SENIOR SPOTLIGHT
“MY PARENTS, RELATIVES, MENTORS, TEACHERS, AND KAPPA BROTHERS NEVER ALLOWED ME TO SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRITY. IT WAS EXCELLENCE OR NOTHING. ” - Dr. Rodney Coates
Coates believes mentoring young Nupes is crucial.
his intellectual welfare and further his position in life, Coates began pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Illinois at Springfield. His passion for Sociology opened doors in political spheres, which led him to begin working for Cecile Partee (Alpha Theta 1938), the President Pro Tempore of the Illinois State Senate in 1974. His career took a pivotal turn when he moved to Chicago in 1978 to work for Illinois State Senator Richard H. “Dick” Newhouse (Alpha Omicron 1941), who became the first African American candidate to run for Mayor of Chicago. The city's political landscape fascinated Coates, and his dissertation at the Univer- sity of Chicago explored the historic election that saw the rise of Chicago’s first Black Mayor, Harold Washington.
Balancing full-time work with academics, Coates spent 11 years completing his graduate studies at the University of Chicago, earn- ing his Ph.D. in 1987. His academic path was influ- enced by some of the most prominent sociologists of the time, including Dr. Wil- liam Julius Wilson, who was the only African American professor in the University of Chicago’s Social Sciences department. “My parents, relatives, mentors, teachers, and Kappa brothers never allowed me to settle for mediocrity. It was excel- lence or nothing. My father used to say, ‘If you can’t be the best, then why waste your time?' Excellence became a standard by which I measured myself and became the rubric by which I measured my students,” he says.
Lecturing Miami University athletes on campus.
Coates with the Cincinnati Scholars Program.
FALL 2025 ♦ THE JOURNAL 21
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