Blue Jeans with a Difference

He was just an economist--a confessed "illiterate in the arts." But for the past five years Lewis Webster Jones had presided effectively over Vermont's arty, progressive Bennington College, whose 300-odd girls favor sloppy blue jeans and custom-tailored curricula, and excel in the modern dance.

Last week wry, engaging Lewis Jones, 47, was ready to take a job as unlike his old one as it could be. The new job: president of the University of Arkansas. Said he: "I'm devoted to Bennington. My wife and I were charter members of the faculty . But you can't go on having the same experience. You go flat, you go dead. Small colleges are important for experimenting, but I'd like to get into the main stream--public education--now."

At Arkansas, Jones will be running a state university where the girls are outnumbered, and wear blue jeans for hay rides, but not to classes. Among its 4,700 students (a 75-year high) are 3,000 ex-G.I.s. Says Jones, grinning: "I like girls, but it will be nice to have a few men around the place."

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