UMB’s chief business and finance officer and senior VP receives national recognition for a career of financial leadership, innovation, and developing the next generation of higher education leaders.
A slice of pizza in a busy New York City train station might not seem like the setting for a career-changing conversation.
But for Eric Jones, it was.
Jones, associate vice president for Administration and Finance at Towson University, had just attended an Eastern Association of College and University Business Officers conference when he found himself at Moynihan Train Hall with Dawn M. Rhodes, DBA, chief business and finance officer and senior vice president at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB).
Over pizza, Rhodes answered his questions about his career. More importantly, she asked some of her own.
“I walked away from that conversation inspired and grateful that someone took the time to invest in my career journey,” Jones said. “Not only answering my many questions but also asking me the tough questions I didn’t necessarily know I needed to answer.”
Four years later, Jones said, Rhodes is still asking those questions.
That commitment to developing others is one reason Rhodes has been selected to receive the 2026 Distinguished Business Officer Award from the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), one of the highest honors in higher education business and financial leadership.
“This is NACUBO’s MVP award,” Jones said. “It’s the highest annual recognition for individual achievement and acknowledges, honors, and celebrates exemplary leaders whose lifelong work has had significant positive impact on advancing business and finance administration in higher education and on the association.”
For Rhodes, the award recognizes a career spanning more than three decades in higher education, including a decade at UMB, where she oversees a $1.8 billion budget and a broad portfolio of administrative and financial operations.
It is also a career that almost never happened.
An ‘Accidental Profession’
Growing up, Rhodes had a different destination in mind: corporate law.
“There was no consideration of being a higher education professional,” she recalled during a 2021 interview for the Isaacson, Miller podcast “Searchcast.”
After earning a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting from the University of Michigan, Rhodes was working in the private sector when someone at her church mentioned an opening for the inaugural budget manager at the University of Toledo.
She was conflicted. Rhodes was intrigued by the job, but also content with where she was. She decided to apply and got the job.
“The rest is history,” she said. “I fell in love with higher education and could never see myself in any other industry.”
From that first budget position in 1992, Rhodes rose through leadership roles at the University of Toledo before becoming a vice president at Savannah State University. Her career arc included a stint as vice chancellor for finance and administration at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis before joining UMB in 2016.
Along the way, she earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Toledo and a Doctor of Business Administration from University of Maryland Global Campus.
Leading UMB Through a Crisis
At UMB, Rhodes has brought greater transparency and structure to the University’s budget process, strengthened long-term planning for deferred maintenance, and helped maintain financial stability through the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.
UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, said those accomplishments reflect a leader whose impact extends far beyond balance sheets.
“Her leadership exemplifies the very qualities NACUBO seeks to recognize: transformational impact, advancement of the profession, and sustained mentorship of future leaders,” Jarrell wrote in recommending Rhodes for the award.
Jarrell credited Rhodes with helping position UMB for long-term fiscal sustainability while navigating an increasingly complex financial environment.
“Her leadership during the post-pandemic period has been particularly noteworthy, ensuring UMB remained financially stable while many peer institutions faced structural challenges,” he said.
That ability to navigate uncertainty is rooted in a philosophy Rhodes articulated during the pandemic: A crisis demands attention to the immediate problem without losing sight of what comes next.
“You have to be able to keep your mindset in both places: here dealing with the situation, but also looking toward the future, so that you don’t shortchange your future because you’re so focused on what’s going on in the current time period,” Rhodes said in 2021.
And disruption, she noted, can create opportunity.
“A lot of times out of disruption comes innovation.”
Building a Stronger UMB
Rhodes’ decade at UMB has brought changes extending well beyond finance.
She helped revitalize the University’s Live Near Your Work program and established new offices within Administration and Finance, including the Office of Emergency Management and the Office of Sustainability. She also hired the division’s first executive director dedicated to employee and organizational success, Nicole Palmore.
She has championed efforts to support UMB’s lowest-paid employees, including expanded access to GED programming and a partnership with Goodwill Excel Center to help employees earn their high school diploma. And she helped lead the integration of UMB’s core values into University life.
That work has a personal connection. Rhodes’ doctoral dissertation, “A Guide for Higher Education Leaders: Embedding Core Values Into the Organizational Culture,” examined how institutions can make values part of everyday organizational behavior rather than words on a page. Her research helped inform UMB’s implementation of its core values in 2022.
Rhodes also has played a central role in UMB’s campus vibrancy efforts, focused on strengthening community pride, safety and cleanliness, and relationships with surrounding West Baltimore neighborhoods.
Jarrell said Rhodes’ work has helped create an environment that attracts investment and positions UMB to prosper amid rapid change.
“With leaders like Dr. Rhodes,” he said, “UMB is well positioned to thrive, even in a challenging and rapidly changing environment.”
Rhodes has long described finance and administration as both a leadership organization and a service organization.
“Service can only be delivered if we understand what our customers’ needs are, what their business is,” she said in the 2021 interview.
That requires business officers to understand much more than budgets. They need to understand the work of faculty, students, researchers, clinicians, administrators, and the communities their institutions serve.
At UMB, Rhodes has applied that philosophy by broadening participation in financial planning and emphasizing transparency around difficult decisions. Her approach has included cross-functional groups that bring faculty, staff, students, and administrators into discussions of financial conditions and priorities.
An Impact Beyond UMB
Rhodes’ influence on higher education includes the organization that recognized her efforts.
She served on the NACUBO Board of Directors from 2011 to 2018, contributing to its Finance and Audit Committee as well as initiatives focused on analytics and shared services. She participated in advocacy for higher education on Capitol Hill, served on national advisory groups, and has shared her expertise through NACUBO conferences, leadership programs, workshops, podcasts, and webcasts.
One contribution, however, stands out because of its continuing effect on the profession.
Rhodes chaired NACUBO’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Next Generation Business Officer, which developed the foundational concept for the NACUBO Fellows Program. Launched with its first cohort in 2016, the program prepares emerging leaders for chief business officer roles.
More than half of its alumni have since advanced in their careers, including more than 30 who have become chief business officers.
Jarrell called Rhodes’ role in creating the program a “legacy-level contribution to the profession.”
It also reflects something Rhodes has practiced personally throughout her career.
She has mentored more than 25 professionals through NACUBO, regional organizations, and the universities where she has worked. At a time when higher education faces a shrinking pipeline of candidates for chief business officer positions, Rhodes has made developing the next generation a priority.
“This is a wonderful, ever-evolving, challenging profession,” Rhodes has said, “and we need more people interested in becoming a CBO as the pipeline shrinks.”
For Jones, those numbers tell only part of the story.
He is one of the people behind them.
“I am fortunate enough to be one of many professionals Dawn has influenced and mentored, and her guidance has been pivotal in my career,” he said.
Rhodes’ mentorship, Jones said, is not simply encouragement. She challenges people. She asks difficult questions. And she expects them to do the work necessary to find the answers.
It is mentorship with accountability.
“I could spend all day talking about Dawn’s many accomplishments, but what makes her truly deserving of this honor is her commitment to mentorship and her passion for strengthening the pipeline of future chief business officers,” Jones said. “She has a unique ability to challenge, encourage, and invest in others.”
And sometimes, apparently, all she needs to do it is a couple of chairs, a conversation, and a slice of pizza in the middle of a bustling New York train station.