Lewis Webster Jones

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Lewis Webster Jones (11 June 1899 – 10 September 1975) was an economist, and the fifteenth President of Rutgers University serving from 1951 to 1958.

"The tolerance of heterodoxy is an essential element in freedom of thought." —Lewis Webster Jones, January 24, 1953

He was born in Emerson, Nebraska, and spent his youth in Portland, Oregon. Jones received his undergraduate degree from Reed College, and later earned his Ph.D. from the Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government (now the Brookings Institution). Jones then did post-doctoral work at Columbia University, the London School of Economics, the University of Cambridge and the University of Geneva. During his studies in Europe, he served as an economist on the staff of the League of Nations. He then joined the faculty of Bennington College in 1932 where he served as president from 1941 to 1947. He served from 1947 to 1951 as the President of the University of Arkansas before being appointed the fifteenth President of Rutgers University.

In 1951 he said:

A great many educators have felt for a long time that emphasis on teaching techniques has gotten out of hand in this country. Undergraduates who plan to enter the teaching profession have been spending an increasing amount of their time on the sort of subjects that are facetiously referred to as 'blackboard engineering'. ... In some cases they spent more time studying teaching methods than they did studying the subject they would be called upon to teach." [1]

During his tenure as president, Jones oversaw the completion of the university's transformation into the State University in 1956, and massive construction efforts across the university's College Avenue, Busch, Cook and Douglass campuses. The Graduate School of Social Work, ranked as one of the finest in the United States, and the Graduate School of Library Science (now part of the School of Communication, Information and Library Science), and the Eagleton Institute of Politics were established during his tenure.

Jones resigned as president of Rutgers in 1958, to accept the presidency of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. In 1965 he retired to Sarasota, Florida where he lived until his death on September 10, 1975.

[edit] External links

• Rutgers University
• Jones's biography at Leadership on the Banks: Rutgers' Presidents, 1766–2004
• Inventory to the Records of the Rutgers University Office of the President (Lewis Webster Jones) at Special Collections and University Archives, Archibald S. Alexander Library, Rutgers University
• Blue Jeans with a Difference; Time (magazine); February 3, 1947

Preceded by ?	President of Bennington College 1941–1947	Succeeded by ?
Preceded by ?	President of University of Arkansas 1947–1951	Succeeded by ?
Preceded by Robert Clarkson Clothier	President of Rutgers University 1951–1958	Succeeded by Mason Welch Gross