CEW Leadership Announcement

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

After 18 years at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW), the time has come for me to look toward the next horizon and plan for CEW’s future and my own retirement. I look back on CEW’s accomplishments with great pride. We’ve defined a research agenda that brings labor market and education research together, published more than 100 reports and data tools, and worked with countless experts in the field. I cannot overstate that CEW’s success reflects the hard work of our professional staff. There is much more to be done, and I’m excited to see what lies ahead.

I began my career as an education and labor economist with a focus on the differential value of general and specific education during times of economic crisis, but I quickly became interested in the US education system and outcomes in the labor market. CEW’s founding director, Anthony P. Carnevale, was greatly influential throughout my career. We worked together at ETS in the 1990s, did a variety of projects together in the early 2000s when I worked at Westat, and co-founded CEW in 2008 with Dr. Nicole Smith, the center’s chief economist. Our partnership was based on a shared vision and purpose. We strongly believed (and still do) that the US education and workforce systems have the potential to be the great equalizer rewarding individual merit, but that they do not function as intended. Our aim has been to highlight the successes and failures of our education and workforce systems and to demonstrate just how important it is to see how both systems work in tandem to determine individual outcomes. Treating education and work separately misses the importance of policy research on education and workforce factors simultaneously; any separation is a false dichotomy that reflects outdated thinking.

Serving as CEW’s director has been a great privilege. I am confident that the center’s work will maintain its strong momentum despite my forthcoming retirement, driven by the motivation, professionalism, and shared vision of our incredible staff. We have an exciting research agenda this year and projects under development for 2027, which will keep us busy while we start a national search for a new director. I will continue to lead the center until a new director is in place.

This role presents both a daunting challenge and an exciting opportunity. The new director will oversee CEW’s continuing research on disparate outcomes that are not explained by college readiness and on ways to ensure more equitable access to educational and economic opportunity. The director will also shape the center’s future research agenda, address new and existing problems at the nexus of higher education and work, and lead CEW into its third decade.

If this combined challenge and opportunity intrigues you, I would encourage you to consider applying to become CEW’s next director. It’s the kind of rare and rewarding opportunity that doesn’t come around often, and we’ll share the posting when it’s available. Regardless, I encourage you to stay tuned for our upcoming releases—and thank you, as always, for your support and your continued interest in our work.

Sincerely,

Jeff Strohl