Westmont Magazine Faculty to Share Honor

The Fletcher Jones Foundation has awarded Westmont $1 million toward the creation of the college’s first endowed chair in the social sciences. An anonymous donor has matched the grant with a $500,000 gift to fully endow the position.

The Fletcher Jones Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences will honor the work of outstanding faculty in history, sociology and anthropology, kinesiology, economics and business, education, political science or the Urban Program in San Francisco.

Every three to five years, a different professor will move into the position. The chair includes an annual stipend that allows the recipient to teach one less class in order to focus more time on research. The first Fletcher Jones professor will be named at a later date and installed in fall 2008.

“The Fletcher Jones Foundation grant and matching gift create an exciting opportunity for us to expand our research within the social sciences,” says President Gayle D. Beebe. “It also allows us to reward our exceptional faculty for their distinguished teaching, scholarly efforts and personal investment in students.”

Westmont has three endowed chairs in the humanities division, the Gundry Chair in Religious Studies, the Monroe Chair in Philosophy and the Adams Chair in Music and Worship. The natural and behavioral sciences division is represented by the Smith Chair in Chemistry. The Fletcher Jones Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences will be the first rotating chair at Westmont.

Fletcher Jones established the Fletcher Jones Foundation of Los Angeles in 1969 to support private colleges and universities in California. In addition to the new chair at Westmont, there are 24 Fletcher Jones endowed chairs at other worthy institutions representing a broad spectrum of disciplines.