Former Charlottesville City Councilor and Mayor—UVA Professor—Maurice Cox has received the Edmund N. Bacon Prize from The Ed Bacon Foundation. Cox joined the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for a two-year stint back in early 2008.
The award is annually bestowed on “an outstanding national figure who has advocated for excellence in urban development, planning and design.”
At the same time, Cox, who served as NEA’s Design Director, is getting ready to return to UVA’s School of Architecture. According to a press release, while at NEA, Cox helped increase (by 31 percent) the number of applications and grants awarded to design nonprofits.
Cox was also a participant in NEA’s Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD), an agency that unites mayors and design experts to address urban design challenges in American cities. He was also instrumental in the launch of the Sustainable Communities Partnership, summoned by the Governors’ Institute on Community Design.
In Charlottesville, Cox has been a proponent of greater connectivity between the Corner and Downtown. He is also a believer that those residents who will be affected by a development have the right to voice their concerns.
“Everyone ultimately has a right, and I believe actually a birth right, to live in an environment that is of high quality, and our elected and appointed leaders are entrusted with protecting and preserving and enhancing that quality of life,” said Cox in 2008.
Maurice Cox, former Charlottesville councilor, mayor and UVA professor, has been awarded the Edmund N. Bacon Prize from the National Endowment for the Arts. Cox will also return to teach at UVA’s School of Architecture.
