📣 Put me in, Coach — The difference quality coaching makes

September 17, 2025

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Craig Robinson’s first job was at a youth camp. He still has the first work evaluation, in which his manager noted:

“You are a rebel without a cause. Once you find your cause, you’re going to be powerful.”

Robinson took the message to heart and thinks of that manager as someone who came into Robinson’s young life and helped him steer his direction. “He helped to inspire in me this notion of finding a purpose that would become a passion,” Robinson said. “For me, education has been that.”

As Strada senior vice president, quality coaching, Robinson works to ensure all students have access to education-to-employment guidance that helps them reflect on their talents and interests, choose a career goal, map pathways through education, and successfully navigate challenges.

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Where we focus

Clear Outcomes | Quality Coaching | Affordability |

Work-Based Learning | Employer Alignment

Apprenticeship degrees aim to expand enrollment of working adults, strengthen partnerships between employers and educators, and create meaningful economic opportunities for more individuals.

Educators, thought leaders, policymakers, and industry stakeholders engaged with the work of improving access to apprenticeship degrees came together in August at the inaugural International Center for the Apprenticeship Degree Convening at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

A few of them, including Melissa Smith, Strada vice president of public policy, talent, and workforce development, joined Reach University’s Apprenticeship 2.0 podcast for a conversation about why apprenticeship degrees are an important tool in aligning education with talent needs.

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News from Strada

TESTIMONY

Justin Draeger, Strada senior vice president, affordability, testified Tuesday before the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development about transparency in college costs.

VIRTUAL SHOWCASE

Join the Postsecondary Employment Outcomes Coalition on Sept. 25 for a presentation of insights from grantees whose work advances the use of data to improve education-to-workforce outcomes.

WORKFORCE ALMANAC

The Project on Workforce at Harvard once again has updated its open-source directory of nearly 17,000 short-term workforce training providers, a project Strada has helped fund since its early stages.