USM Board of Regents honors TU dance professor Vincent Thomas
The 2019 Board of Regents Faculty Award recognizes Vincent Thomas' deep contributions and innovations in dance
By Rebecca Kirkman on March 13, 2019
Longtime Towson University dance professor Vincent Thomas received the 2019 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Research, or Creative Activity.
The highest honor bestowed by the Board of Regents to recognize exemplary faculty achievement, up to 17 awards are given each year across five categories, including mentoring; public service; scholarship, research, or creative activity; teaching; and innovation.
The scholarship, research, or creative activity category recognizes faculty for professional accomplishments in their field that extends or deepens the bounds of knowledge or is recognized as an innovation within the nominee’s discipline.
An educator, choreographer and dancer known as much for his boundary-pushing performance projects as his popular dance department course for non-majors, DANC 105: Movement Skills for Men, Thomas is “simultaneously ecstatic and humbled” to receive the award, he says, thanking his past and present students for making it possible.
Read more: Vincent Thomas wants young men to know dance is not taboo for men
“I have a passion for dance and a passion for teaching. When these two are combined, it is an opportunity to give back to the community [and] humanity in ways that I hope will shift the world,” Thomas adds. “And this, done through the body, is deeply powerful.”
Receiving the USM Board of Regents Faculty Award builds on the pride Thomas felt when he was named the Student Government Association Faculty Member of the Year in 2012.
“ To be recognized and honored by all levels of the institution and university system for the work that one does is priceless. ”
“To have members of the student body at TU nominate and select me [for the SGA award], and [then] to have the faculty, staff, and administrative committee nominate and the Regents committee select me, is euphoric,” says Thomas. “To be recognized and honored by all levels of the institution and university system for the work that one does is priceless.”
The awards will be presented during the USM Board of Regents meeting on April 19 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
This story is one of several related to President Kim Schatzel’s priorities for Towson University: TU Matters to Maryland.