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Vol. XLVIII, No.3 The U of L Stwrat New q rp•
Paul Jones appointed new ombudsman
by Ruth VanCleave
Most people would speed in the oppo­site
direction if they were offered the job
of ombudsman. But when Dr. Paul Jones
was cited for the ombudsman post, he
took the job calmly and without hesita­tion.
Dr. Jones cites his reason as his
"overall non-anxious attitude," and
laughingly adds, "I'm not prone to
worry."
He is having no second thoughts about
his new job. Appointed on July 1, he has
already handled thirty complaints, the
majority of these from students concern­ed
about grades. Dr. Jones also handled a
plagiarism case.
Dr. Jones is employed at the Perfor­mance
Research Lab (PRL) on campus as
a psychologist.
"I'm not a standard bearer for stu­dents,
though," Dr. Jones says, "Believe
it or not, students are wrong at times."
He is quite pleased with U of L
students, remarking that "they're just like
kids everywhere else." He doesn't mind
receiving complaints from students as
long as their grievances are legitimate. "If
a student calls me about a cheating
accusation," Jones says, "I ask him if he
cheated. If he says yes, then there's
nothing I can do."
Dr. Jones hopes to remain impartial,
but sympathetic, while investigating com­plaints.
An ombudsman has no power
except to investigate and pass his verdict
on to the Dean of Students. The Dean
then decides whether or not to change \
grades, reprimand students, etc. Dr. Jones
will handle only academically related
complaints and minor psychological dis­turbances.
"I am an experimental psycho­logist,"
he says, "I am not a counselor."
In 1968, Dr. Jones graduated from the
University of Cincinnati with a Ph.D. in
psychology. The student revolution was
brewing, and students were beginning to
realize their rights. As a result of student
anger, the ombudsman was established at
universities throughout the nation in
order to prevent revolts. Dr. Jones arrived
in 1968, along with the new ombudsman
September 3, 1976
Dr. Paul Jones
Dr. Wiedeman. "I never dreamed that in
1976 I would be ombudsman," Dr. Jones
said.
A psychological background is not
crucial for the ombudsman job. Two
previous ombudsmen, Dr. James Burnett
and Mary Kay Tachau, were historians.
NeW Law school dean assum·es duties
Dr. Jones, 34, held a number of other
jobs in his lifetime. Among these were:
paper boy, tractor salesman, encyclopedia
salesman, Bluegrass guitar player, admis­sions
officer and water skiing instructor.
His hobby is refereeing high school foot­ball
games.
Dr. Jones was raised in Mercedes,
Texas. His ambition as a boy was to be a
baseball player rather than psychologist.
He admits he didn't grow up wanting to
acquire a Ph.D. "No one grows up dream­ing
of being a professor," he says.
His goals as ombudsman are to keep
problems from recurring and to solve as
many disputes as possible without causing
either party injury. ·
by Tom Murray
His office was empty. Just a desk, a
few plush articles of furniture, and an
aesthetic-looking fireplace dividing a wall
of shelves-no books, just shelves. Dr.
Harold Wren, ~5, had flown to Louisville
the night before and had spent the rest of
it on a cot in his new home off Lime Kiln
Rd.
It was Sept. I, a rainy Wednesday, and
nearly three years after U of L initiated
its first search for a law school dean.
"Norvie Lay (a U of L law professor)
first approached me about it last year,"
said Wren. "When he calle9 me on the
phone, I thought about it, but I turned
(the offer) down. I simply gave as my
reason that I had not done the job I had
set out to do in Richmond."
Wren became dean of the T. C.
Williams School of Law at the University
of Richmond in August, 1972. He is a
native. of Virginia-his hometown, Big
Stone Gap, is over 420 miles from the
capitol-but was clearly attracted to the
school because of the challenge.
Richmond's law school was in trouble.
In four years Wren had completely
revised the law school curriculum, ex­panded
the full-time faculty four times
The University of Louisville Law School's new dean, Dr. Harold Wren, considers himself more than just a "troubleshooter." He
feels that he can be the unifying force for the law school. The law school has operated for the past three years under acting de3J1s.
over, helped double the size of the
student body, and increased the circula­tion
of the law library to 64,000 volumes.
"I had one other problem once I
decided to leave Richmond," he contin­ued,
"another university called me and
wanted me to come and do what I did for
Portland. They wan ted me to help give
them accreditation."
It wasn't an unusual request. Wren
accepted deanship of the Northwestern
School of Law of Lewis and Clark College
in July, 1969. The law school in Portland ,
Oregon , was barely existent. But two
years later, it gained accreditation under
Wren's supervision.
U of L's School of Law has been, in
the past seven years, struggling with an
unfavorable ABA ruling in 1969, two
tentative deans, and crucial difficulties
found in a 1974 overview when a panel
appointed by President James G. Miller
found law school facilities to be "grossly
inadequate."
"I would say that the three schools are
very much alike." Wren elaborated,
"Richmond doesn't have a day school
division - but in Richmond you had a
similar problem. The school had gone
downhill and was without a dean for the
last ten years when he ended his tenure.
When I arrived at Richmond it had four
faculty, 134 students, and I had to set
about to correct all that."
Wren alma mater of Columbia Univer-
'
sity for both his undergraduate degree in
accounting and a baccelaurea te in law,
Doctor of law Sciences at Yale
(1951-1952), a Fulbright Research Schol­ar
in Tokyo (1953-54), professor at over
ten schools, and dean of the previous
two, had credentials enough to impress
the U of L Board of Trustees when they
voted unanimously for his appointment
July 5 this summer.
More than that perhaps, his record
impressed students at U of L's School of
Law as "a man hired to get something
done."
"It's true I may giv~ the appearance of
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