Terry Rhodes was appointed interim dean of the College of Arts & Sciences on Feb. 26, 2019.
As Senior Associate Dean for Fine Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts & Sciences since 2012, Rhodes has long championed the value of the arts and humanities to a well-rounded education throughout her more than three decades at Carolina.
As interim dean, Rhodes will oversee the largest academic unit at Carolina with nearly 17,000 undergraduate students and 2,500 graduate students, and more than 70 academic departments, curricula, programs, centers and institutes.
She is currently principal investigator on the Humanities for the Public Good initiative from the Mellon Foundation, which seeks to bridge the silos between academic research, teaching and the communities they serve. She was also co-P.I. on the Carolina Digital Humanities Initiative, also funded by Mellon, which created partnerships and programs that promote innovation, interdisciplinary connections, and collaboration around digital teaching, research and outreach in the arts and humanities.
She also led the steering committee for the Carolina’s Human Heart: Living the Arts and Humanities yearlong celebration in the 2016-17 academic year. That effort showcased the important role that the arts, humanities and qualitative social sciences play in helping us address the major issues of our time.
Throughout her time in the College, Rhodes has sought to strengthen scholarship and increase diversity and inclusion. She has worked closely with the College’s director of faculty diversity initiatives and the departmental diversity liaisons on matters of faculty recruitment and graduate student admissions. She received the University Diversity Award in 2011.
A Carolina alumna and a proud Carolina parent, Rhodes joined the faculty in 1987, and has since served the University in a variety of roles, including as a member of the voice faculty, UNC Opera Director, Chair of the Music Department and Faculty Marshal.
A native of Raleigh, Rhodes earned her bachelor of music degree from Carolina and her doctor of musical arts and master of music from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York. As a Fulbright Artist-in-Residence/Lecturer at the Conservatory of Music in Skopje, Macedonia, she has taught and performed throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe, as well as in Spoleto, Italy, for the past 15 years. At ease both in recital and onstage, she has an excellent reputation as a performer of new works, having presented numerous premieres at home and abroad. She has performed across the country, and in more than 20 countries throughout Europe, Central and South America.
