Faculty and Student Responses to the Pandemic

 

 

John Paul “JP” Jones III (Ph.D. Ohio State University) is a Professor of Geography and Development and the Don Bennett Moon Dean of the University of Arizona’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS). SBS is known as the UA’s “People College” in recognition of the over 500 faculty who study human technologies, histories, institutions, ideas, cultures, literatures, and personal and social relationships. SBS is intellectually diverse: among its faculty are poets and philosophers, as well as computer scientists and dendrochronologists.

 

With over 7,000 students, the College of SBS regularly awards more degrees than any other college at the UA, yet its mission goes beyond education and research. Dr. Jones believes that public, land-grant institutions such as the UA have a responsibility to share their discoveries and expertise with the community through public education and outreach and, since his appointment in 2010, has worked to transform SBS’s relationship with the Tucson community, growing a diverse and impactful portfolio of local engagement.

 

Before being named dean of SBS, Dr. Jones was director of the College’s School of Geography and Development. He is a prolific researcher, focusing on geographic methodology and the integration of spatial theory and social theory. Before coming to the UA in 2003, he taught at the University of Kentucky and San Diego State University. He was a Fulbright Professor at University College Dublin and has held visiting appointments at the University of Nimegen in the Netherlands, the Universitat de Girona in Spain, and the London School of Economics.