Betsy Towns

Betsy Towns is an artist, designer, art historian and educator. A lifelong interdisciplinary educator, Towns has taught and administered programs for students from early childhood to graduate in a wide variety of traditional and experimental learning settings. As an artist, she creates works for galleries and has designed and built large-scale grant-funded interpretive public art installations in ceramic relief and directed design of immersive education experiences.

I give students space to take risks and puzzle through their own artistic sensibilities by grappling with those of other great artists and thinkers... I help them to think deeply, critically and creatively—expressing themselves in a diverse contemporary range of modes.

Betsy Towns

Awards, Recognitions and Honors

• Morehead Scholar
• UNCSA Excellence in Teaching Award
• UNC Chapel Hill Undergraduate Teaching Award Recipient
• Honors in Creative Writing
• Luce Fellowship recipient
• Joseph Pogue Fellowship Recipient

Career Highlights

• Principal/Lead Designer for NC Zoological Park Children’s immersive exhibit Master Plan
• Recapturing Childhood, Solo Exhibit RedSky Gallery
• Charlotte Arts Council Permanent public sculpture Irwin Creek Center

Organizations

• Southeastern College Art Association
• National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts
• College Art Association
• Phi Beta Kappa