Dakota Pawlicki

Articles by Dakota

Dakota Pawlicki now leads the Talent Hubs work from CivicLab. He was previously a strategy officer at Lumina Foundation leading efforts focused on workforce education, particularly at community colleges.

Pawlicki’s prior work in designing and operating collaborative efforts to solve social challenges guides his work at Lumina. Serving in a dual role as director of strategic partnerships and projects, and as director of college access at Chicago Public Schools, he was responsible for developing and driving a city-wide vision of college access, support, and success for over 400,000 students. He also led the creation of the Chicago Higher Education Compact, an initiative with the expressed goal of increasing Chicago Public Schools’ four-year college graduation rate to 60% by 2025. Prior to that, he designed and implemented award-winning urban teacher preparation programs that place communities at the center, cultivating education talent through community partnership and immersion.

Pawlicki holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from Illinois State University and professional education license in K-12 music.

More from Dakota

The demand for career pathways

There is a staffing crisis in healthcare - a crisis that is so bad, that some are calling it a national emergency. To meet today’s and tomorrow’s labor demand, leaders need to provide clear and supported career pathways to adults already in the workforce. In this episode, Dr. Jill Buban of EdAssist joins us to talk about their work developing new career pathways, and describes what it takes to make a talent-focused partnership work. Dory Manner of Yale New Haven Health and Gerard Camacho of Atrium Advocate Health discuss the important steps healthcare employers need to take to attract, develop, and retain talent in critical areas.

State and Federal Policy Round Up

Listen in as state and federal policy experts weigh in on the major themes from 2022 and expectations for 2023. Julie Peller from Higher Learning Advocates walks through the major movements at the federal level and Paola Santana from Lumina Foundation discusses state-level priorities for the upcoming year. Catch up with state leaders from Arkansas, California, Kentucky, and Michigan as they reflect on key ideas from a late 2022 state policy retreat.

Understanding public narratives about workforce and higher education

Mainstream media and industry news shapes, reinforces, and redresses commonly held narratives—those underlying beliefs and attitudes that drive human behavior—about higher education and the workforce.  Dr. Rita Parhad and Emily Keane from Protagonist discuss the major narratives and counter-narratives that exist in America today, what drives them, and the implications these narratives have on individual and institutional behavior. 

What it Takes To Return: Adults in Higher Education—Part 2

Institutions and non-profits across the country are providing new kinds of services and redesigning policies and practices to support more adults in higher education. In part 2, we talk with Malik Brown and Sena Owereko from Graduate Philadelphia, and from Dr. Ed Mills and Kaley Martin at Sacramento State University about how they are changing outcomes for adult learners.

What it Takes To Return: Adults in Higher Education—Part 1

Millions of adults in the US have some college credit but never finished their degree. The path back into school a second time is much harder to navigate. We begin a two-part series by talking with adult students and their coaches to learn about what it takes to return to school. Listen as Juquilla Henry, her coach April Mesa, and Jamar Izzard share their stories of returning to higher education.