Ohio University - Athena Yearbook (Athens, OH)

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Do many people really know this man? After two years of practicing law in Chicago, III. and serving as a legal consultant to the governor of Illinois, Dr. Sowle returned to Northwestern. From 1958 to 1965 he served as a professor of Law and Associate Dean. In 1965, the Sowle ' s, by which this time there were two additions, Leslie, now 14, and Stephen now 12, moved to Cincinnati. Dr. Sowle served as dean of the law school, and later acting vice- president for academic affairs. In 1969, Dr. Vernon Alden, then president of Ohio University, retired and Claude R. Sowle came to Athens. by Michael McGraw What do you see your job as? My job has three principal parts to it. First of all, 1 see myself as a catalyst. By that I mean looking at the problems of the university, the potential of the university, and trying to segregate those things which need to be done. The next step is setting in motion the necessary things to get the job accomplished. For example, in the old days perhaps the presidents felt that they could see what the problems were without consulting anybody, see how to handle them, and proceed to handle them. Things are too complex for that today. Therefore, I don ' t see myself as having the answer to every problem. I think I have to continually attempt to identify the problems and then to create the mechanism for the solution. An example is the open budget process. When I came it was apparent to me that down the pike we were going to have some tough financial times. The influence of higher education in the 1960 ' s simply was not going to be the case during the 1970 ' s. If you ' re going to get into tight times you need a system where by you can make the wisest decisions possible for the use of funds. You also have to inform the university community regularly DR. SOWLE 17

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Dr. Claude R. Sowle, 16th president of Ohio University, is a man of many aspects. But few individuals of the university community really know where the man who governs them came from, what he sees his role as, and what he has and is doing for Ohio University. President SowJe was born in Springfield, III. in 1928, and completed secondary schooling there in 1946. After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree at Northwestern University in Evanston, III., Sowle continued to study at Northwestern and received his Juris Doctor degree in 1956. Dr. Sowle was second in a class of 125, only to be surpassed by his wife of one year, Kathryn Dix Sowle. A long standing joke of the Sowle ' s, Ms. Sowle claims that the reason for this was that Dr. Sowle served as Editor-in-Chief of the Northwestern University Law Review and therefore his grades understandably dropped.

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and broadly about what your problems are and how you ' ve gone about solving them. Therefore, 1 created a group to look into how we could open up the budget process and accomplish these goals. Out of this came the open budget hearings. Secondly, I am a decision maker-implementer. Once as a catalyst you ' ve created a mechanism to look at a problem and that mechanism has produced a solution, or set of reccommendations, then I have to review those recommendations, accepting them, rejecting them, or modifying them. You have to be careful to articulate your reasons. Once a decision is made, I feel a responsibility to follow it up to see that it is carried out in the way it was originally intended. Thirdly, I am the chief communicator of the institution to the many publics we deal with, internally and externally. By example, there ' s a role to be played. That is, if I ' m open, candid, accurate, and if 1 I try to be responsive don ' t have the information say that I ' ll get it. What do you feel you have accomplished here at Ohio University? I often wonder about that and it is sometimes hard to really categorize it. One, I think we have perhaps most importantly, opened up the university. It was pretty closed when I came. A few people made the decisions, they made them privately, there was very little explanation of them, and very little understanding of the ingredients that went into them. My most important accomplishment was the democratizing of the university or at least moving us in that direction.