Greg Fowler selected to head Southern New Hampshire University

ALBANY — When Greg Fowler was a senior at Dougherty High School in 1987, his classmates voted him Most Likely to Succeed.

What the Class of ‘87 predicted more than three decades ago was manifest recently when Fowler was named president of Southern New Hampshire University’s Global Campus, one of the largest colleges in America with more than 135,000 learners worldwide.

Since graduating from Dougherty High, Fowler has attained a number of degrees and certificates from schools including Morehouse University, SUNY-Buffalo and Harvard University. He has taught at Penn State University, was selected as the Charles A. Dana Scholar at Duke University, has been awarded two Senior Fulbright Scholarships to Europe, and has published articles in Germany, Canada and the United States.

In 2005, Fowler joined Western Governors University in Salt Lake City and was part of the leadership team that saw student enrollment there explode over six years, from 3,000 students to more than 30,000. At SNHU he has served as chief academic officer and vice president of academic affairs since 2012, overseeing programs that serve students in traditional face-to-face and online graduate programs, military students around the world, DACA students in the U.S., and refugees in Rwanda, Malawi, Lebanon and South Africa.

“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world,” Fowler said, citing the words of Nelson Mandela and noting the power education had to change the destinies of historical figures like Malcolm X and Abraham Lincoln.

Fowler is the seventh of eight children of Roland and Rosie Fowler, long-time residents of Albany, and is the youngest brother of Dougherty County coroner Michael Fowler.

Jane Button Photography