A new president is at the helm of Park University this year. Kansas City native David Fowler was appointed as the university’s interim president July 1. “Park University plans to leverage its successes and its position from recent years to address the complex and global changes in the evolving higher education model,” stated Ann Mesle, chair of the Park University Board of Trustees, in a press release sent to the Park University community on June 30. “We believe David will be an important contributor to help guide the planning, organizing and the implementation of the goals within Park’s Promise.” Upon graduating from Southwest High School in Kansas City, Mo., Fowler attended the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting. For the last 37 years, Fowler has worked for KPMG in Kansas City. He served as the office managing partner for 13 years until he retired from the company in March 2013. Fowler and his wife of 37 years, Beth, raised their four children in Kansas City. Fowler said Missouri is a “wonderful place” to live and raise a family. He also has three grandchildren. Along with his years of service to the Kansas City community with KPMG, Fowler has also served on a variety of civic and charitable organization boards including the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City. He also was the board chair for the Kansas City Area Development Council, according to a press release. “Most recently, Fowler served as the co-chair of the Kansas City International Airport Terminal Advisory Group, an appointment by Kansas City Mayor Sly James,” a press release issued by the university stated. “In that extensive project, Fowler was responsible for leading the analytical discovery related to the complex assessment of the KCI Airport facility.” According to Fowler, the Board of Trustees approached him and offered him the position of interim president, noting the role would put him in the position to “continue to maintain the momentum the university had and build on that,” Fowler said. While serving as Park’s interim president, Fowler said his background would be asset. “(The board knew) my experiences and skill sets would be kind of a different skill set than the university has had,” he said. “If you’re trying to keep bringing different refreshing outlooks, you bring in diversity and thought.” Some of the areas Fowler said he would bring focus to are in adding governance where needed; financial acumen and decision-making; enrollment processes and exploring opportunities with entrepreneurial ventures. Since starting at Park, Fowler said one thing he hopes to strengthen within the Park University community is the core values. “As we’ve recast our core values, we kept the same core values but we recast them in two different ways,” he said. “One was to make our core values action verbs instead of a passive noun, and two, to add some key words that we associate with each core value that really explains and cuts the heart out of that core value.” To explain, Fowler said that rather than having different people interpret each of Park’s core values in different ways, more complete explanations and key words can be created so that the values can be put into action and the university can have a better understanding of what is expected with each core value. Even though Fowler has accepted the position of interim president, he said his intention is to only serve in the position for the 2014-2015 school year and he will not be seeking the permanent president position. “I think I can be most effective if I’m not a candidate for the full-time permanent presidency position,” he said. “And, whether I would aspire to be the president, I’ve kind of taken myself out of the running so I can make the kind of changes that I see without their being any perception or suspicion that I’m trying to posture to get the full-time presidency.” By doing so, Fowler said this would allow him to be more objective, rather than be the subject of second-guessing or criticism. But before his time is complete at Park, Fowler said one area he would especially like to see the university improve is what he calls an “inferiority complex.” “Park has so much going for it,” he said. “From a local perspective and a national perspective, it’s fully accredited, highly regarded and it appears on many lists of top universities…and I don’t know that we tout that enough. “Coming from the community side and being in Kansas City my whole career, in the business community, I’m not sure Park really it gets its due,” he said. “And, so using my own observations, and that’s not a criticism, we need to tell the Park University story better…I think, from the standpoint of Park University pride, from the students, from the staff, to the faculty, from the Trustees, we need to get the Park University story out there.”