Founding faculty member celebrates decades at UTPB

May 24—Even after 50 years, James Olson still feels University of Texas Permian Basin is the place he belongs. It's been like a home away from home and a second family to him.

Olson, a psychology professor, grew up in Santa Barbara and San Bernardino, Calif.

He went to the University of California at Santa Barbara and then UCLA. His bachelor's degree from UC Santa Barbara is in psychology and he has a master's and doctorate in the subject from UCLA.

"I wanted to be a surfer and I was a surfer. I surfed as recently as two years ago, so that's what I always wanted to be. But marriage and family came along and you've got to change," Olson said.

He chose psychology because of his introductory psychology teacher.

"That was actually at Santa Barbara City College. His name was Mr. Cox and he just turned me on and I thought I'd be a high school teacher, teach psychology in the area and have all these vacation days and summers to go surfing. That was my dream, but the problem is I got good at this psychology stuff and people urged me on to get a doctorate degree," Olson said.

"They said pursue the doctorate. If you want to teach, teach at a university or college, so I kind of got steered that way mainly because I really liked it and I ended up being pretty good in the field, relatively speaking," he added.

Olson said he started at UTPB when it opened in 1973. He said teaching hasn't changed over the years. "I still teach the same way. If I had it my way, I'd still use a chalkboard."

The content of what he teaches also hasn't changed. Olson said psychologists like to help people and find out what makes them tick.

"It's a lot of work on mental health. It's a lot of learning about how the brain works," he said.

It's also about learning about glands, the environment and the brain come together to make people behave a certain way at a certain moment.

"I don't see (that) the field has changed all that much. There's a lot more consideration of multicultural factors that come into play and people's behavior. We need to take into consideration people's cultural environment," Olson said.

He added that he's happy UTPB has been around for 50 years. "I'm happy about it. Good for UT Permian Basin; good for the University of Texas System and good for the Permian Basin. So what do I think? I think with joy that it's here," Olson said.

He still teaches a full load of classes and has hundreds of students.

He added that the university has been like a second home and the people have been like a second family.

"Especially this little office here. This is literally a second home," he added.

He enjoys the students and his colleagues.

When he arrived at UTPB, it had junior, senior and graduate level students. All that was missing were freshmen and sophomores. They got their first freshman class about 1991.

The students are a big reason Olson enjoys his job so much.

"That's what's fun around here is so many of these students are first-generation students. Their parents did not have the opportunity to go to college and they come here and they're just delightful to be with. They really care and they're pleased to have the relatively close access. So many of them can't afford to go to another campus and pay for housing and dormitories and all that stuff. We've really filled a big need in the Permian Basin," he added.

At the start of UTPB, everyone was joined together to do the best they could to be innovative in teaching techniques. There was a push for personalized system of instruction or self-paced instruction.

"It wasn't a whole lot different than what people do today in online instruction. People could work ahead. Of course everything was face to face. We sure didn't have Wi-Fi or internet, but we were innovative and everyone was innovative in terms of pedagogy," Olson said.

He added that he was one of the early adopters of online classes in about 1995.

"It wasn't any major adjustment. Thankfully, I had my son help me ... so it wasn't hard for me because of my son," Olson said.

There were two buildings, the Founders Building and what they called the Bullpen where all the administration and faculty were located.

"They were next door to each other south of here," he said.

When he's not working, Olson enjoys reading and Lionel trains.

"I'll fix them up for people and get them running again. I've still got my childhood ones. I still have my original train set," he added.

He and his wife, Cindy have three children.

Associate Professor of Art Chris Stanley has known Olson for as long as he's been at UTPB.

"Dr. Olson was one of the first faculty members I met upon arriving at UTPB. Shortly after my arrival, he was named dean of the newly formed College of Arts and Sciences. During his time as dean of the college, we worked together to hire Dr. Dan Keast and bring the music program back to UTPB. When faced with a challenge of understanding what the needs of a middle school teacher in the future would be we drafted our version of the Multi-Disciplinary degree, which is now housed in the College of Education and is the 'go-to degree' for those interested in teaching at the middle school level. Jim has been my boss, a prized mentor, and a friend for the 32 years I have been on campus," Stanley said.