Broken: How Our Social Systems are Failing Us and How We Can Fix Them
Many of the systems built to serve people instead do more harm than good.

In Broken, Dr. Paul LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University, draws on his experience working in one such system—education—to reconnect us to the human facets of serving people. In doing so, he charts a course for rebuilding and reinhabiting better systems across education, healthcare, criminal justice, government, and more.

The United States spends enormous sums on helping people—$3.8 trillion on healthcare, $182 billion on prisons, and $604 billion on higher education—and yet these systems routinely fail us.

When we seek to improve how they function, our efforts focus on policy debates, technical solutions, funding, and data. But if these systems are to truly improve, we have to start with the human values that fuel decision making.
 
Broken explores the deeply human dimensions we must consider—aspiring, discovering, mattering—if we want to rebuild the policies, technologies, processes, and, most importantly, the heart we use to serve people.
 
Over the course of 25 years as a college and university president and higher education innovator, Paul LeBlanc, PhD, has encountered innumerable wonderful people who want to do the right thing for students but whose efforts cannot overcome the shortcomings of the system. Now, he shares what he’s learned, and continues to learn, about the opportunities and necessity to put humanity and care at the center of all our systems. 
 
With Broken, LeBlanc outlines the distinctly human questions that education—and all systems that serve—must start asking to reframe what is broken in order to make lasting repairs and to better care for those they serve.
1141018830
Broken: How Our Social Systems are Failing Us and How We Can Fix Them
Many of the systems built to serve people instead do more harm than good.

In Broken, Dr. Paul LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University, draws on his experience working in one such system—education—to reconnect us to the human facets of serving people. In doing so, he charts a course for rebuilding and reinhabiting better systems across education, healthcare, criminal justice, government, and more.

The United States spends enormous sums on helping people—$3.8 trillion on healthcare, $182 billion on prisons, and $604 billion on higher education—and yet these systems routinely fail us.

When we seek to improve how they function, our efforts focus on policy debates, technical solutions, funding, and data. But if these systems are to truly improve, we have to start with the human values that fuel decision making.
 
Broken explores the deeply human dimensions we must consider—aspiring, discovering, mattering—if we want to rebuild the policies, technologies, processes, and, most importantly, the heart we use to serve people.
 
Over the course of 25 years as a college and university president and higher education innovator, Paul LeBlanc, PhD, has encountered innumerable wonderful people who want to do the right thing for students but whose efforts cannot overcome the shortcomings of the system. Now, he shares what he’s learned, and continues to learn, about the opportunities and necessity to put humanity and care at the center of all our systems. 
 
With Broken, LeBlanc outlines the distinctly human questions that education—and all systems that serve—must start asking to reframe what is broken in order to make lasting repairs and to better care for those they serve.
13.99 In Stock
Broken: How Our Social Systems are Failing Us and How We Can Fix Them

Broken: How Our Social Systems are Failing Us and How We Can Fix Them

by Paul LeBlanc
Broken: How Our Social Systems are Failing Us and How We Can Fix Them

Broken: How Our Social Systems are Failing Us and How We Can Fix Them

by Paul LeBlanc

eBookDigital original (Digital original)

$13.99 

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

Many of the systems built to serve people instead do more harm than good.

In Broken, Dr. Paul LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University, draws on his experience working in one such system—education—to reconnect us to the human facets of serving people. In doing so, he charts a course for rebuilding and reinhabiting better systems across education, healthcare, criminal justice, government, and more.

The United States spends enormous sums on helping people—$3.8 trillion on healthcare, $182 billion on prisons, and $604 billion on higher education—and yet these systems routinely fail us.

When we seek to improve how they function, our efforts focus on policy debates, technical solutions, funding, and data. But if these systems are to truly improve, we have to start with the human values that fuel decision making.
 
Broken explores the deeply human dimensions we must consider—aspiring, discovering, mattering—if we want to rebuild the policies, technologies, processes, and, most importantly, the heart we use to serve people.
 
Over the course of 25 years as a college and university president and higher education innovator, Paul LeBlanc, PhD, has encountered innumerable wonderful people who want to do the right thing for students but whose efforts cannot overcome the shortcomings of the system. Now, he shares what he’s learned, and continues to learn, about the opportunities and necessity to put humanity and care at the center of all our systems. 
 
With Broken, LeBlanc outlines the distinctly human questions that education—and all systems that serve—must start asking to reframe what is broken in order to make lasting repairs and to better care for those they serve.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781637741771
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.
Publication date: 09/27/2022
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 918 KB

About the Author

Dr. Paul LeBlanc is President of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). Since 2003, under Paul’s leadership, SNHU has grown from 2,800 students to more than 180,000 learners and is the largest nonprofit provider of online higher education in the country. Paul served as Senior Policy Advisor to Undersecretary Ted Mitchell at the US Department of Education, working on competency-based education, new accreditation pathways, and innovation. He 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). He also serves on the American Council on Education Board, various corporate boards, and is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences.  His book Students First: Equity, Access, and Opportunity in Higher Education won the 2022 Phillip E. Frandson Award.
 
Paul immigrated to the United States as a child, was the first person in his extended family to attend college, and is a graduate of Framingham State University (BA), Boston College (MA), and the University of Massachusetts (PhD). From 1993 to 1996, he directed a technology start-up for Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company, was President of Marlboro College (VT) from 1996 to 2003, and became President of SNHU in 2003. His wife, Patricia, is an attorney and they have two daughters, Emma and Hannah.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Mattering 27

Dreaming Bigger Dreams 55

The Power of Stories 83

The Problem of Scale 115

The Heart of Leadership 175

Acknowledgments 197

Notes 203

Index 215

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Broken is an invitation to imagine different dimensions of the same challenges, abandoning old, tired ideas and reaffirming the most important human and spiritual values. That is why this book deserves wide readership and recognition.”
His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
 
Broken inspires those who are already engaged in education and/or social justice movements, as well as those who are on the sidelines, to explore how we build social systems that ‘love ALL those they are intended to serve.’ You’ll find yourself hanging onto every word.”
Janiece Evans-Page, CEO, Tides
 
“LeBlanc, one of the nation’s most innovative and visionary university presidents, offers a thoughtful and thought-provoking look at how to counter the despair so many Americans feel about the state of our most vital systems—from education to health care to criminal justice. For all of us eager to find ways to truly be the change, Broken is a worthwhile and inspiring read.”
Thasunda Brown Duckett, CEO, TIAA
 
“LeBlanc lays out a strong case for how each of us can play a role in delivering on our promise to all people to help them realize their highest potential.” 
Johnny Taylor,  CEO, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
 
“In his galvanizing new book, LeBlanc turns his attention to systems of care in our society, including health care and criminal justice, in addition to higher education, that are in a state of brokenness. Employing his considerable gifts as a storyteller, LeBlanc asks his readers to consider social systems informed by love and respect for the human condition.”
Dr. Matthew G Biel, Division Chief and Vice Chair for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Georgetown University Medical Center—Medstar Health
 
“In his powerful book Broken, Paul LeBlanc outlines what a world that centers our shared humanity can look like, and why it’s so critical that we seize the chance to make bold changes—now. This is requisite reading for anyone who wants to be a part of the solution, not the problem.”
—Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO, Acumen and Author of The Blue Sweater and Manifesto for a Moral Revolution
 
“Paul does a masterful job of honestly assessing our social systems from higher education to health care and criminal justice, weaving in his own decades-long personal and professional journey . . . Paul lays out a strong case for how each of us can play a role in delivering on our promise to all people to help them realize their highest potential.” 
Johnny Taylor,  CEO, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews