Rate My Professor Jay Price

Jay M. Price is Professor of History and Director of the Local and Community History Program in the Department of History at Wichita State University’s Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. in History with an emphasis in Public History from Arizona State University (1997), an M.A. in Government from the College of William and Mary (1992), and a B.A. in History from the University of New Mexico (1991). Joining Wichita State University as Assistant Professor in 1999, he advanced to Associate Professor in 2005 and full Professor, accumulating 25 years of service. Price has served as Chair of the History Department for 12 years and transformed the applied graduate program in Public History to emphasize local and community history, fostering collaborations with students and the Wichita community.

Price’s research interests include local history, public history, History of Kansas and Wichita, religious history, and modern U.S. history, focusing on regional identity, place, ethnicity, and religion in buildings. His extensive publications feature monographs such as Temples for a Modern God: A Study of Mid-Century Religious Architecture (Oxford University Press, 2012), Mexican Americans of Wichita’s North End (co-authored, Arcadia Publishing, 2022), History on the Hoof: The Chisholm Trail and the Birth of Wichita (2016), and African Americans in Wichita (co-authored, 2015), alongside a graphic novel Walk With Wu: The Story of Wichita State University (2020) and articles like “Assembling a Buckle of the Bible Belt: From Enclave to Powerhouse” (Kansas History, 2018). He has earned the 2019 Arrington-Prucha Prize from the Western History Association, 2014 Frederick C. Luebke Award for “Family, Ethnic Entrepreneurship, and the Lebanese of Kansas,” John R. Barrier Teaching Award (2016), and a gold medal at the International Latino Book Awards for Mexican-Americans of Wichita’s North End. Price leads public initiatives including walking tours, the Somos de Wichita project, and exhibits like the Pizza Hut Museum, enhancing community engagement, preservation, and student opportunities in museums and archives.