Making Learning Stick for Next Gen Professionals

Rabbi David Kessel sees the workplace as a potent learning space. In his experience engaging young Jewish leaders, he knows that in big tent settings, professionals who create a culture of welcome can come to see themselves as educators.  

A “stretch assignment,” explained Rabbi David Kessel, a 2024 graduate of the Executive Doctoral Program of The William Davidson School of Jewish Education, is one that requires individuals to go “one step beyond their comfort zone, gaining new knowledge from working and reflecting with others, recognizing that learning is a social process.” A well-planned stretch assignment can help managers cultivate talent and enable employees to develop skills and confidence for future opportunities. In Kessel’s research, he showed that a stretch project at work played a key role in communal program and event-planning professionals seeing themselves as experiential Jewish educators and reporting higher job satisfaction.

Kessel’s own career path, and his pursuit of the doctorate at Davidson, can be seen as one great stretch assignment—with significant benefits for the organizations where he has worked, including roughly a decade each at Texas Hillel in Austin, BBYO, and JFNA. He is currently senior vice president and director of the Mandel Center for Jewish Education at the JCC Association of North America.

“I’ve had tremendous opportunities to work for legacy organizations at moments of reorganization and change,” Kessel said. He has developed expertise in engaging next gen Jewish leaders. “The ability to balance Jewish content and depth while also growing the number of stakeholders and participants involved has become my superpower, blending content and strategy.” To develop that superpower, Kessel has had ample opportunities to learn and grow along the way.

As a student at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Kessel met Richard M. Joel, then head of Hillel International. While Kessel was impressed by Joel’s vision and organizational acumen, he was inspired by his ability to contextualize the work in a Jewish frame with an emphasis on Jewish impact. “When I told him that I was interested in a career working in Hillel, he told me straightaway that I needed more Jewish knowledge,” Kessel recalled. It was that first “stretch assignment” that led Kessel to rabbinical school at HUC.

Kessel has never forgotten what it was like to feel that his lack of strong Jewish content coming out of college impeded his access to Jewish life. “I remember being that person, not having a background in Jewish text or traditions” he said, and even after completing rabbinical school, he was not fully confident in his identity as an educator. “Hillel, BBYO, Federations, JCCs—these are all ‘big tent’ Jewish spaces where we create a culture of welcome through a Jewish lens – we’re accessible and inclusive,” he said. “We want people to walk through the door and to feel welcome, to feel at home, regardless of their Jewish knowledge.” Jewish professionals need to be equipped to make that happen.

It was Kessel’s lifelong love of learning and curiosity and his own embracing of his professional identity as a Jewish educator that drove him to begin the executive EdD at Davidson back in 2012. He finished his coursework while full-time at BBYO. “I loved learning with Davidson faculty. I loved the flexible format of the program,” he said.

He was not yet sure what aspect of Jewish education he wanted to research, but he was drawn to the challenge of leadership development and talent development as related to the workplace. “Reflecting while I was on-the-job at BBYO and then JFNA gave time for potential dissertation topics to materialize,” he said. In his JFNA position strengthening the pipeline of professionals working in the next gen space, Kessel came to recognize “there’s something here that’s relevant to how the workplace itself could be an effective context for adult learning, growth, and development.” Even though some time had passed since his Davidson coursework (Kessel called his path to the degree a “long journey with a couple of idle years”), he began to imagine a dissertation.

At this point, his original advisor, Dr. Aryeh Davidson, who had become a close friend and mentor, had retired, and Kessel developed what he called “a beautiful havruta” with current JTS provost Dr. Jeffrey Kress, who took on the role of dissertation advisor and helped prompt critical thinking and insight as Kessel undertook his original research and “crossed the finish line.” Kessel studied Jewish federation professionals as they worked through their own stretch assignments, as part of a larger next gen talent development initiative envisioned together with the Jim Joseph Foundation.

Kessel’s dissertation, “Understanding the Impact of Project-based Learning on Employee Growth and Development in the Jewish Workplace,” used case study methodology. He described how three federation professionals—none of whom were trained as Jewish educators—experienced a shift in professional identity as they incorporated outcome-based planning and Jewish values into their programming and focused first on the ‘why’ and impact rather than the logistics and marketing. Kessel found that through project-based learning, practice, reflection, and ongoing feedback from thought-partners such as mentors and supervisors, these professionals gained new knowledge and skills, strengthened their job performance, and came to see themselves as experiential Jewish educators.

The story of the professionals in Kessel’s dissertation depicts a kind of “virtuous cycle” that he explored with Kress in relation to how learning takes place. “The cycle includes refining and expanding skillsets and frameworks through practice, feedback, modeling, reflection, and continuous improvement–it repeats over and over,” he said. “The more professionals are given an opportunity to practice and receive feedback, to try out what they are learning and reflect upon it, the deeper the impact will be for their constituents and for themselves as lifelong learners.” Bringing “an education mindset” to these non-educator professionals enabled them to believe in their ability to succeed as educators.

The transformation has stuck, with each of the professionals Kessel studied still working in federation. “Finding motivation around their work contributes to retention and employee satisfaction,” Kessel said.

In reflecting on his own career path and what his research concluded, Kessel remains a strong advocate for creating circumstances at work for people to learn. “We don’t maximize on-the-job learning as one of the most effective forms of adult learning or professional development, but we know from research that 70 percent of professional growth happens on the job, at work, as opposed to 10 percent that happens through training programs or conferences, and 20 percent through developmental relationships like mentoring. All the conferences I have been to were fabulous, but when you are back in your routine, how do you make what you learned at the conference ‘stick?’”

Kessel draws a comparison to the professional training in careers like medicine (his wife is a physician) or social work. “In these fields, through structured internships and on-the-job training, inexperienced professionals take on challenges that help them grow and become teachers themselves,” he said. The old medical school adage, “see one, do one, teach one” is still invoked, because it can be very effective.

As he leads education initiatives for JCCs, what Kessel calls the “front door” for so many to Jewish life, Kessel puts into direct practice what he learned from his EdD research, both about Jewish professionals and about himself. “Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to gain skill sets, to receive feedback, to reflect on my work, and to push myself through stretch projects,” he said. “Working in the Jewish community is not meant to be an independent endeavor. Learning is a social construct. Strengthening talent development and career advancement through learning at work represents a scalable strategy of benefit to our entire communal ecosystem.”