History Department

Kenneth Jones

Contact Information:

Office: Quad 359D
Phone: (320) 363-2720
kjones@csbsju.edu

Place of Birth:

Glendale, California

Educational Information:

Ph.D. - Cornell University
BA - University of California at Santa Cruz

Academic Interests:

20^th and 21^st Century US history; International Relations; Public policy related to health care delivery and scientific development.

Courses Taught:

HIST 152: American Experience
HIST 200: History Colloquium
HIST 357: United States From World War I to 1960
HIST 358: United States Since 1960
HIST 368: United States and the World
HIST 395: Historiography & Methods

Story:

I started teaching at Arizona State University, but realized I wanted to be at a smaller school with a liberal arts focus and an emphasis on teaching. I came here in 1976 and have happily stayed ever since. Besides teaching history and First Year Seminar, I have led the CSB/SJU program to improve faculty teaching (the Learning Enhancement Service), and am now directing the Common Curriculum.

Hobbies:

Refereeing soccer (youth, high school, college, adult); Music, movies and books; Gardening; Fishing.

Publications:

I've been working for a long time on a book on the distribution of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines in the 1950s. I'm especially interested in what we can learn from that experience about how to distribute a scarce medical resource and the impact of various approaches to access to health care. The project also addresses questions about human experimentation, as well as the Federal government's role in developing and regulating new drugs.

Periodically, the polio project gets put on hold for other things, such as The Loaf That Became A Legend: A History of Saint John's Bread, and, more recently, "Is Iraq Another Vietnam - Or Not?" in Headwaters (vol 25, 2008).