Dr. Lawrence Schall is the President of the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE). He joined the Commission in 2020. Under his leadership, NECHE has transitioned from a regional to a national accreditor and added over 40 institutions both across the United States and globally. He spends much of his time these days in Washington DC advocating on behalf of our nation’s higher education institutions. Previously, he served as President of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia for 15 years. During his tenure, Dr. Schall led the transformation of Oglethorpe from an at-risk institution to a university boasting a doubled class size and rigorous spending safeguards, raised over one hundred million dollars, and secured a solid financial outlook for the institution. Schall serves on the Board of Spelman College, the highly-ranked historically Black women’s college also in Atlanta.

President Schall received his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College and his J.D. and Ed.D from the University of Pennsylvania. After practicing law as a civil rights attorney in Philadelphia for a decade, he served as Vice President of Administration at Swarthmore for 15 years before assuming the Presidency of Oglethorpe.