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2008 Distinguished Teaching Award

Elizabeth Cox

During her 13 years of service to Plymouth State University, Associate Professor of Theatre Elizabeth Cox has been devoted to fostering her students’ confidence, love of words, and ability to breathe life into a playwright’s characters.

Cox joined the Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance in 1995 as an adjunct faculty member. In 1999, she was named assistant professor, and in 2004, associate professor. That year also marked the beginning of her tenure as director of theatre.

Among the courses Cox teaches are Acting I, II, and II, Voice and Diction, stage dialects, and other courses including acting methods and audition techniques.  She also teaches American Sign Language for the language and linguistics department. 

Cox’s academic training encompasses acting, sign language, speech pathology, and counseling—all skills that she puts to use on a daily basis at PSU. An actor since high school, Cox’s college education began at the University of Missouri, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in speech and dramatic art in 1976. Two years later, Cox earned her Master of Education in rehabilitation counseling with a concentration in counseling for the deaf and hearing impaired. After becoming certified in transliteration from the National Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Cox began working as a rehabilitation counselor for the state of New Hampshire and teaching sign language at Merrimack Valley College in Manchester. Cox then worked as assistant director for the Texas Commission for the Deaf, a state agency that provides a range of services for the deaf and hard of hearing. In 1989, Cox was accepted into the MFA-acting program at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, where she was also a graduate teaching assistant and instructor in the communication and theatre department.

As a teacher, Cox believes in nurturing her students’ talent and encourages them to get to know themselves before immersing themselves in a role. By doing so, explained Cox, students “become more open to making bolder choices in characterizations and in life decisions.”

Directing and performing are among Cox’s strongest passions. She particularly relishes the opportunity to act with her students. “They [the students] need to see my own personal technique, my own struggles with character, and how I work in rehearsal and performance,” Cox said. Her two most recent roles in PSU productions were Martha in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Mother Courage in Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children.  Outside of PSU, Cox works as a professional actor; her most recent appearances have been at the Barnstormers Theatre in Tamworth and the Winnipesaukee Playhouse in Laconia.

In April, Cox coordinated the first annual New Hampshire Professional Theatre Association auditions, which was hosted at PSU. Over eighty students from colleges and universities throughout the state attended and auditioned for New Hampshire-based theatre companies. 

Beyond her work as teacher, actor, and director, Cox has made important contributions to the University over the years as a member of several committees, including the Continuing Education Committee (now the Frost School for Continuing and Professional Studies), the Admissions Committee, the Curriculum Committee, and selection committees for the associate vice president for undergraduate studies and the Award for Excellence in Faculty Service.