Professor Summer Brown Receives Distinguished Faculty Award and Shares Community-Centered Art at Art All Night DC
By Chad Eric Smith, Director of Marketing and Communications, Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts
Featured Image: Courtesy of Summer Brown.
The Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts continues to build its legacy through faculty whose work reflects excellence in teaching, creative practice, and cultural leadership. This week, we proudly recognize Professor Summer Brown of the Department of Art for her ongoing impact as both educator and practicing artist.
Earlier this year, Professor Brown received the 2024–2025 Distinguished Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching at Howard University. The honor was presented in May at The Oliver in Washington, D.C., recognizing educators whose pedagogy, mentorship, and service demonstrate exceptional instructional leadership and student support. For those who know her work firsthand, the recognition is both fitting and deeply earned.
Professor Brown’s journey is rooted here — on the Yard. A proud Howard alumna, she earned her B.F.A. in Painting, magna cum laude, majoring in Drawing and Painting in the College of Fine Arts. She later advanced her studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she completed her M.F.A. in Museum Exhibition Planning & Design, also magna cum laude. Her academic path reflects a commitment not only to artistic mastery but also to the art of interpretation, visual communication, and audience experience.
Her professional portfolio mirrors that depth. Before joining Howard’s faculty, Professor Brown served as an Exhibit Designer at Staples & Charles, Ltd., and later as a Special Events, Tradeshow, and Exhibit Designer with Hargrove Inc. She continued her career as a Curatorial Assistant with the U.S. Center of Military History, and as an Exhibition Coordinator at the NIH National Library of Medicine, contributing to public-facing work rooted in design, curation, and cultural storytelling. Her dedication to arts education is equally evident through teaching roles at Washington Latin Public School, The Children’s Guild, and Prince George’s Community College, where she served as an adjunct lecturer before returning home to Howard.
Today, she serves the University full-time as a Master Instructor in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, teaching in the same academic community where she once trained — extending the lineage of Howard artists shaping culture, community, and the arts.
Beyond the classroom, Professor Brown remains an active studio artist and creative entrepreneur. She regularly exhibits her work and is the founder of Art with Summer, a creative business specializing in paint-and-sip experiences and commissioned artwork. Her artistic vision and design skill have also earned national recognition, including an Emmy Award for Art Direction on the short film Vote in the Public Announcement category through the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter.
Her commitment to art as practice, teaching, and community presence was deeply reflected during the Art All Night DC festival held on September 12, 2025. Professor Brown presented Art All Night: The Art of Us at Metro Bar in Washington, D.C., creating a public platform for visual expression, cultural gathering, and creative exchange across generations. The event brought together Howard students, alumni, faculty, and the broader D.C. arts community for an experience centered on visibility, storytelling, and collective celebration.
Her work — in the classroom, in the studio, and in community — exemplifies the ethos of the College: art as scholarship, art as connection, art as legacy.
