Higher Education
Higher Education
Class of 2010 Alumni
Profile of Higher Ed Alumnus Shimrit Paley, Ed.M. '10
Shimrit Paley is the Assistant Director of Career Services at Tufts University. She counsels students and alumni regarding career interests, internship options, job search strategies, and graduate school planning, as well as coordinates programming for graduating seniors. Prior to attending HGSE, Shimrit taught first grade in Atlanta, Georgia with the Teach For America program. Shimrit was drawn to HGSE because of the program's focus on key policies, practices and issues in higher education, rather than on preparing students for one particular job. She was also attracted to the abundance of networking and internship opportunities made possible by the program's strong reputation and involved alumni. In fact, it was during her internship at Harvard College's Office of Career, Research and International Opportunities that she developed a passion for career development. This experience helped her land her first role post-HGSE, working in the Office of Career Services at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. Reflecting on her experience at HGSE, Shimrit writes, “The Higher Education program opened up a lot of doors for me. Not only did it provide me with a nuanced understanding of complex issues within higher education, it also allowed me to discover my passion for career services, gain necessary experience in that field, and form valuable professional networks in order to build my career.”
Profile of Higher Ed Alumnus Matt Crellin, Ed.M. '10
Matthew Crellin is a Research Associate at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) in Boulder, Colorado. Matt works on many projects applying policy analysis and quantitative research methods to issues in higher education. NCHEMS, widely recognized by the Chronicle of Higher Education as “a small team of consultants with large sway in higher education,” is a private nonprofit higher education policy group whose mission is to improve strategic decision making in higher education for states and institutions in the United States and abroad through policy advising and data analysis. In addition to his research work, he also administrates the higher education policy and data website higheredinfo.org, a database that provides a wide array of state-level postsecondary information. Prior to his role at NCHEMS, Matt served as the Director of Policy and Research for the New England Board of Higher Education in Boston. He chose to attend the Higher Education program at Harvard to further explore the issues that face college students, faculty, institutions, and states by learning how to combine theory, practice, and research into action. “I was aware of the complexities of higher education before coming to HGSE,” he said, “but it was at Harvard that I began to unpack what that all really meant.” Matt credits his professors and the community in the Higher Education program with deepening his understanding of colleges and universities across multiple frameworks. “The community of scholars – both the professors and certainly my classmates – really challenged my views on education and helped me to understand them at a much richer level. They pushed me to think of higher education in ways that I had never before even considered. Perhaps most of all, I felt supported and encouraged to keep asking questions, to broaden my knowledge, and consider how higher education will adaptively change in the future.” While completing his degree, Matt worked with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership and was published in the Jossey-Bass volume New Directions in Higher Education (Fall 2010).
