Notes from Paul LeBlanc keynote address at WCET13

Two weeks ago I attended the WCET Conference in Denver. While much smaller than EDUCAUSE and some others, I find these conferences to be great learning experiences, especially as WCET supports open dialogue between academic leaders (provosts, deans, etc), academic IT and edtech support, and industry leaders. The combination of mindsets – especially the combination of academic and technology – leads to very strategic discussions.

This year the keynote was presented by Dr. Paul LeBlanc, the president of Southern New Hampshire University, which has made quite a name for itself with the College for America (CfA) program. College for America is probably the second best-known example of competency-based education (CBE) after Western Governors University (WGU), and in fact the CfA program was the first to gain Department of Education approval using the “direct assessment” rule that completely avoids seat time. See my previous post for a primer on CBE.