AI and the Future of Higher Ed: Insights from Paul LeBlanc скачать в хорошем качестве

AI and the Future of Higher Ed: Insights from Paul LeBlanc

Paul LeBlanc is President of Southern New Hampshire University. Over 20 years, he has led SNHU’s explosive growth, expanding access to over 250,000 students, to become the largest nonprofit provider of online higher education in the U.S. Paul shares his perspective on how artificial intelligence and the rise of tools like ChatGPT will bring deep shifts for higher education. He outlines the need to reinvent learning models and curricula, deploy AI judiciously, and coordinate global data sharing. Ultimately, Paul expresses optimism that AI’s transformative potential can usher in positive change for society, if anchored by human relationships and wisdom. This forward-looking discussion provides higher education leaders timely insights on navigating AI-driven disruption through coordinated innovation that keeps learner needs at the center. Please follow, rate, and review Work Forces on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you are listening. Also, please follow Kaitlin and Julian on LinkedIn. Transcript Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid. Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine. And we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning. Julian: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained. Kaitlin: Let's dive in. Julian: Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Paul LeBlanc, President of Southern New Hampshire University. Paul joined SNHU in 2003 and has transformed the university into the largest nonprofit provider of online higher education in the country, expanding its student base from 2,800 to over 250,000. Paul's been recognized for his innovative leadership and has earned accolades from Fast Company, Forbes Magazine, and Washington Monthly. And in 2018, Paul won the prestigious TIA Institute Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence in Higher Education. Paul's work extends beyond SNHU. He served as senior policy advisor to Under Secretary Ted Mitchell at the US Department of Education, and on several national committees focused on education, quality, and innovation. As a first-generation college grad with degrees from Framingham State University, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts, Paul's career has spanned from directing a technology startup for Hoetten Mifflin to presiding over Marlboro College before joining SNHU. And most recently, Paul announced that he is stepping down from his role at SNHU and is embarking on an exciting new chapter to focus on the integration of AI into higher education. Thanks so much for joining us today, Paul. Paul LeBlanc: It's really great to be with both of you. Kaitlin: So wonderful to see you, Paul. Thank you for joining our podcast. So though we've given this bio, can you please tell us a bit about your background in your own words and your journey of bringing SNHU to its current scale? Paul: Sure. Let me do the first one in broad strokes. So my family immigrated from a very sort of impoverished rural farming area of New Brunswick, Canada when I was just a kid. And I was the youngest of five and the first in my extended family to go to college. My father had an eighth grade education. My mother had a sixth grade education. And they were, you know, my mom worked in a factory until she was in her seventies, and my dad was a day laborer and a construction worker. And like all immigrant stories, you know, they came because it was work and a better life. And indeed there was. So I have a kind of schmaltzy love of the American dream story. And because I watched the way that my two grown daughters have a life now that their grandparents would scarcely imagine if they were still with us. And that was because I had access to high quality, affordable higher education and changed the whole trajectory of my life and thus theirs. I think that dream has increasingly slipped out of reach for too many Americans and new immigrants and working people. So SNHU has been…what I loved about this place when I came in 2003, almost 21 years ago now, was that that in its DNA had always focused on those learners. It wasn't a typical college that started with a campus and 17 year olds and that bucolic setting we see on view books. It started in the second floor over the Palace Fruit Company on Hanover Street in Manchester and wasn't until 1968 that it had a campus. So when I arrived in 2003, it had about 2,500 students and they had sort of continuing education centers and those were evening programs working adults, but it also has a small online program at a time when a lot of not-for-profit higher ed was still looking down its collective nose at online learning, thought it was inferior quality, couldn't be as good, you need to be in a classroom with our faculty to have a great experience, and yet we watched as for-profit higher ed just rushed to fill that vacuum and people forget that at its height the...