Jerry Frank

Background

I have been interested in water issues in the American West generally--and Colorado specifically--throughout most of my life.  I was born in Cortez and have lived several places in Colorado including Rifle, Rulison, Fruita, Grand Junction, Montrose, Colorado Springs, as well as several towns and cities in Montana, California, Nevada, and Utah.  I am a graduate of Montrose High School, Mesa State College, the University of Montana, and most recently, the University of Kansas.

I have a wide-range of personal hobbies and interests, many of which are tied to being outside.  Depending on the season, I enjoy hiking, fly fishing, back packing, running, swimming, mountain biking and snowboarding.

Teaching

I have taught at University of Missouri-Kansas City, Johnson County Community College, and the University of Kansas. Over the past eight years my courses have included both introductory sections of US history, history of Native Americans, history of the American West, environmental history, US and Western Environmental policy and politics, as well as water policy and politics.

As an instructor, I strive to enhance the student’s ability to think analytically, write clearly, and construct compelling arguments, while gaining a competency in the given subject. Although my courses tend to be lecture-based, I require a high level of student input and participation. Helping students enhance reading, writing, and critical-thinking skills over the course of the semester is a genuine source of joy for me.

Research

I have dedicated a great deal of my undergraduate and graduate work to understanding the complicated and contested history of water in the American West. Through my Master’s Thesis I researched and wrote a bioregional history of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I worked to understand the many complex ways that humans have incorporated the canyon and its river into their lives. Specifically, I researched the importance of the canyon in Ute cosmology, the river as a resource for the development of agriculture in the Uncompahgre Valley and power generation in the region, as well as the canyon as a source of inspiration to twentieth century Americans as reflected through its status as a national monument and later national park.

My dissertation utilizes Rocky Mountain National Park to explore the connections between tourism, advertising, and environmental change. For nearly a century, the National Park Service and local businesses have emphasized the ease of automobile access, horseback riding, fishing for exotic species of trout, and wildlife viewing within Rocky Mountain National Park. Managing for each of these expectations has rendered the park experience a paradoxical one. While one meanders through Moraine Park or ascends Trail Ridge Road, mountains tower above grassy meadows cut by ribbons of crystalline mountain water. Every moment of the experience is intended to offer beautifully framed panoramas that elicit awe and rapture. The truth, however, is much more complicated. The streams and lakes of Rocky Mountain National Park have long been host to millions of exotic trout planted to draw anglers to the region; automobile pollution generated within the park and the neighboring megalopolis of Denver are pushing nitrogen levels near the environmental threshold; the romantically depicted cowboy and horse have brought nearly a century of soil erosion and exotic plant species invasion; and managing for high populations of the park’s iconic elk has disrupted and destroyed various components of the park’s riparian and terrestrial ecosystems.