor (or a major?) at U of M. This would be particularly good for grad students at U of M. You know there are qualified professors there that could make the program at Rhodes even stronger and vice versa. I don't even know if something like this could even work but it would shore up both schools and be more realistic.
If this was Southwestern at Memphis, I'd trust it more, but Rhodes since it became Rhodes started detaching and isolating itself so much from the community. My dad and mom went to S.A.M. along with my godparents. They all put a lot back into Memphis for a long time and both of my parents went to U of M for advanced degrees. Rhodes doesn't seem to try to be the same kind of school. Am I totally off base? I haven't lived there in so long I could be talking about something that isn't as accurate.
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sherman
Member
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Posted: Oct 7, 2006 2:45 am
The new guy at Rhodes is much better than the previous guy about opening the school to the community. The previous guy shut the campus off, built a fence around campus, shut down the radio station etc. The new guy has been building bridges in the community.
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Theresa K
Member
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Posted: Oct 8, 2006 10:10 pm
Rhodes might remind Curb of Belmont, which is where probably half of his staff went ...
i worked for curb records in the 80s doing record promotion - worked w/ lyle lovett and the judds. curb records also released a lot of soundtracks. MCA distributed them. it wasn't all pablum like debby boone. thankfully for me. it was only 90% crap.
mike curb's staff were scary people. the chief of staff was a guy named dick whitehead who we naturally called white dickhead.
curb was also incredibly political and his sister was in line for an ambassadorship which she blew by having a baby out of wedlock w/ a man who was married to some other woman in the diplomatic corps.... how very peyton place/dallas/falcon crest! of course, curb's sister was in line to be the ambassador to luxembourg... big political ally and all. haha
anyway.... i'm glad that curb is putting his money into education rather than behind george bush. he has more money than anyone i've ever worked with. drove a rolls (without a driver) around LA, for starters
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