Original LSUS faculty member to retire 12/06/01

Dr. Selvestion Jimes, professor of biological sciences and one of two original LSU in Shreveport faculty members still active at the local university, will retire at the end of the current academic semester.

When LSUS opened its classrooms in the fall semester of 1967, Jimes, current LSUS Chancellor Dr. Vincent Marsala and 35 other faculty members were on staff. Today, only Jimes and Marsala are part of the university’s active faculty.

Jimes, also a professor of cardiopulmonary science at the LSU Health Sciences Center and coordinator of allied health at LSUS, earned bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and microbiology from Northwestern State University in 1959, and served for a year as a clinical microbiologist at Confederate Memorial Medical Center (now LSU hospital).

He received a master’s degree in microbiology and served as a graduate assistant at NSU in 1961-62, and was a chemist and microbiologist for the Food and Drug Administration in New Orleans from 1962 to 1964. He earned his doctorate in food science and technology from LSU in Baton Rouge in 1967.

Jimes, 64, was an assistant professor of biological sciences at LSUS from 1967 to 1972, when he became an associate professor. In 1977, he became a professor of medical terminology and biological sciences at LSUS and LSU Medical Center in Shreveport. He has been a professor of biological sciences at LSUS and a professor of cardiopulmonary sciences at LSUHSC since 1987.

While at LSUS, Jimes has taught biology, zoology, microbiology, human anatomy, chemistry and various computer science classes. He was also instrumental in organizing the American Association of University Professors and the Faculty Senate at LSUS. He proudly admits to being the only person to serve as president of the Faculty Senate three times.

“The one thing I am really proud of,” Jimes said, “is that I have really done my very best for the students and this school.”

Of his retirement, Jimes said he and his wife “are going to some different places, and I want to be with my mother and father while they’re still alive, to take care of them and do what I can for them.”

Marsala praised his colleague of 34 years. “His tenure here has been exemplary,” Marsala said, “and he has helped and influenced many students in their goals to attend medical or graduate schools.”

Jimes said one of his proudest achievements was serving as a fellow in medical virology in 1978 on the faculty of the LSU Medical Center School of Medicine’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology. He has published 21 scientific papers, and in 1985 received the LSU Foundation Distinguished Fellowship Award from the LSU System, as well as the LSUS Faculty Improvement Award.