Sculptor Brown Honored with Cox Professorship
Sculpture Professor Jason Brown has been named a James R. Cox Professor by the Provost of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The three-year award recognizes faculty members for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service.
“The University of Tennessee is honored to have scholars of your caliber among our faculty, and we look forward to the continued excellence and innovation your work will bring to our academic community in the years ahead,” Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor John P. Zomchick said in the letter announcing the selection.
Brown began teaching at UT in 2001, and his artwork appears in international solo and group exhibitions. He is involved in several collaborative projects, including the Land Report Collective, in which interdisciplinary artwork explores land use and human relationships with the natural world.
“Jason’s sculptural projects with the Land Report Collective, which address the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining throughout Southern Appalachia, offer an excellent example of how the arts can engage viewers with important environmental questions,” said Divisional Dean for Arts and Humanities Beauvais Lyons. “Given the emphasis of the Cox Professorship on the biological and physical sciences, as well as the arts, he represents a most appropriate recipient for this award.”
Established in 2002 with gifts from Cox, a Knoxville native, the professorship is awarded to faculty in the arts, theater, biological and physical sciences, architecture, and forestry industries. It includes a stipend of $10,000 per year.
“I’m honored to receive this support and recognition,” Brown said. “It motivates me to work harder, and it also lifts my spirit to know that other people appreciate my contributions to the community of UT Knoxville and the field of sculpture.”
Expanding Impact of Art
Brown’s reach as an educator extends beyond the School of Art and the UT campus.
He is a leader in a collaboration with the UT Tickle College of Engineering to prepare skilled metalworkers. Bootcamps launched during the 2024-2025 academic year in the art building foundry are part of the Metallurgical Engineering Trades Apprenticeship & Learning (METAL) program.
Over the past three years he also has forged a partnership with a nonprofit community-based arts organization, the Cattywampus Puppet Council. The community art course he co-teaches with the council’s director works with Knoxville elementary and middle school students in afterschool programs and culminates in an annual parade featuring giant puppets.
The Art 499 Special Topics course is offered in the spring semester and has been funded for the past two academic years by the Community-University Research Collaboration Initiative (CURCI).
Seeing Art as a Career
Brown will be exhibiting his sculpture and artwork on June 20 at Knoxville’s Candoro Marble Building with Tri-Star Arts.
“I’m an artist and educator, which enables me to share my passion for making art and creative problem-solving with others,” he said. “It is a privilege and honor to be able to work as an artist in an academic community, especially a research university.”
Brown began making art as a child but didn’t see it as a potential career until he was in middle school. “As I started meeting other professional artists and finding mentors in teachers and artists in the local art community, I began to realize that my creative practice could include both play and work,” he said.
As an undergraduate he began to focus on sculpture, which engages his ability to think spatially and allows him to use different tools to make three-dimensional forms. “I have always liked working with my hands in various material and technical processes that involve physical labor,” Brown said. He went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
Brown discovered his passion for being an educator as a graduate teaching assistant at RSID and Brown University. “It became clear that I found a lot of reward and inspiration in working with undergraduate students,” he said.
Brown received a Heart and Soul Award from the UT Faculty Senate in 2024, and the College of Arts and Sciences honored him with a Senior-Level Excellence in Teaching Award in 2023.
By Amy Beth Miller