Chad Berry, Berea College, sits down with WorkingNation at College Board Forum to discuss the work college pathway to economic mobility

College Board Forum 2024: Economic mobility via a work college pathway

Chad Berry, Ph.D., Berea College, joined WorkingNation to share his thoughts on how work college creates access to economic opportunity
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What is a work college? It’s a four-year, degree granting, liberal arts education institution that requires all resident student hold a job throughout their four years of of enrollment.

This integration of employment and education can lead to economic mobility, says Chad Berry, Ph.D., vice president for alumni, communications, and philanthropy at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky.

Berry joined me for an interview for WorkingNation Overheard at College Board Forum 2024 in Austin, Texas.

“Founded in 1855, we later became one of the South’s first work colleges because we stopped charging tuition in 1892 and have not charged tuition since,” explains Berry. “We have just over 1,500 students. They all must have high academic promise and low economic means. They have to be Pell Grant recipients in order to meet financial eligibility requirements.”

As a work college, all Berea College students have jobs on campus to help cover personal expenses. Says Berry, “It is very life changing. It’s not that we’re just offering access and affordability. We’re providing the students we serve with the highest quality of education possible. We like to quip that we provide the best education that money can’t buy.”

Berry says the institution has very few legacy students.

“Our alumni go on to really unimagined destinations because of educational opportunity than what they might otherwise have been able to do. It also means that their descendants usually won’t be eligible for admission because their children, their grandchildren, will not be able to meet the financial eligibility requirements.”

Learn more about Berea College.

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.