{"id":1222,"date":"2015-05-01T14:22:35","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T22:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=1222"},"modified":"2015-05-01T14:22:35","modified_gmt":"2015-05-01T22:22:35","slug":"dr-rex-fuller-set-to-take-over-western-presidency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/dr-rex-fuller-set-to-take-over-western-presidency\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Rex Fuller set to take over Western presidency"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Jack Armstrong\r\n News Editor<\/pre>\n
Western has announced Dr. Rex Fuller as the new president of the university, effective on July 1, 2015. Fuller will be taking over for president Mark Weiss, retiring June 30, 2015.<\/p>\n
Weiss announced his retirement at the beginning of the 2014-2015 academic year and a committee was appointed to find his replacement. Members of the committee included representatives from the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, the Western board of trustees, and the president\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Fuller was selected from a group of four finalists which also included Dr. Fernando Delgado, Dr. Margaret Madden, and Dr. Christopher Ames.<\/p>\n
The four finalists were further vetted after their announcement on March 30. All of the candidates were interviewed both behind closed doors, and in an open-to-the-public, town hall style forum.<\/p>\n
Once the interview process was completed, Western\u2019s committee passed their recommendation for selection on to the OSBHE. The State Board voted Fuller in as the official replacement April 16.<\/p>\n
Fuller received his undergraduate degree from California State-Chico, and proceeded to get his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Utah.<\/p>\n
Fuller will begin his time as the 23rd Western president this summer by leaving his current position as provost and vice president of Academic Affairs at Eastern Washington University, which he has held since 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a provost and serving as a vice president is a full time job,\u201d Fuller said. \u201cIt can be all consuming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The transition to his new position is promising for Fuller, who said, \u201cbeing a provost is almost exclusively an internal administrative job, but the presidency gives me a chance to work out and about on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the title of president will be new, Fuller is no stranger to the administrative side of university life. He started his current carrier path serving as a full-time dean for more than 20 years at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Colorado State University.<\/p>\n
Fuller has made his way to EWU, which has around 13,000 students, more than double the size of Western\u2019s student body. Fuller said he believes that this smaller size can be advantageous to Western\u2019s approach to recruitment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWestern is small enough to have conversations with all of the faculty and students on a regular basis,\u201d Fuller said. \u201cBut, we are still large enough to have the academic diversity of a regionally comprehensive university.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regionally comprehensive universities like Western typically offer a broad spectrum of academic programs from science to the liberal arts. They were originally created to service a specific region within a state, but always have more of a focus on teaching as supposed to research.<\/p>\n
Western still remains a unique challenge for Fuller though, and he looks forward to expanding the university in any way he can.<\/p>\n
\u201cWestern has the opportunity to draw students from throughout the I-5 corridor,\u201d He said. \u201cWe have to make the case for why Western is the best choice, a very positive choice. We have to reach out to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall growth is a long term goal for Fuller; in the interim, he intends to focus on getting to know the new board of trustees that will take the place of the Oregon University System board here at Western.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first few months will be working with the new legislative board and getting to know my new team,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s an advantage to work with the new independent board; I\u2019ve worked in both systems and the independent universities have more control over their own destinies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuller added: \u201cI\u2019ve always aspired to be a university president; it is the right moment for this opportunity for my wife and I, and we are really excited to have been selected. Western has a great tradition of success and excellence and we look forward to being a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former provost and economist hopes to adapt quickly to new position<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":1223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}