Three Women Deans at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Are Retiring

Nena Peragallo Montano, dean of the School of Nursing at the university will retire in 2022, when the university has been able to find her successor. She has served as dean of the nursing school since 2017. Prior to Carolina, Dr. Montano was at the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies where she served as dean and professor. She was also a professor on the graduate faculty at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile School of Nursing and an adjunct professor at Australian Catholic University.

Dr. Montano holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Chile. She earned a master’s degree in nursing at West Virginia University and a doctorate in public health at the University of Texas.

Terry Rhodes, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, has decided to retire at the end of the academic year after a 34-year career at the university. Dr. Rhodes has been dean of the college since March 2020. Dr. Rhodes joined the faculty in 1987 and has served the university in a variety of roles, including director of UNC Opera, chair of the department of music, and faculty marshal. She is the first faculty member from the fine arts to be named dean of the college since it took its modern-day name in 1935.

A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, Dr. Rhodes earned a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a master’s degree in music and a doctor of musical arts degree from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York.

Susan King, dean of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media and the school’s John Thomas Kerr Distinguished Professor, will conclude her service as dean in 2022 but will remain as dean until a successor is named. King became dean in 2012. Earlier, she was vice president for external affairs at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, assistant secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor, and executive director of the Family and Medical Leave Commission. She has worked for the news departments at ABC, NBC, and CBS and anchored local television news broadcasts in Buffalo and Washington, D.C.

Dean King is a graduate of Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York. She holds a master’s degree in communications from Fairfield University in Connecticut.