“Star Wars” figures — Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca lined up in their original boxes — fill the top two shelves of a bookcase in Kyle Jones’ office. Jones ’98, who is the Dean of Students at the USC Gould School of Law, put the collection there for a reason: to reassure the young people who need his assistance. “When they walk in that door,” he says, “it’s the first thing they see. It immediately sets them at ease.
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| Double Trojan Kyle Jones ’98 earned undergraduate degrees in journalism and in political science, as well as his J.D., from USC. Photo by Gus Ruelas |
It says: ‘Maybe this guy is going to be someone who is willing to listen to me.’” Jones was still very young and living in a small town in Northern California when the first “Star Wars” episode hit the movie screens, but the story of good, evil and redemption resonated with him. Identifying with the saga’s hero, “a poor kid from nowhere” named Luke Skywalker, he longed to emulate him. He wanted to do good and make a difference.
Jones, who was the first in his extended family to attend college, earned undergraduate degrees in journalism and in political science, as well as his J.D., from USC. The University is where he met his best friends and his wife. It’s the institution he feels he owes everything to. “This isn’t just a place where I come to do a job,” Jones says. “It’s a place where I want to give back because so much was given to me.”
His first job with USC, after a stint with a dot-com company in Los Angeles, was as the law school’s registrar. Working in that position from 2004 to 2014, Jones gradually assumed decision-making and planning responsibilities that had previously been the law school dean’s, such as creating the class schedule. The benefit to the students? “There is now one person they can go to who knows everything about the entire academic administration of the law school,” he says. “That one person is going to be a valuable resource, no matter what the problem.”
Named the Dean of Students last December, Jones sees it as his biggest challenge to ensure that all students grappling with problems around exams, academic policies, financial aid and more will actually seek the law school’s support. He remembers well how USC Gould had his back when he was a 2L student preparing for spring semester exams and his mother died rather suddenly. “I didn’t feel like I was alone and had to figure things out by myself,” Jones says. “The administration was very helpful and supportive, and I had a lot of leeway from my professors.”
Jones’ message is simple: “We can help students deal with pretty much anything that’s happening to them.” His bigger goal? “I want to dispel the notion of universities as faceless institutions and let people know that we care about them.”
This story appeared in the Fall/Winter issue of the USC Law Magazine
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