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Liberal Arts and Sciences honors 5 for their support of the college

ASU alumnus William C. “Bill” Jenkins, a former Scottsdale mayor, now deceased, and Sue Jenkins, a former community relations liaison for Arizona Public Service, are this year’s recipients of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame Award. The couple are being recognized for their support of the humanities and the formative impact they have had in the college, in Scottsdale and in Arizona.

The award – the highest honor the college confers – will be presented Nov. 14, along with Distinguished Achievement and Distinguished Faculty Awards, as part of this year’s Homecoming Week festivities.

Three college graduates – Melinda Sue Gordon, Alonzo Jones and Patricia Kimball – will receive a Distinguished Achievement Award, which recognizes alumni, citizens of Arizona or others who contribute to the advancement of the college.

This year’s Distinguished Faculty Award will be given to James Elser, a professor in the School of Life Sciences. The award recognizes faculty members who exemplify the college’s mission of instructional excellence, special dedication to students and performance that makes an impact in the greater community or a professional field.

William C. “Bill” and Sue Jenkins’ lifelong service to the community and ASU is extraordinary and expansive, ranging from their role as founding members of the Scottsdale Congregational United Church of Christ to their civic involvement with Scottsdale city government and library.

Bill Jenkins was a history teacher, city council member, mayor and U.S. naval officer.

He taught American and Arizona history, American government, and economics for more than 25 years in the Scottsdale Unified School District. From 1966 to 1974, he served on the Scottsdale City Council and from 1974 to 1980 was the city’s mayor. He was past president of the Scottsdale-McCormick Ranch Kiwanis Club.

Bill Jenkins also was a founding director of the Helios Education Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to enriching the lives of individuals in Arizona and Florida by creating opportunities for success in postsecondary education. During his lifetime, Bill Jenkins was a passionate advocate for history education. He inspired the foundation to invest in ASU’s Department of History, helping to improve the quality of history education within postsecondary classrooms.

To further honor Bill Jenkins, who died this past summer, the Helios Education Foundation is establishing two new endowment funds for the history department in his name. The gift will provide funding for fellowships for the master’s of teaching history program, as well as a mentoring program for beginning history teachers.

Bill Jenkins earned a master’s degree in history from ASU in 1963 and his bachelor’s degree in accountancy in 1952. In 2007, he was the recipient of the college’s Distinguished Achievement Award.

Sue Jenkins attended ASU to study home economics and minor in business. She worked for APS for more than 35 years, retiring in 1990 as the community relations liaison for the East Valley.

While at APS, Sue Jenkins was involved with a number of projects under the sponsorship of the company, most notably, the Arizona Clean and Beautiful project. She was a member of the board of directors and along with APS, was recognized in 1990 by then-Gov. Rose Mofford with awards on behalf of the Arizona Commission on the Environment and Arizona Clean and Beautiful.

Sue Jenkins’ volunteer contributions for the Scottsdale community are many. She served on the Friends of the Scottsdale Library Board of Directors, the Scottsdale Civic Center Library Advisory Board, the Scottsdale-McCormick Ranch Kiwanis Club and the Scottsdale Sister Cities Association. She also served with the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation.

In 2004, Sue Jenkins received the President’s Volunteer Service Award, which is given to Americans who dedicate at least 4,000 hours over the course of their lives to serve others at home or abroad.

Melinda Sue Gordon is an award-winning photographer specializing in production still photography. She has more than 60 film credits to her name, including “There Will Be Blood,” “Ocean's Thirteen,” “Nancy Drew,” “Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat,” “The Good German,” “A Prairie Home Companion,” “Good Night and Good Luck,” “Raising Arizona,” “Men in Black,” “Father of the Bride Part II,” and the soon-to-be-released “The Reader.”

A member of the International Cinematographer’s Guild, Gordon was a Cinematography Fellow at the American Film Institute. Her cinematographer credits include “The Destiny of Marty Fine” and “The Silent Feminists: America's First Women Directors.”

She also is one of the founding members of the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers. In 2007, Gordon received a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Camera Operators.

Gordon graduated from ASU in 1978 with bachelor’s degree in sociology. She has been involved in the support of the college’s new film and media degree programs and events, and has participated in the college’s Leaders Program. Her father, Len Gordon, is a professor emeritus of sociology and dean of the ASU Emeritus College. Her late mother, Rena Gordon, earned a master’s degree and doctorate in geography at ASU and served as adjunct professor of geography at the ASU Polytechnic campus.

Alonzo “AJ” Jones, recently named associate dean of student affairs at ASU’s Tempe campus, has spent 17 years in higher education, managing and creating programs that support the academic, personal and cultural development of students. He previously was director for multicultural student services at ASU and will continue oversight of that area.

A 1991 ASU graduate with a bachelor’s degree in justice studies, Jones holds a master’s degree in developmental education from Texas State University. He has worked in the areas of student recruitment, early outreach, leadership development, multicultural affairs and student retention.

In other service to ASU, Jones is a member of the A. Wade Smith Memorial Lecture on Race Relations Committee and moderates the lecture’s student sessions.

Co-author of a chapter in “African American Men in College,” Jones speaks widely on topics pertaining to African American male student success, including cultural empowerment, identity, leadership skills and educational access.

In addition to his work at ASU, Jones has coordinated the life-skills workshop component of the Tempe Juveniles Achieving Greatness program and is the founder of Apoch Programs, a life-skills program for youth-based community organizations and institutions.

Patricia “Patty” Kimball is being recognized by the college for her career involvement with innovative solutions in the field of waste management. In her current position as manager of new product development for Waste Management, a Fortune 500 company, Kimball’s work focuses on the recycling of universal wastes such as batteries and compact fluorescent light bulbs. She previously worked for the company as vice president of healthcare services.

Kimball has more than 25 years of management experience in the medical products, services and medical waste industries. She was vice president of business development for Sharps Compliance, and before that for San-I-Pak. She also worked for Browning Ferris Industries, Southwest Stat, Sonora Laboratory Sciences and Arizona Immunology Laboratory.

She earned two degrees from ASU – a doctorate in microbiology in 1979 and a bachelor’s degree in medical technology in 1974. Kimball participated in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Leaders Program in 2000, returning to campus to discuss her professional experiences with students.

Kimball was an outstanding women’s golf student-athlete while at ASU, and continues to play at the national level. She recently placed second in the 2008 Executive Women’s Golf Association Championship. She also participated in the 2007 United States Golf Association Senior Women’s Amateur Championship.

James J. Elser is a limnologist and professor of biology in the college’s School of Life Sciences. He is one of the world’s foremost authorities on applying the core chemical principle of elemental stoichiometry to biological systems. According to colleagues, from his initial work on freshwater ecosystems that focused on herbivorous zooplankton, Elser has moved on to make connections between key ecosystem element ratios and their roles in the processes that drive organismal development, tumor growth, microbial diversity in Mexico, grassland ecosystem function in Inner Mongolia, and nitrogen deposition in Colorado and Norway.

Elser has been able to apply his experimental and theoretical tools to new problems in ways that make a difference in the understanding of cancer, the effects of climate change and biodiversity.

He also is a co-principal investigator on the recently funded NASA astrobiology project “Follow the Elements.”

“Insight into the ecological and environmental forces that shape and eventually stabilized our own systems can do much to inform us about what is possible in other regions of the universe,” says Elser in discussing research in Cuatro Cienegas, Mexico.

Elser joined ASU in 1990. He is a core member of the Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Science faculty group in the School of Life Sciences. Since 2005, Elser has served as associate director of research and training initiatives in the school.

In his nearly two decades at ASU, Elser has taught introductory biology to almost 12,000 non-majors in a way that makes a difference in both their ability to reason carefully and in the way they understand the biological world. He has directly mentored 33 undergraduate students, 10 graduate students and 11 others in his laboratory.

Elser earned his doctoral degree in ecology from the University of California, Davis, in 1990. He received his master’s degree in ecology from the University of Tennessee in 1983 and his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1981.