Dr. Paul J. LeBlanc became President of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) on July 7, 2003. He previously served as president at Marlboro College (VT) from 1996 to 2003.
Under the eight years of Paul's direction, SNHU has more doubled in size and is the largest provider of online higher education in New England. In 2012 the university was #12 on Fast Company magazine's "World's Fifty Most Innovative Companies" list and was the only university included. SNHU has been recognized by the Gates Foundation as a "Beating the Odds" school for its innovative programming to increase graduation rates and productivity, has been named to the Chronicle's "Best Colleges to Work For" list every year since the listing was created and in 2011 was named to the Honor Roll, earned a Carnegie Foundation Community Engagement classification in 2010, moved from Tier 3 to Tier 1 for regional universities in the US News and World Report ranking, and had its credit rating upgraded by S&P amidst the 2008 recession.
SNHU was recently featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Paul has been asked to speak on innovation, online learning, and higher education reform by the New England Board of Higher Education, the Lumina Foundation, Rhode Island’s Board of Higher Education, Harvard’s Schools of Business and of Education, IBM, the CTO Forum, and others.
Paul won a New England Higher Education Excellence Award in 2012 and was named one of "New Hampshire's Most Influential People" by New Hampshire Business Review. He sits on a number of boards and steering committees including the Council of Adult and Experiential Learning, New Hampshire College and University Council, the New Hampshire Campus Compact, the Gates Foundation Data Metrics Project, and the OpenStudy Advisory Board. He is a past Commissioner for the NEASC Commission on Higher Education.