Even at Kenyon, where faculty members have a reputation for a high level of creative and scholarly output, Royal Rhodes, the Donald L. Rogan Professor of Religious Studies, has an unusually impressive record. He has written or co-written four books, provided the introduction to Webster's New World Bible Dictionary, and served as a consultant to the Harvard Theological Review. What's even more impressive is that he still finds the time to make teaching his top priority.

Honored by Kenyon's Class of 1993 as the faculty member deemed to have given the most to the graduating class, and a 1994 recipient of the College's Trustee Award for Distinguished Teaching, Rhodes believes his prolific writing on the history of Christianity only makes him a better teacher.

"We ask our students to research and write, so it's important for them to see faculty members doing the same thing," says Rhodes, who came to Kenyon in 1979. "Classroom teaching is intimately linked with research and writing."

Although he earned his graduate degrees from Harvard and Yale, Rhodes is not modest about Kenyon's religious studies department. "This is the best in the country," he says. "And I know the other departments. I've taught some of the people running them."