SVA names interim president as deficits deepe

The School of Visual Arts has named an interim president to succeed David Rhodes, who is stepping down about a year earlier than the college had told its accreditor he would, completing the founding family's exit from an institution it sold for $1 last year.

Christopher J. Cyphers, formerly SVA's provost, became interim president June 1, the college said. Rhodes had been president since 1978.

The change comes as SVA confronts a widening budget gap. The college reported a $16 million deficit for fiscal 2026 and projected an operating shortfall of about $18 million for fiscal 2027, its accreditation self-study shows. An earlier strategic plan put the fiscal 2025 deficit at about $8 million and forecast a return to balance.

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The founding family sold the college's educational assets to the SVA Alumni Society, a nonprofit scholarship foundation established in 1972, for $1 in a transaction that closed September 1, 2025, the self-study shows. As part of the deal, the alumni society received $62.5 million in cash on settlement day — more than the tuition and fees the college held on account, the document said.

The self-study, dated February 2026 and produced by a steering committee chaired by Cyphers, said Rhodes would remain president "through the end of the 2026-27 academic year" under a two-year term. He stepped down roughly a year ahead of that timeline.

The announcement did not say why, when SVA expects to name a permanent president, whether Cyphers is a candidate, or what role Rhodes will retain, if any.

The interim appointment follows a succession plan SVA codified as part of the transition, under which the provost steps in until trustees name a permanent president. The self-study says this measure addresses a longstanding concern of its accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

Federal recognition of the college's nonprofit status remained incomplete as of the self-study. The Internal Revenue Service will not classify SVA as a nonprofit until the U.S. Department of Education does so. The college said this determination was still pending and potentially delayed by the autumn 2025 federal government shutdown.

"I want to thank our Board of Trustees for placing its faith in me to lead our institution during this transition," Cyphers said in a statement.

The deficits stem largely from a collapse in international enrollment, which the self-study partly attributed to "the White House's draconian immigration policies," including a pause on new student visas. International undergraduate enrollment fell by 624 students between fall 2022 and fall 2025, and total degree-seeking enrollment dropped by 702 over three years, to 3,425, the document shows.

The strain has reached the college's programs. Urgent Matter previously reported that SVA would end its master's program in curatorial practice, whose founder cited the college's financial challenges, and would move its MFA Art Practice program fully online while cutting per-credit tuition roughly in half.

The family's exit extends beyond the president. Anthony Rhodes, a member of the founding family who served as executive vice president, retired in November 2025, an earlier planning document shows.

SVA was founded in 1947 by Silas Rhodes and the cartoonist Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and was renamed the School of Visual Arts in 1956.

It was the first for-profit school in New York State authorized to confer bachelor's degrees. The college enrolls about 3,425 degree-seeking students and counts more than 42,000 alumni, including the artists Keith Haring and KAWS.

SVA presented the leadership change as a planned step. In its self-study, the college said its board, leadership and staff were "deeply committed to righting the ship."

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