WOU Repository

The 23rd President of Western Oregon University, Rex Fuller, attended California State University – Chico and University of Utah. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Utah and completed the Institute for Education Management program at Harvard. Before taking his position as Western Oregon University, he served as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Eastern Washington University. Prior to that, he was Executive Dean and Dean of Business and Public Administration at the same university. From 2000 to 2006, he served as Dean of the Hasan School of Business at Colorado State University. Before that, he was in administration at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.

Fuller was the first president to preside over the institution under independent governance under its own board of directors with the disbanding of the Oregon State System of Higher Education (in existence from 1929 to 2015). While a supporter of technological tools for higher learning, including online courses, Fuller expressed his view that a college experience is more than merely an accumulation of credits and has stated that college “has to be more than that if it’s going to personally transform you. Online programs ignore all the other connections in a college experience… At Western, education is transformative and personal. Our role is bright and vibrant going forward.”