Dr. J. Daniel Brown, a professor emeritus of religion and philosophy and former chair of the Catawba College Department of Religion and Philosophy, died February 26, 2016. His funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Monday, February 29, at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Salisbury. Lyerly Funeral Home of Salisbury is serving the family.
Brown came to Catawba in 1967 having earned degrees from Lenoir-Rhyne College, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Drew University. He later did post-graduate work at Duke University. He spent 30 years as a faculty member at Catawba, retiring in 1997.
During his tenure at Catawba he was the founding director of the Hobbie Center for Vocation and Ethics, the creator and director of the First Carolinas Collegiathon, and principal organizer of the Order of the Blue and the White, a men’s service organization on campus. He was also a driving force behind the college’s Interdisciplinary Symposia which he chaired for eight years.
Catawba honored him with the Swink Prize for Outstanding Classroom Teaching in 1975 and the Trustee Award for Outstanding Service to the College in 1997. He established the Center for Faith and the Arts in Salisbury in 1995 and served as its executive director for more than a decade.
In 2012, his collection of books was donated to Catawba College and a dedication ceremony was held to mark the occasion. That collection is now housed on campus as a resource to students and scholars.
Survivors include his wife of almost 59 years, Betty, daughter Karen Brown Ingram and husband Mark of Greensboro, daughter Dr. Evelyn Brown of Greenville, and granddaughter Julia Ingram of Greensboro.
