William Powell Jones and his four sons (left to right), Hal, Stephen, Nick and Chris, on their family farm in Gates Mills, Ohio, in the early 1950s. | IMAGE 07895, CWRU Archives

After earning his PhD in English from Harvard University in 1927, a 26-year-old William Powell Jones spent more than a year traversing Europe on a travel fellowship from his alma mater— attending Richard Wagner operas, exploring historic architecture, studying at Sorbonne University in Paris and becoming fluent in French and German, among other adventures.

That life-broadening experience, Jones later said, laid the groundwork for his 37 years as an educator and leader at what’s now Case Western Reserve’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Now, the late professor’s surviving sons, Nick and Hal Jones, neither of whom attended CWRU, are honoring his campus legacy. Their gift to create and endow the William Powell Jones Fund in the Department of English will provide grants for junior faculty to pursue professional development opportunities and curricular innovation.

“It’s important for young faculty members to have opportunities to expand their horizons, work with senior faculty and develop new courses,” said Nick Jones, PhD. “But they can’t do so without resources. Dad, coming from a very poor background, understood that.”

William Powell Jones was the son of a retired minister and a homemaker who worked on the family farm to send their five children to college. The memories of his parents’ determination endured.

In 1937, Jones lovingly dedicated his second book to his parents, writing that they “deprived themselves of comforts to educate their children …”

That dedication was one reason for the recent gift, said Nick Jones, noting that his parents, William Powell and Marian Jones, similarly valued education for their children. All four had successful careers—three in academia, and one son, Hal, in pharmaceutical research.

From 1930 to 1967, William Powell Jones taught and held leadership positions on campus, including chair of the Department of English and dean of Adelbert College (a CWRU predecessor school). He had a knack for developing new curricula as needs evolved, most notably a “Great Books” course to ensure all undergraduates gained a solid literary foundation.

“Dad was passionate about what he did,” said Nick Jones, a professor emeritus of English at Oberlin College who teaches at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in San Francisco. “I want to see the English department [at CWRU] become a place filled with enthusiastic people who are excited to collaborate and share their work.”

Walt Hunter, PhD, an associate professor and chair of the English department, said the gift will be transformative.

“This opens up myriad opportunities to broaden the scope of our courses, research and collaborations in University Circle,” Hunter said. “If a faculty member wants to travel to visit a particular archive—something William Powell Jones did for his research—we can support them. Or if someone wants to create a course on 20th-century painting and literature, we can work with colleagues at the Cleveland Museum of Art to craft an immersive new course.

“We’re so grateful to the Jones family for their generosity,” he said.