Betsy Towns

Betsy Towns is a professor of Art History and Creative Practice, director of Core 1 Curriculum and Experiences, and director of the Arts Entrepreneurship Minor. She is an artist, designer, creative scholar and community organizer.

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 sustains an independent studio practice, making work at the intersection of art and natural history,  and directs large-scale grant-funded community-engaged public art and research programs, most of which involve students in transformative learning 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

• Co-PI National Science Foundation (NFS) Grant using design to support public acceptance of sustainable systems for human waste management.
• Director, Present Absence Project, an inclusive public art project which aims to share the legacy of the Kate Bitting Reynolds Memorial Hospital. “Katie B,” as it is lovingly called, served the Black Community in Winston-Salem. 
• Designing and building a tiny-home and studio complex.
• Co-Creating Studio for Creative Practice at UNCSA.