ESU Backup Insider

Nicole Smith, Ph.D., a research professor and senior economist at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, visited ESU on November 15. Smith visited with several groups of students, faculty and administrators throughout the day and discussed with them the long-term projections of various occupational areas and their educational requirements.

The Office of the Provost and the College of Health Sciences at East Stroudsburg University sponsored a visit from Nicole Smith, Ph.D., a research professor and senior economist at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, on November 15. Smith leads the center’s econometric work investigating the role of education and socioeconomic factors in inter-generational mobility.

Smith visited with several groups of students, faculty and administrators throughout the day and discussed with them the long-term projections of various occupational areas and their educational requirements. The framework Smith presented forms the underlying methodology for Help Wanted, a report that projects education demand for occupations in the U.S. economy through 2020.

A graduate of the University of the West Indies, Smith is part of a team of economists working on a project to map, forecast and monitor human capital development and career pathways. She is also a co-author of Healthcare, an analysis of the occupational demands in healthcare fields.

Smith was invited to ESU so that faculty and staff from the college of health sciences could integrate these predictions in their future planning.  According to Smith, “more and more, a bachelor’s degree is going to be a minimum requirement, and new healthcare professionals will need it on their first day on the job, and existing midcareer health workers will have to acquire it through continuing education.”

Alberto Cardelle, Ph.D., ESU’s interim dean of the college of health sciences, and the coordinators of the different programs within the college will be using the data that Smith provided to plan the strengthening and expansion of their educational programs.