Dr. James Jordan sits in his office, which is decorated with various animal skulls and collected bones displayed in showcases and on shelves surround by books. Jordan notes it’s unusual for him to be in his office, as most of his time studying is spent outside in the “real world” at historical archaeological sites.
On Saturday, March 25, the 90th annual meeting for The Virginia Social Science Association (VSSA) was hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), where Jordan was presented with the VSSA Scholar Award. There were a total of 21 colleges represented at the 2017 VSSA Conference.
“It was the 11,000 students that I’ve taught over the last 39 years at Longwood, truly this award was theirs, but they’ve all gone someplace …they’ve all graduated and they go away and so I’m left here all alone, so they had to give the award to me,” said Jordan. “But when I stood up to accept this award, I didn’t look behind me because I wondered what I was doing, but (because) I could sense that there were 11,000 Longwood students that I was representing.”
Before Jordan called Longwood home, he taught at other universities in Georgia and at the University of Connecticut. In West Africa, Jordan had the opportunity to carry out fieldwork in the countries of Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Ivory Coast, Dahomey and Upper Volta. Jordan has published a total of 31 articles and chapters in books.
He works about 50 hours a week, mostly at archaeological sites. “My racket as an anthropologist and archaeologist is to be in the ‘real world’ and the real world is outside there (he points outside his office window) so the regular work I do I’m not visible on campus because I’m in the field,” said Jordan.
Jordan started teaching at Longwood 39 years ago, where he now serves as the Chief Faculty Marshal of Longwood, leading all academic ceremonies, such as commencement.
He takes pride in representing Longwood and a major part of why it felt so good to accept the VSSA scholar award on Saturday was because he was representing Longwood amongst other bigger schools in the state. Some of the other schools represented at the 2017 VSSA Conference included Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, VCU and James Madison University.
“It just felt good to represent Longwood in that crowd and to know that Longwood was upfront,” said Jordan.
After receiving the VSSA scholar award, Jordan reflected on what it meant to him.
“It meant a great deal to me. It meant that what I was doing with my students at Longwood must have been the right thing,” said Jordan.
Longwood presented Jordan with the highest honor the university can award a faculty member in 2014, when he was named Longwood University Board of Visitors Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. The award has only been awarded nine times in the history of the University.
“My roles in life that I’m most proud of are being a daddy to my daughters, being a granddaddy to my grandchildren and being a teacher to my students at Longwood,” said Jordan.
