These reports are a product of the Harvard Project on Workforce’s Summer Fellowship Program. In Summer 2022, the Project on Workforce hosted Summer Fellows from Harvard's policy, business, and education graduate schools. Our fellows worked in cross-sector teams and collaborated alongside leading organizations in the field. These reports highlight their key learnings and findings.
Contents
Scaling work-based learning (City of Boston)
What counts in socioeconomic mobility measurement? (Strada Education Network)
Normalizing alternative pathways to young, black, & bright futures (Thurgood Marshall College Fund)
Beyond the box: Equal access to postsecondary education (U.S. Department of Education)
Promising practices to close equity gaps in career and technical education
Ours to solve together: Employer engagement (U.S. Department of Commerce)
Building the U.S. infrastructure workforce (U.S. Department of Transportation)
Workforce data in action (U.S. Department of Labor)
The views expressed in these reports are the sole responsibility of the Summer Fellows and are not meant to represent the views of the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, or any of the summer fellowship collaborators. The Project on Workforce would like to thank the Capital One Foundation for their support for the Summer Fellows program.
Scaling work-based learning
Summer Fellows with the City of Boston provide a landscape analysis of Boston’s youth employment system. Based on engagement with key stakeholders, they make recommendations to build upon existing resources to create more work-based learning opportunities and scale impact for Boston youth.
By: Priya Malhotra (HGSE ‘22), Kate Michaels (HKS ‘23), Vance Stephens (HGSE ‘22)
What counts in socioeconomic mobility measurement?
Summer Fellows with the Strada Education Network aim to contribute to the dialogue about measuring the value of post-secondary education. This report builds upon existing research and calculations to offer recommendations on how to capture the socioeconomic impact of post-secondary education, incorporating both financial and non-financial outcomes.
By: Tyler Barnett (HBS ‘22), Anna Guadarrama (HGSE ‘22), Julia Paolillo (HGSE ‘22), Hisa Streim (HGSE ‘22)
Normalizing alternative pathways to young, black, & bright futures
Summer Fellows with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund provide recommendations for the development of the National Black Talent Bank. They research how the Talent Bank can become a leading initiative in serving Black youth who are seeking alternative pathways to employment and education.
By: Selma Ismail (HKS ‘23), Kayla Waysome (HGSE ‘22)
Beyond the box: Equal access to postsecondary education
Summer Fellows with the U.S. Department of Education aim to reimagine guidance for institutions and organizations serving formerly incarcerated students. They incorporate new research, practice, and lived experiences from students, administrators, and subject matter experts to inform recommendations for the Second Chance Pell program.
By: Annie Lubben (HKS ‘23), Jenny Zhou (HBS ‘22)
Promising practices to close equity gaps in career and technical education
Summer Fellows with the U.S. Department of Education present the findings of an analysis of promising state strategies to advance equity in secondary career and technical education by examining state and territory Perkins V performance data.
By: Kerry McKittrick (HGSE ‘22), Kenny Nguyen (HSPH ‘22)
Ours to solve together
Summer Fellows with the U.S. Department of Commerce aim to clarify how regional workforce entities and employers can better work together. They highlight learnings for employer engagement from the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) recent American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) competitions.
By: Jake Boyd (HKS ‘23), Claudia Moreno (HKS ‘23)
Building the U.S. infrastructure workforce
Summer Fellows with the U.S. Department of Transportation review strategies for growing and diversifying the infrastructure workforce. This report aims to provide tools and examples for construction workforce advocates and local policymakers to create equitable access to construction workforce programs.
By: Tanya Budler (HGSE ‘22)
Marlee Stark (HKS ‘23)
Workforce data in action
Summer Fellows with the U.S. Department of Labor designed a prototype for an internal, centralized dashboard containing key insights from studies in government and non-profit research databases. They aggregated findings on high priority initiatives including reentry, career pathways, sector strategies, and dislocated workers.
By: Michael Sanchez (HKS ‘23),
Sherry Seibel (HGSE ‘23)
These reports are a product of the Harvard Project on Workforce’s Summer Fellowship Program, a short-term research and policy opportunity for Harvard graduate students and recent alumni from the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Summer fellows are placed in interdisciplinary, cross-school project teams over the course of the summer and complete projects focused on pressing policy or operational challenges at the intersection of education, labor markets, and workforce development. The Fellowship Program also provides students with opportunities for professional development and engagement with staff and faculty at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, the Managing the Future of Work Project at Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The views expressed in this report are the sole responsibility of the Summer Fellows and are not meant to represent the views of the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, or any other organization or government entity mentioned in the reports.