Ellucian Appoints Dr. Paul J. LeBlanc to Board of Directors
Dr. Paul LeBlanc joins the higher education technology market leader to impact industry innovation and accelerate the modernization of higher education institutions
RESTON, VA — Ellucian, the leading higher education technology solutions provider, today announced that Dr. Paul J. LeBlanc, author, industry leader, innovator and former president of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), has been appointed to the company's Board of Directors. Dr. LeBlanc has decades of experience increasing student access and engagement and leveraging technology to scale opportunity and impact in higher education. Under the 21 years of Dr. LeBlanc's direction, SNHU grew from serving 2,800 students to over 250,000 today and is now the largest non-profit provider of online higher education in the country.
"We are thrilled to welcome Paul to the Ellucian Board of Directors and are eager to leverage his expertise to propel our vision of unlocking learning for all," said Laura Ipsen, President and CEO, Ellucian. "Paul's demonstrated success in advancing the adoption of technology to reimagine and reignite higher education has opened the door to new models. As a champion for students, he will help us effectively leverage emerging technologies, such as AI, as part of our SaaS platform that will further accelerate student success."
"I'm excited to join the Ellucian Board as the company builds out its next-generation SIS and AI tools," said Paul LeBlanc. "Given the criticality of data, Student Information Systems (SIS) have gone from utility to strategic platform, and Ellucian is the industry leader in this space."
Dr. LeBlanc is the Board Chair for Human Systems, an AI and Education company he co-founded with noted researcher George Siemens, and he is a member of the Board of Directors for Chegg, a leading student-first online learning platform. An early adopter of emerging technologies, Dr. LeBlanc will be a strategic advisor to Ellucian's AI Governance Board, which was established to oversee policies and processes for the use of internal AI-enabled tools, as well as the incorporation of AI solutions into Ellucian products. Dr. LeBlanc's expertise and industry experience will ensure progress and thoughtful application.
Considered one of America's most innovative educators, Dr. LeBlanc has received countless accolades and awards, including one of 15 "Classroom Revolutionaries" by Forbes Magazine and one of America's ten most innovative university presidents by Washington Monthly. He was named 2023 Citizen of the Year in his home city of Manchester, NH, and in 2018, Dr. LeBlanc won the prestigious TIAA Institute Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence in Higher Education.
Dr. LeBlanc is the author of Students First: Equity, Access, and Opportunity in Higher Education (2021), winner of the 2022 Phillip E. Frandson Award for Literature, and Broken: How are Social Systems Are Failing Us and How We Can Fix Them (2022). In 2015, he served as Senior Policy Advisor to Under Secretary Ted Mitchell at the US Department of Education, working on competency-based education, new accreditation pathways, and innovation. He has also served on numerous boards, including the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's Board on Higher Education and Workforce, and the Board of the American Council on Education, which he chaired.
