Voices of Reach: Meet Dr. Metoka Welch

Voices of Reach: Dr. Metoka Welch

Executive Dean, Apprenticeship College of Health

Voices of Reach is an ongoing Reacher spotlight series featuring the leaders across Reach University who advance our mission throughout the country.

Two Decades in Adult Education Led Her Here

Dr. Welch has spent her career trying to answer one question: what does it actually take to see a person and help them grow? That question has shaped her training, her work, and the path that brought her to Reach University. Metoka Welch holds a Ph.D. in counseling and counselor education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a master's in mental health counseling from Wake Forest University, and two undergraduate degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — one in English, one in psychology. She is a licensed mental health counselor who spent more than two decades building graduate programs at Walden University and Southern New Hampshire University, among others, before joining Reach.

During her master's program, she gave a presentation. Afterward, her professor, Dr. Simington, pulled her aside and told her she needed to pursue her doctorate. She had been considering it, but he saw something in her and actually named it. In the months that followed, Dr. Simington sat with her as she thought through programs and became her first mentor. "I carry that moment with me," she said, "because it reminds me what it means to truly see a student." Now she leads ACH with something she's carried since graduate school: the belief that the right person, saying the right thing, at the right moment, can change the direction of someone’s life.

What drew Welch to Reach was its mission to turn jobs into degrees and create real opportunity for working adults. Before joining, Welch worked closely with adult learners who were already doing the work long before they had a degree to show for it. Her own training as a counselor combined coursework and hands-on clinical practice, and that model stayed with her. She came to Reach because the model matched what she'd always believed: that work-embedded learning and a degree don't have to be in competition with each other. That belief shows up in how she leads: keeping candidates at the center, working closely with partners, and creating practical, affordable pathways rooted in real work.

Building the Apprenticeship College of Health

Right now, Welch is in the middle of the first week of the first ACH cohort, standing up a new faculty orientation for the Professors of Practice, and meeting with the Apprenticeship College of Health Invested in Every Vanguard Experience (ACHIEVE) team, a group of Reach and Healthcare Training Fund members working to grow the program. At the same time, she's already building the bachelor of arts and master of arts programs that will build on the associate of arts, creating a full healthcare career pathway candidates can earn while working. "It is so cool to pull these puzzle pieces together," she said, "and to think about certificates and specializations as possible add-ons."

For Welch, that means keeping the learner at the center of every decision, with colleges, employers, and communities working toward the same goal. True partnership, she's said, is keeping the candidate's experience at the forefront. That standard runs through everything ACH is building, from how the ACHIEVE team operates to how the degree programs are designed to stack.

Who ACH is Built For

What keeps her grounded is who this is all for. ACH candidates are working adults building careers in substance use disorder services, people who, in many cases, have a personal connection to the work they've chosen. "Many of them carry personal experience with substance use disorders," Welch said, "so this work is more than a professional pathway: it is a calling."

The people walking into ACH aren't just looking for a credential — they're looking for a program that takes them seriously. Building something that does that for candidates who have often been underserved by traditional higher education seems to be a common theme throughout her career.

She's also clear that none of this happens alone. ACH was built through close collaboration between Reach, the Healthcare Training Fund, employer partners, and the communities these candidates come from. Growing and succeeding together isn't just a value Welch talks about. It shapes how the work gets done.

Turning Jobs into Healthcare Degrees, One Candidate at a Time

For Welch, getting it right isn't about metrics. It means candidates who earn a healthcare Apprenticeship Degree step into professional roles and bring that experience back to the communities that need them.

She's also thinking years ahead about what ACH will need to sustain and grow long after the launch settles. Five years from now, she hopes candidates will say their degree was just the beginning, that they are not weighed down by student loan debt, and that they are doing the work that strengthens their communities. She also hopes they will feel that someone at ACH saw something in them and named it, just as Dr. Simington did for her.

That mix of long-range thinking and day-to-day leadership shapes how Welch leads ACH. "This position keeps me smiling and busy," Metoka says with a grin.