Flannery O’Connor Institute Welcomes New Director

Georgia College & State University will welcome Dr. Katie Rhine as its new Director of the Flannery O’Connor Institute for the Humanities Oct. 1, 2026. 

A higher education veteran, Rhine most recently served as director of Arts and Humanities in Healthcare at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where she integrated the humanities into medical and STEM disciplines through exhibitions, innovative programming and leadership that focused on maternal pelvic health and postpartum recovery. 

Her work has consistently focused on bringing the humanities into the lives of communities, patients and families, work that closely aligns with the Institute's mission and the enduring legacy of Flannery O'Connor. 

"Among other concerns, Flannery O'Connor's work asks what it means to live in a body that's failing, how illness and hardship can open us to grace and how family ties strain and hold under that weight,” Rhine said. “I want the Institute's programming to carry questions like these beyond the classroom.” 

These are themes that resonate deeply with the questions at the heart of O'Connor's fiction. Rhine sees the humanities as a bridge between academic inquiry and lived experience, a perspective that drew her to the Flannery O'Connor Institute for the Humanities and its commitment to engaging both students and the broader community through conversations about literature, culture, ethics and the human condition. 

“The humanities encourage us to listen closely and ask difficult questions, read with context and care, and create new forms of expression to help us better understand one another,” Rhine added. “I am honored and excited to help guide the Institute into its next chapter." 

Rhine earned her Ph.D. from Brown University, where she concentrated her research in medical anthropology, a field that studies how illness, health and healing are shaped by cultural meanings and relations of power. She spent 15 years as a faculty member at the University of Kansas, where she built interdisciplinary and global humanities programs, including the first undergraduate minor in the country to bridge global health and medical humanities, supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities' grant. 

She is also the author of “The Unseen Things: Women, Secrecy, and HIV in Northern Nigeria” (Indiana University Press, 2016), winner of the Nigerian Studies Association Book Award. 

"Dr. Rhine's distinguished record of interdisciplinary scholarship, community engagement and innovative humanities programming makes her an exceptional addition to the Flannery O'Connor Institute for the Humanities,” said Dr. Mandy Jarriel, associate provost for Academic Affairs and director of The Graduate School. “Her vision builds upon the Institute's strong foundation in connecting students and communities in meaningful ways, inspired by the same spirit of inquiry and exploration of the human condition that characterizes O'Connor's work." 

Building on the Institute's longstanding role as a center for scholarship, dialogue and public engagement, Rhine will lead efforts to expand opportunities for collaboration while preserving and advancing the intellectual spirit and cultural legacy that have made the Flannery O'Connor Institute for the Humanities a distinctive resource for the university and the broader community.