The Lion and her Lambs

Her cozy little house is an ode to tranquility. Upon arrival, you are transported to a serene Caribbean beach where soft light filters down through the trees on a lazy afternoon and the fronds of the wide-leaved potted plants stretch out to greet you. The sunroom opens out to the front courtyard where wooden lawn chairs invite you to pause and inhale the balmy breeze.

 This is the home of Dr. Leara Rhodes, an associate professor at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. In many ways, the house exudes its owner’s personality. For the first time in many years, Rhodes says, she feels peaceful and in-tune with herself. “Warm is a term that encompasses her,” says Amber Roessner, one of Rhodes’ former teaching assistants. “She’s like a glass of hot tea.”

 “I love being in nature, I love flowers and working in the garden,” Rhodes says. “That’s why in any room of my house you can look outside.” Nature is one of the great loves of her life. Her daughter, her father and the ocean are the others.

Warm and cool color palettes expertly mingle to create a feeling of balance and calm. Rich yellows, seascape blues and lots and lots of purple. The porch is purple, the dining area is purple – even the couch is purple.

Purple is her favorite color. It’s bold, vivacious. “I see life in colors,” Rhodes says. “My house is bright. Even though the walls are gray, you can’t walk in this room and not feel that there’s color.” Hand-crafted cultural pieces used as décor ensure this.

Dr. Leara Rhodes could never be gray.

This, however, makes the secluded feel of her refuge all the more ironic. “Listen,” she whispers, her arms outstretched. Nothing. “Silence.” This is not always the case at the Rhodes residence. “She’ll have huge parties where I can hear the Haitian drumming walking up the street,” says Rhodes’ daughter, Jessica.

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“She’s such a personality,” Jessica says. This impression is not unique among Rhodes’ many friends, students, peers and colleagues. Danny Bivins, a faculty member at the Fanning Institute who worked with Rhodes on a multiple-disciplinary project in 2006, describes her as energetic, enthusiastic and quick to smile.

“I’m very demonstrative,” Rhodes says. “I talk with my hands. I make big movements. I laugh loudly. I’m not a quiet person by any means.” She is the epitome of her zodiac sign, the Leo. “I’ve had people walk up to me and identify me by my zodiac,” she says. “I have wild hair. When it’s longer, it’s just like a mane. It’s out there. I’m bigger than life.”

 This outgoing, winning personality contributes in part to the types of bonds Rhodes has formed with the people in her life and the exuberance with which she pursues her career teaching international communications and magazine writing, management, editing and design. “I think she truly does care about her students more than anything else,” Bivins says. He remembers the dedication to their success that she showed while working with him. “She knew exactly what her students would need, and on those issues, she did not compromise.”

Jessica says that because of her mother’s attitude and methodology, it took her a long time to distinguish between a role model, a mentor and a teacher. “Anyone can be a role model, because interaction isn’t so key,” she explains, “and many people can become a mentor by just taking someone under their wing. But to really be a teacher and to be able to cultivate an understanding with somebody … is an astounding thing to be able to do, and I feel like mom does that very well.”

Roessner agrees wholeheartedly about Rhodes’ techniques, emphasizing how Rhodes is always willing to take time out to listen to what her students have to say and to offer a strong level of nurturing support.

“I think that she’s a constant source of information and encouragement,” she says. “She is her students’ biggest advocate and she gives invaluable insight to her students. She’s always willing to go the extra mile and she’s someone students can count on when they do get out in the working world to continue to serve in a mentoring role.” Roessner thinks this is the reason that Rhodes is one of the few professors she knows of who has such a huge following – a pool of former students who still contact her because of that rich relationship they cultivated with her in the classroom.

“She’s stayed in touch with so many students over the years, so I know she’s made a really big impact on them,” Bivins says. Her connections have indeed become deeply rooted in many cases. For instance, Rhodes recalls receiving dozens of sympathy emails from former graduate students when they learned of the death of her beloved dog, Cocoa. And Jessica says it’s not out of the ordinary for her to come down to Athens to visit her mother and spend the evening at Farm 255, a local restaurant, listening to her mother’s former students drum and play jazz.

“I would define myself as a teacher,” Rhodes says. “I love the mentoring aspect and I have students of mine from 19 years ago that still use me as a mentor.” She’s often been included in her students’ wedding plans, birthday celebrations and announcements.

She was once invited to read a poem at a student’s wedding, and she just recently threw a baby shower for another. “It makes teaching so worthwhile,” Rhodes beams. “It’s something we’re sharing. It’s a two-way street. It takes place over years, not just their time at Georgia.”

Rhodes bridges the gap between confidant, teacher and friend, providing a support system for her students that many of them have never known. “To me, she’s very matriarchal,” Roessner says. “She has a mothering personality and is very encouraging and friendly. She taught me to be confident and true to myself.” And despite how long Rhodes has been teaching, her passion has never diminished. “I know she’s been at it for a long time,” Bivins says, “but she’s still enthusiastic and I think that’s a rare trait.”

She is so steadfastly committed to these principles that she doesn’t let anything hold her back – not even her insecurities. “We’re talking about a woman who went through a coup in Haiti and had to be evacuated by the CIA,” Jessica states flatly. “Even if she’s afraid of something, it’s not going to stop her.” To this end, Rhodes has used her hardships to her advantage in her quest to help others.

Rhodes has significant hearing loss, a consequence of an illness that she picked up in Trinidad. If you enunciate, she can hear you, but if you swallow your consonants, she’s lost. As a journalist and a communications professor, for many, this would be crippling.

 “I tease and say it’s made me a better teacher,” she says. “I don’t stand behind a lectern. I get right up at you; I talk to you. I interchange with the students more. I don’t allow them to slip and slide – I really want to hear what they say.” Rhodes admits that she was embarrassed at first, and thought “I’m not going to let people know my frailties.” But after observing a friend of hers at Northwestern University who wears a hearing aid and seeing how upfront he was about his condition, she started doing the same. “Students are remarkable,” she says. “They understand that people have their limitations, and this is mine … They’ve always been very gracious.”

This has not been her only ailment, however. Bivins recognized another one of the hurdles that Rhodes encountered as he came to know her. “Underneath the happiness and a bubbly personality, I think that there’s a real depth to her, and probably some real sadness too … I think she’s seen some stuff, been around the block a few times,” he says.

In fact, Rhodes suffered from depression for a number of years, and she admits that she allowed it to do many negative things in her life. But she has turned her experience with the disease around into the work that she now does with Nuci’s Space, a non-profit health and music resource center in Athens, as a faculty advisor. She says she believes that people need to have “healthy heads,” and she doesn’t have a problem with talking about the issue. “It shouldn’t be a secret,” she says. She’ll help however she can.

The fact of the matter is that all of these characteristics that make Rhodes who she is can  be condensed into one simple truth, a personal reflection that manages to encapsulate her and all her complexities in spite of its brevity.

“I like people,” Rhodes says, when asked to describe herself.

Such a statement would be a token or off-hand remark coming from almost anyone else. But for Rhodes, it speaks truly and without any attempt at appearances. It is a common thread that weaves itself into every aspect of her life.

She doesn’t mind meeting strangers, and she likes to travel because she can see new things and experience new people. Her career-defining interest in international communications and diversity grew out of this genuine love for humanity and as a response to her upbringing.

“I wasn’t raised that way,” Rhodes says. “I was raised in a white, rural, prejudiced, bigoted environment. Even though it was religious, it was very one-headed. And I was not encouraged to look outside that box. But there was always something there, even as a child.” She remembers wanting to know why she couldn’t date the Jewish boy she worked with and separating herself from her family’s preconceived notions. “I said ‘I really like people.’ I enjoy the cultures. I enjoy the uniqueness. I haven’t left my southern-ness, but I think there’s room for all of it.”

It’s the reason why she owns a piano, just to encourage people to come into her home and play. It’s the reason why she’s traveled all throughout Europe, the Caribbean and even to Africa, and still has several places she wants to go and cultures she yearns to experience.

It’s why, among the veritable laundry list of honors, scholarships, fellowships, recognitions and awards she’s amassed (the woman’s curriculum vitae is an intimidating 24 pages long), the ones she is most proud of are her two diversity awards (the Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship and the University of Georgia’s first Diversity award) and her Haitian Studies Association Service award.

It’s why she describes her most rewarding experiences as the people she’s known and the traveling she’s done and why her hallmark moments as a professor of education are, in her words, “the ovations I get at the end of the semester at the last class. I know my students have worked hard and show appreciation for what I bring to the classroom.”

“Leara was one of those people willing to take that chance of working with different people,” Bivins says. For Jessica, it’s the reason why everywhere she goes, she’s told “you should check in with this person.” Wherever she is, her mother knows someone and has forged that lasting connection with them. “Her contacts reach far and wide,” Jessica says.

This love of community and closeness is even the reason why Rhodes doesn’t wear clothes with any visible labels. “Everyone knows my mantra of buy local, support local, go to local restaurants, go to local stores,” Rhodes says. “I’m a big believer in the community, and I think you ought to put back in the community the things you get out of it…I love being able to walk into a restaurant and know people.” One day, she recalls, she walked into Farm 255 in downtown Athens and the owner sat down with her and chatted. “I love that about Athens, about my life and about the people that I come in touch with. They’re special. They share those minutes with me.”

It’s obvious to Roessner how well Rhodes has described herself. “Her love and affection towards people is evident in her daily life,” she says. “In every activity that she does, it gets back to the way she cares about her students and forges that relationship with them. She has to love people to give so much of herself … for her to make such deep connections with students that would only be in her life for a chapter and to develop long-lasting relationships that will keep them in her life forever.”

If you ask Rhodes what her mission in life is, she’ll laugh and tell you it’s “to feed students around the world.” And if you ask her what message she hopes to give to the world, or at least the university community, she’ll tell you it’s that the students matter and the relationships you build with them are what build a great institution.

“I like people,” she says.

It’s why she she’s happiest when she’s teaching, visiting her daughter or having a good meal with friends, and most frustrated when she’s talking to someone she cares a great deal about and they’re not listening.

And at the same time, it’s the reason why there seems to be just one common piece of advice for Rhodes amidst her social circle: not to let her love for others overshadow her love for herself.

“She spends so much time caring for and nurturing others,” Roessner says. “I would tell her to turn that back on herself and make sure she’s caring for and nurturing herself. People who extend themselves as much as she does sometimes neglect themselves.”  Jessica agrees. “So long she put me first,” she says. And while she always appreciated it, she knows how important it is for her mother to put herself first once in awhile.

Aside from that, the general opinion is that Rhodes should and will stay her course. After all, she’s done pretty well. “There are certain people you worry about and certain people you don’t,” Bivins says. “I don’t worry about Leara.”

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In Rhodes’ kitchen, which has seen many a dinner party (some with four-course Italian meals that take five hours to eat), stands a testament to her legacy too intriguing to overlook. On a shelf above the counter nearly brimming over with its contents, a hoard of odd wine goblets stands, each anxiously awaiting its next affair.

“I collect wine goblets and they’re all different,” Rhodes says. “They’re all one of a kind. At dinner parties, you choose your goblet and keep up with it because it’s the only one like it.”

This tradition makes sense, if you use her life’s philosophy as a template. First, collect individuals because they are unique. Then, stay in touch.