Dr. Keisha Stephenson Taylor’s New Book Seeks to Highlight What Employees Are Looking For
BY CLYDE HUGHES | AC JosepH Media
GLASSBORO – South Jersey’s Dr. Keisha Stephenson Taylor has been mentoring and advising students about their future and careers for years and now she has taken many of those experiences to share with others in her new book, “Fuel Your Future: Power Up for the World of Work.”
Taylor, the senior director for alumni and postsecondary engagement at the National Academy Foundation, better known as NAF, is responsible for leading and implementing a postsecondary plan to support college access, preparation, and success for students across the foundation’s network.
“Fuel Your Future” seeks to engage young people about what it takes to prepare to make the next step in their careers and how to get the most out of their current experiences.
Taylor said the idea for the book came while talking to recent college and high school graduates about their future employment beyond their education. She said those conversations, along with the concerns of the students, led her to think, “maybe I should write this down.”
“I think the book is a culmination of what I’ve been hearing from hiring professionals and it’s really what the market trends seem to be in terms of what skills appear to be the most critical needs,” Taylor told Front Runner New Jersey.com.
“I don’t want to say what’s essential and what’s not but just this whole conversation that we are having is moving towards relating technical skills, technical writing, and being able to be a problem solver.
“Things like critical thinking, collaboration communication and so many things that our young people think, ‘Oh, I don’t need this for my job,’ but those are really essential tools to make them really high-quality candidates to be hired across industries.”
Taylor, a first-generation American attending college related to her own experiences. Her parents, both from Jamaica, had very traditional Caribbean jobs. Her father was an engineer and her mother was a nurse practitioner. Taylor said when she told them she wanted to go into education, it stumped them.
“They said, “Fine if you want to do that,’ but they couldn’t help me navigate my next steps,” Taylor said. “I had to go find others to help mentor and guide me. I was able to rely on my network that I was growing to help me in that process because my parents weren’t going to be able to help me.”
Taylor went on to earn her bachelor’s and master’s from Rowan University and her doctorate at Wilmington University. She was named among South Jersey Magazine’s “Super Women” in 2022, listed as the 2023 “Women to Watch” from SJ Biz Magazine and was awarded the Women’s Advocate of the Year from the National Association of Women’s Business Owners Southern New Jersey chapter in 2023.
She also serves as a member ambassador for the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey.
Today, she is also responsible for leading, planning, and collaborating with employers and organizations to increase professional development and hiring opportunities for NAF’s alumni.
Taylor said she will hold a book launch event on Tuesday, June 17 along with numerous virtual events in July.
“I wanted to do multiple events over time,” Taylor said. “I didn’t think I wanted to just do one thing and be done.”
Taylor is a former schoolteacher who spent eight years in Pemberton Township in Burlington County and has also served as a curriculum supervisor. It was that position away from the classroom that made her take a second look at her contact with students.
“I really didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t making an impact,” Taylor said. “I felt like I had made a really great impact in the classroom, but I wanted to think about things from a systems perspective as well.”
In another position Taylor traveled around the country helping to redesign high schools into small learning communities. She said she learned that she was able to affect students in other ways by personalizing the high school experience for them.
Taylor said she hopes the new book will now give her yet another way to affect and help students in a positive way.
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