Rhodes served as president of the School of Visual Arts for six years. Rhodes guided the school's growth. Under his presidency, the School of Visual Arts became the largest independently run college of art in the country, with nearly 2,700 students, well up from its original 35 students. The school currently enrolls more than 3,300 undergrad and graduate students as of 2007. Rhodes successfully persuaded the New York State Board of Regents to allow the school to confer a bachelor's degree in fine arts in the 1970s.