Rhonda Phillips

 Rhonda Phillips, Ph.D, AICP, CEcD

Community investment and well-being comprise the focus of Rhonda's
research and outreach activities. With public, private and non-profit
experience, she offers both practice and academic perspectives. She is
the Associate Dean, Barrett, The Honors College, for the downtown
campus. In this capacity, she helps foster an excellent learning
environment in one of the top honors programs in the U.S. http://barretthonors.asu.edu/campuses/downtown/.
 As a professor in the School of Community Resources &
Development (http://scrd.asu.edu),
Rhonda works with faculty, staff, students and organizations to
expand the reach of community-based education and research
initiatives for enhancing quality of life. Her focus is community
planning, development, arts/cultural development and tourism planning
as well as community indicator and evaluation systems for monitoring
progress towards community well-being, development and economic
development revitalization goals. 

Rhonda was recently awarded as the 2012 International Society for
Quality-of-Life Studies' Distinguished Research Fellow. Other honors
include serving as a 2012 Fulbright Specialist to Panama, where she
is developing on a social indicators planning project. She also
served as the 2006 Fulbright UK Ulster Policy Fellow in
Northern Ireland at the University of Ulster, focusing on
heritage and cultural based community and economic development
strategies via The Township Heritage Initiative. Her work in
community development includes arts/cultural-based development as
well as community indicator systems. She is author or editor of
fifteen books, including Introduction to Community Development
(Routledge,
http://www.routledge.com/books/An-Introduction-to-Community-Development-isbn978041577385
; Concept Marketing for Communities (Greenwood Press,
http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/C6798.aspx
); and Community Development Indicators Measuring Systems
(Ashgate, www.ashgate.com/shopping/title.asp?key1=&key2=&orig=results&isbn=0%207546%204005%201).
 Along with Joe Sirgy and Don Rathz, she is the co-editor of the
Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Cases series published
through ISQOLS and Springer (www.springer.com). Rhonda recently
completed a 5 year term as Editor of Community Development,
the journal of the Community Development Society,
transitioning it to a major academic publisher, Taylor &
Francis, http://tandf.co.uk/journals/rcod.  She
is the founding editor of two new book series, Introduction to
Community Development Research and Practice  and
CDS Current Issues, both published by Routledge. 

Phillips' work prior to joining academe was in community and economic
planning and development at the state, local and regional levels;
she holds dual professional certifications in urban and regional
planning (American Institute of Certified Planners) and economic
and community development (Certified Economic and Community
Developer with the International Economic Development Council).
She is a past President of the Economic Development Division of
the American Planning Association and current Vice President of
Programs for the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies,
www.isqols.org - both elected positions. She serves on the Planning
Accreditation Board (PAB) site visitor team, the national accrediting
body for graduate and undergraduate urban and regional planning
programs in North America.