Vice Chancellor for Digital Learning and Transformation

Dr. Luke Dowden serves the Alamo Colleges District as the Vice Chancellor for Digital Learning and Transformation after serving over seven years as the District’s Chief Online Learning Officer. As Vice Chancellor, Dr. Dowden is responsible for the strategic development, implementation, and management of the Alamo Colleges District’s digital learning initiatives including AlamoONLINE. He provides vision, direction and leadership for strategies, activities, programs and services across a comprehensive digital learning portfolio.

He was honored in 2023 by 1EdTech with a Leadership Award in Digital Credentials for founding the Skills Lab - a micro-credential innovation hub. The Online Learning Consortium named Dr. Dowden as a member of their distinguished 2022 Class of Fellows. WCET - WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies - honored Dr. Dowden with the Dick Jonsen & Mollie McGill Award in fall 2024. The award - WCET’s highest honor for leadership and service - is given each year to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the higher education digital learning community and WCET during their career.

He has been honored four consecutive years by the Emerging Leaders Program as a Trusted Leader (2019, 2020) and by Alamo Colleges Academy for Leadership Success (ALAS) as an Essential Leader (2021, 2022). Dr. Dowden was selected as one of three recipients of the inaugural Excellence in Leadership Practice Award from the 2022 Emerging Leaders Class.

Service to the state and national online learning practitioner community is a hallmark of Dr. Dowden’s career. He joined the Quality Matters Board of Directors in 2021 and was recently elected for a second three-year term. Dr. Dowden represents the Alamo Colleges on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Learning Technology Advisory Committee and began a second three-year term in August 2025. He is an Executive Council member for the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET).

Before joining the Alamo Colleges District, Dr. Dowden founded the Office of Distance Learning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2010 and served as its director for eight years. Under Dowden’s leadership, the Office of Distance Learning earned the 2013 Online Learning Consortium’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Development for Online Teaching. He was honored in 2014 as the inaugural recipient of the Online Learning Consortium Bruce N. Chaloux Award for Early Career Excellence in Online Education.

Prior to joining UL Lafayette, Dowden founded the Division of Accelerated Learning at Bossier Parish Community College. He led the creation of six online, accelerated degree programs with wrap-around student support services. During this time, the Louisiana Board of Regents tabbed him to create the Center for Adult Learning in Louisiana. As Executive Director of CALL from 2008-2013, he worked primarily with six community colleges and regional universities to create and launch over 18 accelerated online degree programs, introduce prior learning assessment policies and strategies, and coordinate marketing the programs statewide to the over 500,000 adults with some college and no degree.

Dowden earned a bachelor’s in History and a master’s degree in Adult Education from Northwestern State University of Louisiana before earning his Doctorate of Education in Higher Education Administration in 2009 from Nova Southeastern University. He is a 2010 Graduate of the Online Learning Consortium Institute for Emerging Leaders in Online Learning (IELOL) and completed the Institute for Educational Management (IEM) through Harvard University/s Graduate School of Education in 2025.