On Friday, August 25, 1978, David Rhodes was appointed the second President of the College. There was no press coverage of this event because of the city-wide newspaper strike from August 10th to November 5th. Despite the lack of newspaper advertising, SVA records show that Continuing Education enrollment increased. On August 24th of 2018 David Rhodes completed his 40th year as President of SVA.
In 1978, SVA had 4 undergraduate programs: Film, Fine Arts, Media Arts and Photography. Today, SVA has 11 undergraduate programs and 21 graduate programs.
In 1978, the College was housed in five locations with no student residences. Today, the campus consists of 16 locations, including four student residences and the SVA Theatre.
In 1978 the SVA Library housed a collection of 18,000 volumes, 28,000 slides with no picture collection. Today there are 79,517 titles, 171,740 eBooks, 650 periodical titles, 37,626 digital periodicals, 7,533,430 digital images and 275,000 prints in the picture collection.
In 1978, undergraduate enrollment was 1,844. The 2018 Fall enrollment is 3,716 undergraduate students and 626 graduate students from 46 states, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and 53 countries.
In 1978, there were 7 academic advisors. Today there are 17.
In 1978, the six-year graduation rate was 43%. Today it is 72%.
Congratulations to President Rhodes on the occasion of this remarkable milestone.
