Dr. Paul LeBlanc is the author of Students First: Equity, Access, and Opportunity in Higher Education and Broken: How our Social Systems are Failing Us.
In his new book, Broken: How our Social Systems are Failing Us, Paul explores how many of the systems built to serve people instead do more harm than good. Through his experience in one such system, higher education, Paul reconnects us to the human facets of serving people. In doing so, he charts a course for rebuilding and reinhabiting better systems across education, healthcare, criminal justice, government, and more.
Broken explores the deeply human dimensions we must consider—aspiring, discovering, mattering—if we want to rebuild the policies, technologies, processes, and, most importantly, the heart we use to serve people.
With Broken, LeBlanc outlines the distinctly human questions that education—and all systems that serve—must start asking to reframe what is broken in order to make lasting repairs and to better care for those they serve.
For decades, Paul has reimagined higher education, with a focus on the most fundamental of functions: student learning. In Students First, he advocates for an entire higher education ecosystem in which students have the flexibility to gain, assess, and certify their knowledge on their own terms and timelines.
Through case studies and perceptive analysis, he highlights alternative delivery models such as online, distance, and just-in-time learning, and he envisions a learning environment that values competencies rather than credit hours. LeBlanc describes how these innovations and others will allow colleges and universities to help close the skills gap and respond to a rapidly evolving, technology-driven job market.
Although a college education remains one of the great drivers of socioeconomic mobility, today's higher education industry has built financial, logistical, and practical barriers that keep out the very students who are most in need of opportunity. Students First makes a persuasive case that realigning US educational priorities will enable larger populations of graduates to enjoy a return on investment in the form of good pay, meaningful work, and a stable future. As the book emphasizes, such change is imperative, for in better serving its students, higher education will better serve society.
Paul LeBlanc has reimagined higher education, with a focus on the most fundamental of functions: student learning. In Students First, he advocates for an entire higher education ecosystem in which students have the flexibility to gain, assess, and certify their knowledge on their own terms and timelines.
Although a college education remains one of the great drivers of socioeconomic mobility, today's higher education industry has built financial, logistical, and practical barriers that keep out the very students who are most in need of opportunity. Students First makes a persuasive case that realigning US educational priorities will enable larger populations of graduates to enjoy a return on investment in the form of good pay, meaningful work, and a stable future. As the book emphasizes, such change is imperative, for in better serving its students, higher education will better serve society.
Interviews with the Author and Students
Hear author Paul LeBlanc talk about his motivations for Students First, and watch the interviews with students that fueled the narrative, and helped bring his book and the ideas that drive his vision of higher education to life.
About the Author
Paul LeBlanc is president of Southern New Hampshire University and has served on the board of the American Council of Education, the Association of Governing Boards President’s Council, and the Academy of Sciences Board on Workforce and Higher Education. In 2018, he was honored with the Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence in Higher Education.