Topic: Workforce development
Past Event
May 16, 2023
Careers for PhDs: Consulting
On May 16 at 4:15-5:30 pm ET, Dylan Ruediger will speak on a Syracuse University panel on the nature of consultant work, the kinds of jobs available in the sector, and how to mobilize your PhD skillset to join a consultancy or start your own. Dylan will share his experience as Ithaka S+R program manager in conversation with Laura Payne-Bourcy. The event is sponsored by the Central New York Humanities Corridor from an award by the Mellon Foundation.
Blog Post
February 8, 2023
Educational Attainment and the Economy
Where Do We See the Best Opportunities for Growth?
Attaining a postsecondary credential has the potential to improve the life circumstances of people across the country as well as the financial and economic health of states. As individuals secure jobs that pay living wages, they become less reliant on social services, increase their personal spending, and generate additional tax revenue for the state. These benefits are likely to increase the state’s GDP, attract new industry, expand labor market opportunities, and reduce necessary state spending. Prior research shows…
Blog Post
January 18, 2023
Fellowships at ITHAKA
An Interview with Colette Johnson
Established in 2018, the ITHAKA fellowship program offers a unique opportunity to early career researchers seeking to gain real-world experience and further their careers by working with one of ITHAKA’s services: Ithaka S+R, Reveal Digital, JSTOR Daily, or JSTOR Labs. We spoke with Colette Johnson, director of strategy and operations at Ithaka S+R, who established the fellowship program, to learn about the inspiration behind the program and goals for future development. What inspired you to start…
Research Report
January 17, 2023
Strengthening Mississippi’s Economic Future Through Postsecondary Investment
As Mississippi prepares to support the statewide postsecondary attainment goal, understanding the returns to higher education is crucial to determining where to invest resources. Ithaka S+R has partnered with the Woodward Hines Education Foundation to provide Mississippi policymakers, advocates, and legislators with information they need to make strategic investments in postsecondary education that can increase attainment of high-value postsecondary credentials, especially amongst lower-income Mississippians, people of color, and residents in rural communities.
Past Event
January 8, 2023
What’s Next? The Job Market After COVID
Session at the Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting 2023
Ithaka S+R’s Kurtis Tanaka will participate in the 2023 Archeological Institute of American Annual Meeting in a session on the job market after COVID-19 and alternative academic careers. The workshop, sponsored by Student Affairs Interest Group (SAIG), will take place on Sunday, January 8, at 11:30 am – 1:30 pm CST. Preliminary panelists include Andrew Donnelly, Michael Kicey, Ana-Sofia Meneses, and Kurtis Tanaka, and organizers include Tina Bekkali-Poio, Amanda Cates Ball, and Sarah Toby Wilker. Learn more about…
Blog Post
August 18, 2022
Diversity, Equity, and the PhD Pipeline
Expanding the Toolkit
The growing mismatch between the profiles of current full-time faculty, 75 percent of whom are white, and the nation’s increasingly diverse undergraduate student bodies, 45 percent of whom are people of color, represents a serious threat to socioeconomic and racial equity and intergenerational mobility. In spite of a generation of comprehensive targeted enrichment interventions from the undergraduate through postdoctoral fellowship stages, public and privately-funded efforts to increase the number of PhDs from historically underserved populations has been painstakingly slow.
Past Event
August 2, 2022
The Chronicle’s Strategic Leadership Program for Department Chairs
Big-Picture Thinking
From August 2 – 19, Ithaka S+R is once again teaming up with the Chronicle of Higher Education and Dever Justice to provide a comprehensive virtual leadership series for department chairs. The series will kick off with strategy workshops to identify shared challenges, followed by six seminars focusing on national trends in higher education; the higher education business model; faculty diversity; enrollment and retention; innovations in teaching and learning. The series will round out with implementation workshops to take the…
Past Event
February 2, 2022
What’s it like to be an Intern with Ithaka S+R?
Colette Johnson, Dylan Ruediger, and Christy McDaniel at University of Michigan- Rackham
During this session, staff from Ithaka S+R will provide an overview of their internship program for graduate students. Staff who have supervised interns will discuss their career paths, the kind of work they do, and the types of project students could expect to contribute to as interns with the company. The session will include time for questions and discussion.
Past Event
January 21, 2022
Dylan Ruediger at Brandeis University
On January 21 at 2:00 PM, Dylan Ruediger will be chairing a virtual panel on career paths for humanities PhDs sponsored by Brandeis University.
Past Event
August 2, 2021
Dylan Ruediger and Colette E. Johnson at the 2021 Humanities Without Walls Workshop
On August 2, Colette Johnson and Dylan Ruediger will present at the 2021 Humanities Without Walls Career Diversity Workshop to talk about their work at Ithaka S+R with grad students in the humanities. For more information, please visit the workshop website.
Past Event
February 24, 2021
How to Help Americans Get Back to Work
Martin Kurzweil speaks during Strada Public Viewpoint research webinar
Join Martin Kurzweil and the Strada Center for Education Consumer Insights at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 24 for a Public Viewpoint webinar on “How To Help Americans Get Back to Work.” The webinar will discuss recent findings and implications for skills-based hiring, upskilling, and employer-provided education. For more information, please follow this link.
Research Report
September 29, 2020
Measuring a Liberal Education and its Relationship with Labor Market Outcomes
An Exploratory Analysis
The liberal arts and sciences has been a prominent feature of the United States higher education system for centuries, yet it has faced waves of public skepticism since the 1930s. Today, the value of a liberal education is constantly disputed, and colleges and universities face increasing pressure to justify their use of its practices on their campuses. To better understand the value and benefits of the liberal arts and sciences, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has funded a series of…
Blog Post
July 20, 2020
Southern New Hampshire University’s FEATuring You
A New Tool Designed to Connect Marginally Engaged Youth to Employment
Digital tools that directly test and train individuals’ competencies are dramatically changing hiring and higher education. Technology platforms that boast robust analytic capabilities are increasingly being adopted by employers to securely and efficiently verify candidates’ fit through a wide assortment of skills-based evaluations, with 71 percent of North American employers utilizing pre-hire assessments during the screening process. In tandem, the push toward online learning and alternative credentialing in…
Case Study
July 20, 2020
FEATuring YOU
A Soft Skills Training and Assessment Program for Opportunity Youth
Skills-based training and assessment technologies promise to democratize the hiring process. By automatically evaluating whether candidates possess the necessary competencies to succeed in the role to which they are applying, these tools can help eliminate human bias, diversify the talent pool, and reskill our workforce—especially appealing given that the World Economic Forum estimates a need to reskill more than one billion people in the next ten years. They are also well-suited for empowering younger learners and job candidates who are…
Blog Post
October 30, 2019
Innovation in the Talent Pipeline Development Sector
FEATuring YOU: A Case Study
Ithaka S+R is excited to announce that we will be partnering with Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) to document how SNHU conceptualized, developed, and designed the Future Employment Assessment Tool (FEATuring YOU) to offer scalable, reliable, and engaging methods to assess soft skills and connect “opportunity youth”–young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market–to learning and employment…
Past Event
October 22, 2019
Colette Johnson Presents at Columbia University Workshop
PhD Pathways; Careers Outside of Academia
On Wednesday, October 22, Colette Johnson is presenting on “PhD Pathways; Careers Outside of Academia” at Columbia University. Colette will be joined by representatives from Google, Jane Street, Blue Matter Consulting, Cubist (Point 72), and Dun & Bradstreet. Registration is now open for Columbia PhD students.
Past Event
October 8, 2019
James Dean Ward at the National Council for Workforce Education Conference
Meeting the Challenge of Achieving Educational Attainment Goals
On Tuesday, October 8, James Ward is presenting on “Meeting the Challenge of Achieving Educational Attainment Goals,” as part of a panel discussion at the National Council for Workforce Education Conference in San Antonio, Texas. For more information, please see the conference website. About the session Based on Anthony P. Carnevale’s research and educational attainment goals recommended by the Lumina Foundation, 42 states have established attainment goals. To achieve these goals, new policies and practices are required to recruit…
Past Event
August 12, 2019
Leading Innovation: A Workshop for Department Chairs
Department chairs help make important hiring and budget decisions and increasingly play a crucial role in innovations around teaching, learning, and technology. Yet, while the department chair is typically the first rung on the ladder to senior leadership in academia, many take on the position without the necessary training or mentorship. The Chronicle of Higher Education and Ithaka S+R have teamed up to provide a workshop that helps department chairs meet the challenges of their role, whether managing faculty, allocating…
Research Report
December 11, 2018
Mapping the Wild West of Pre-Hire Assessment
A Landscape View of the Uncharted Technology-Facilitated Ecosystem
The rise in technology-facilitated assessments has created a paradigm shift in employer talent acquisition. Traditionally, the process of assessing candidates’ skills has focused on resumes composed of credentials signifying successful participation in or completion of an experience (like a degree, a training program, or a prior job) and candidates’ own claims of competencies. Such a process favored intermediaries like higher education institutions, industry associations, governmental agencies, and former employers, who awarded credentials for successful program completion or could vouch for…
Blog Post
December 11, 2018
Uncharted Territory: How Employers Are Using Big Data and AI to Redesign the Hiring Process
Candidate screening in the United States is in the midst of rapid innovation. Traditional processes of assessing candidates’ skills focused on resume screening that evaluated candidates’ degrees, training programs, or prior work experiences—a process that favored credentialing intermediaries like higher education institutions, industry associations, and former employers. Today’s employers, however, are turning to advanced algorithmic solutions for verifying candidate competencies and predicting best job fit. The tools—such as resume filtering, talent analytics, online simulations, cybervetting, digital interviews, gamification,…