Jones Professorship

As part of a National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant, the Houston Endowment funded the Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Southwestern Studies. The Jones Professor of Southwestern Studies team-teaches the Southwestern Studies courses with the Director of the Center for the Study of the Southwest, works with Center publications, helps organize and present symposia, and assists the Center with other regional projects related to the professor’s discipline and the Center’s designation as the Southwest Regional Humanities Center.

Dr. Jim Kimmel of the Department of Geography will serve as the Jones Professor of Southwestern Studies through the spring of 2008. Dr. Kimmel specializes in interpretive geography—telling the stories of places and regions. He is a native of the Southwest and began his academic research at the Grand Canyon in 1967. His book on the San Marcos River (titled The San Marcos: A River's Story) is now available from Texas A&M University Press. He and his artist/photographer wife Jerry Touchstone Kimmel are currently working on a humanistic geography of the Southwest titled Geographers’ Journey: Search for the Southwest.