The Rhodes College Board of Trustees has voted unanimously to extend the contract of President Jennifer Collins for an additional five years, keeping her at the helm through June 2031. Collins began serving as the college’s 21st president on July 1, 2022.
“The board is 100 percent behind President Collins and truly appreciates the incredible work she has already done and will continue to do to move Rhodes forward,” said Deborah Craddock, chair of the Rhodes College Board of Trustees.
Important milestones that have occurred during Collins’ tenure include Rhodes moving into the top 50 in U.S. News & World Report’s rankings for liberal arts colleges. The college’s fundraising has increased 23 percent in the last fiscal year, realizing its highest total of gifts and pledges to the college’s endowment since 2007. Rhodes has also increased the percentage of students in its entering classes from lower-income backgrounds and increased the resources available to support them and first-generation students.
“Working in close partnership with our faculty and staff, we have launched a number of important new initiatives, such as an expanded Lynne and Henry Turley Memphis Center for Community Engagement, a more comprehensive Center for Career and Professional Development to better support our students, and a performing arts task force to evaluate how we might grow our offerings and take full advantage of our location in this wonderful cultural hub of Memphis,” said Collins. “I am eager to continue to move this great college forward into its next chapter of successes and am so thankful to have the opportunity to work every day with our extraordinary students, staff, faculty, and alumni.”
Rhodes is consistently ranked among the nation’s most beautiful campuses by Architectural Digest and is recognized as a top value college by Money magazine and The Princeton Review. Forbes also consistently recognizes Rhodes as one of America’s Top Colleges.
Rhodes has approximately 1,700 students representing 45 states and 40 countries, with 17 percent being first-generation students.