Rhodos Fellows

Living Learning Community for Information, Design, and Computing

When college students meet each other, one of the first things they ask each other is “what’s your major?” But, what if the most important thing we wanted to know about one another was “what are you making?” That was the governing question behind the Rhodos Fellows program during my time there, a residential community of 400 students from over fifty different majors who are interested in career pathways in information, design, and computing.

I began as the founding Faculty Principal in 2018 and served until 2022. In that time, Rhodos doubled in size, and multiplied in impact. We built a stunning residential makerspace of my design, offered countless co-curricular programs for students, and made a huge difference in students’ GPAs and sense of belonging.

Just imagine it. Hundreds of the best and brightest students living together, down the hall from 24/7 access to a comfy space with wall to wall tools like 3D printers, laser cutters, digital embroiderers, and VR production gear. Then move a professor’s office into the building so that from their first semester, students have close, informal access to a faculty member who is designing out-of-class programs to supercharge the impact of their coursework.

Rhodos changed so much about how I understand and approach undergraduate education, I wish something like it had existed when I was a student.