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·         James Olson received his B.A. degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he was named outstanding student in psychology in 1969. He received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1974. He is one of the “founding faculty” of UT Permian Basin, coming to the university when it first opened its doors in 1973. He was instrumental in the development of the campus’ Counseling Center, where he served his clinical internship. He is a licensed psychologist in Texas, since 1978. He is currently Professor of Psychology, Program Head for the M.A. program in Clinical Psychology, and Director of New Faculty Outreach.  He teaches Career Counseling and Development, Current Psychotherapies, and Cognitive Behavior Therapy at the graduate level, and Statistics, Drugs and Behavior, and Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the undergraduate level. He has co-authored three books:  (1) Basic Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (1981, Holt, Rinehart and Winston); (2) Breaking and Entering: An Ethnographic Analysis of Burglary (Sage Publications, 1991), and (3) Breaking and Entering: Burglars and Burglary (Wadsworth Publishers, 2004).   He has six book chapters, and has published in a variety of journals, some of which are: Perception and Psychophysics; Pharmacology; Biochemistry and Behavior; Journal of Drug Education; The Behavior Analyst; Journal of Crime and Justice; The Journal of Orthopsychiatry; and Addictive Behaviors. His research interests are broad. Among other things, he is currently working on a manuscript discussing "evidence based practice" and a critique of "defense mechanisms” which prevails in many texts.