Lauren Wilson

Sherwood Dodge Shankland Award for Encouragement of Teachers (1968)

News Release

OWU Professor Takes New Post

Lauren R. Wilson, a chemistry professor and executive assistant to the president of Ohio Wesleyan University, and his wife, attorney L. Jane Wilson, will be moving to North Carolina this summer.

Lauren Wilson has been named vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, a post he will assume in July. His appointment was approved Friday by the UNC board of governors.

The Wilsons have lived in Delaware for 24 years.

Lauren Wilson joined the OWU faculty in 1963 as a chemistry professor and has since served the university in several positions. L. Jane. Wilson has practiced law here since early 1983.

“There are a lot of similarities between Ohio Wesleyan and UNCA, and that’s one of the things I found attractive,” the professor said of his new post. “UNCA has about 2,700 students, and it is growing rapidly. They have an unusual commitment to a liberal-arts education for a public institution. The university is for undergraduates only, and they have a strong core curriculum with emphasis on the humanities.”

UNCA’s commitment to liberal arts, its strong faculty, and Asheville’s location figured in the decision to leave. He said he is looking forward to learning a different system, but added: “Leaving Delaware is not that easy after this long.”

He currently holds the Homer C. Lucas Professorship at OWU, awarded to him last September by the faculty personnel committee. During the 1985-86 school year, he was acting provost, and also served as acting provost in 1977-78. He was dean of academic affairs from 1978 to 1985.

In 1967, he won the Sherwood Dodge Shankland Award for the Encouragement of Young Teachers. He went on to serve as chairman of the chemistry department from 1970 to 1972. He earned a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Kansas in 1963, and a bachelor’s degree from Baker University in 1958.

Jane Wilson said today she plans to practice law in North Carolina and is in the process of checking whether she needs to take a bar examination there.

She said she hopes to complete any cases she is now actively involved in before leaving in July. She said she may refer her clients to other local attorneys, “depending on what they want.”

Jane Wilson has practiced law from her office at 2 W. Winter St. since early in 1983. She passed the state bar examination late 1982. Previously, she was “a volunteer of several sorts and a homemaker,” and taught speech at OWU for one year.