Paul Cox

Paul Cox, PhD, serves as Chair of the Mandel Humanities Center at Cuyahoga Community College. From 2014-2024, he served as Dean of Creative Arts overseeing 9 academic programs, an extensive preparatory academy for young folks, and a performing arts series that included the acclaimed Tri-C JazzFest. He previously taught music courses at Oberlin College, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Case Western Reserve University, where he was a SAGES fellow and Director of the Case Percussion Group.

From 2012-2013, he was the Director of Sitka Fest, a summer-long arts and culture festival supported by an NEA "Our Town" Grant that featured a TEDx conference, theater, music and dance performances, exhibitions, lectures and classes for all ages in Sitka, Alaska. He also taught the Percussion Masterclass and the Music Composition class at SFAC and frequently returns to play with the Holiday Brass.  In 2011, he earned a Ph.D. from CWRU after completing his dissertation, Collaged Codes: John Cage’s Credo in US.”

From 1996-2005, he served as the Assistant Curator of Music at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he was also the co-director of Aki Festival of New Music (three-time winner of the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming). A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, Cox was a fellow at Yale's Norfolk New Music Festival and completed additional studies at the Aspen Music School, the Royal College of Music (London), and Rice University.

He lives in Cleveland with his wife Kirsten Docter and their two cats Stefano and Atticus. Their two “adult” boys, Benjamin and Sebastian are proud alums of SFAC.