{"id":4426,"date":"2024-06-30T21:44:01","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T01:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/?p=4426"},"modified":"2024-07-11T16:36:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T20:36:02","slug":"a-literary-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/2024\/a-literary-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Literary Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

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<\/p><\/div>\n

After earning his PhD in English from Harvard University in 1927, a 26-year-old William Powell Jones<\/strong> spent more than a year traversing Europe on a travel fellowship from his alma mater\u2014 attending Richard Wagner operas, exploring historic architecture, studying at Sorbonne University in Paris and becoming fluent in French and German, among other adventures.<\/p>\n

That life-broadening experience, Jones later said, laid the groundwork for his 37 years as an educator and leader at what\u2019s now Case Western Reserve\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences.
\nNow, the late professor\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for young faculty members to have opportunities to expand their horizons, work with senior faculty and develop new courses,\u201d said Nick Jones, PhD. \u201cBut they can\u2019t do so without resources. Dad, coming from a very poor background, understood that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019 determination endured.<\/p>\n

In 1937, Jones lovingly dedicated his second book to his parents, writing that they \u201cdeprived themselves of comforts to educate their children …\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2014three in academia, and one son, Hal, in pharmaceutical research.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cGreat Books\u201d course to ensure all undergraduates gained a solid literary foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad was passionate about what he did,\u201d said Nick Jones, a professor emeritus of English at Oberlin College who teaches at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in San Francisco. \u201cI want to see the English department [at CWRU] become a place filled with enthusiastic people who are excited to collaborate and share their work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walt Hunter<\/strong>, PhD, an associate professor and chair of the English department, said the gift will be transformative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis opens up myriad opportunities to broaden the scope of our courses, research and collaborations in University Circle,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cIf a faculty member wants to travel to visit a particular archive\u2014something William Powell Jones did for his research\u2014we 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so grateful to the Jones family for their generosity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After earning his PhD in English from Harvard University in 1927, a 26-year-old William Powell Jones<\/strong> spent more than a year traversing Europe on a travel fellowship from his alma mater\u2014 attending Richard Wagner operas, exploring historic architecture, studying at Sorbonne University in Paris and becoming fluent in French and German, among other adventures. …Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":481,"featured_media":4429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artscimedia.case.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2024\/06\/30215526\/P31_WP-Jones-and-children_year-unknown_credit_IMAGE-07895-CWRU-ARCHIVES.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/481"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4426"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4470,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426\/revisions\/4470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}