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11/16/2007

Jones named Texas Professor of the Year
Rice mathematician was chosen from more than 300 top professors in U.S.

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff   
 
When Frank Jones '58 was in his senior year as a chemical engineering major at Rice, his math professor told him he was going to be a mathematician, not an engineer. And that prediction came true.

FRANK JONES

Jones, the Noah Harding Professor of Mathematics, has been teaching math at Rice for the past 45 years, and this week he was named the 2007 Texas Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). He was selected from more than 300 top professors in the U.S. and is among winners in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

This award recognizes professors for their influence on teaching and their outstanding commitment to undergraduate students. Jones and the other awardees were nominated by universities and colleges. CASE assembled two preliminary panels of judges to select the finalists. The Carnegie Foundation then convened a third panel, which selected four national winners. CASE and Carnegie selected the state winners from the top entries resulting from the judging process.

"Frank Jones is in his fifth decade of inspiring students," said Michael Wolf, chair of the Department of Mathematics. "Like most great teachers, what he does is simple: He works hard at writing lectures that communicate, he works hard at delivering them clearly, he is available to his students to explain and he conveys his passionate interest in mathematics by example."

Wolf said mathematical education at Rice would have been "wholly different" without Jones. "There are alumni of Professor Jones' classes at all levels of professional life now, from graduate students to chairs of research departments, and many of them can point to their experience in his class or his office as seminal in their development."

Jones knows the impact that a college professor can have on a student. He said he's still stunned when he thinks about how confident his math professor, Jim Douglas Jr. '50, was about the career path that Jones would pursue. Douglas, a distinguished alumnus of Rice, served as Jones' thesis director when Jones was working on a Ph.D. in mathematics, which he received in 1961.

Jones' research specialty is partial differential equations. "An enormous number of physical processes in nature, such as weather patterns and the flow of oil in sandstone, are modeled mathematically by partial differential equations," he said.

Jones wrote the textbook for Rice's Math 221/222 course, and he's taught calculus and a vast array of other courses. He said his favorite class is usually "whatever I'm teaching currently."

Born in Amarillo, the native Texan said he is delighted to be teaching at Rice.

"Rice students are absolutely great and enthusiastic and eager," he said. "My colleagues are friendly and supportive, and the administration tends to leave me alone and not require a lot of red tape. It's just terrific here."

For the complete list of the state winners for U.S. professors of the year, visit http://www.usprofessorsoftheyear.org/POY_Display.cfm?CONTAINERID=184&CONTENTITEMID=7686.