Paul J. Leblanc

Forbes Magazine has listed Dr. Paul LeBlanc as one of the “most influential people in higher education.” and one of its 15 “Classroom Revolutionaries”. Washington Monthly named him one of America’s ten most innovative university presidents. In 2018, Paul won the prestigious TIAA Institute Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence in Higher Education, joining some of the most respected university and college presidents in American higher education.

Under Paul’s Presidency since 2003, Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) has grown from 2,800 students to over 180,000 learners and is the largest nonprofit provider of online higher education in the country. The university was #12 on Fast Company magazine’s “World’s Fifty Most Innovative Companies” list and was the only university included.

Paul served as Senior Policy Advisor to Under Secretary Ted Mitchell at the U.S. Department of Education, working on competency-based education, new accreditation pathways, and innovation. He serves on the American Council on Education (ACE), which he has chaired, and has served on the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) and on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Board on Higher Education and Workforce (and served on its Committee on Quality in Undergraduate Education), and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) Council of Presidents. Paul also advises or serves on the boards of various ed tech companies, including Guild, Chegg, Lynx, and Certree.