Students and employers are rethinking the need to hold a four-year degree, says Julie Lammers, senior VP of advocacy and corporate social responsibility, American Student Assistance (ASA).
WorkingNation sat down with Lammers at SXSW EDU 2023 in Austin.
She says it’s important for students to be introduced to career pathways early – even starting in middle school. “We spend a lot of time thinking about how we ensure kids have opportunity to explore careers at a much earlier age.”
“We believe no later than middle school is really what is most valuable. Allowing them to test and try through experiences like work-based learning, entrepreneurship experiences while they’re in high school. That allows them to more easily clarify the types of postsecondary education that will fit their long-term career roles. It may be a four-year degree, but it may be one of the more diverse pathways that have really exploded over the last few years.”
Lammers says ASA has digital tools that give students the opportunity to career exploration – including Future Network and Futurescape. “We know that if kids don’t see opportunities in front of them by the time they reach middle school, they begin to foreclose things as possibilities.”
Learn more American Student Assistance (ASA).
Learn more about Future Network and Futurescape.
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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.
