Jennifer Ruark
Jennifer Ruark works with editors, staff reporters, and freelance journalists to guide our coverage of a broad range of beats, with a focus on faculty and student issues and social mobility. She also directs The Chronicle’s annual Trends Report and other special issues.
She has been with The Chronicle since 1996, working in various roles, including as an editor on The Chronicle Review, as features editor, and as editor of the research section. A project she led about the Gates Foundation’s influence on higher education earned an investigative-reporting prize from the Education Writers Association, and a special report she directed on the student mental-health crisis was covered by PBS NewsHour, public radio programs, and The Atlantic. Her own articles have ranged across topics as varied as the lasting imprint of the Sokal hoax, psychology, literary studies, and napping.
Before joining The Chronicle, Ruark spent three years as an acquisitions editor at Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. She has also taught English in public schools in Iwata, Japan, and worked as a reporter covering environmental policy. Ruark graduated with honors from Swarthmore College and earned a master’s degree in English from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Stories by this Author
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Live Coronavirus Updates
More Infectious Variant of Covid-19 Assumed to Be Widespread on Western Michigan U. Campus
After student tests positive, college institutes stricter quarantine measures -
NewsA Climate Scientist Takes On Deniers, Including the Denier in Chief
Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, relies on her religious faith, as well as her work, to hope that climate change will be acknowledged and dealt with. -
The Review
Richard Florida Explores the Underside of the ‘Creative Class’
The urbanist who urged struggling cities to lure artists, scientists, and technology workers confronts the pitfalls of that approach. -
On Leadership
Campuses Are the Place for Difficult Conversations About Faith
Eboo Patel, author of a new book, Interfaith Leadership: A Primer, says religion — and the contributions of believers — should be an integral part of diversity efforts. -
From the Archives
Anatomy of a Hoax
How the physicist Alan Sokal hoodwinked a group of humanists and why, 20 years later, it still matters. -
On Leadership
College Leaders Must Heed People’s Everyday Concerns
Lynn Pasquerella, the new president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, stopped by The Chronicle’s offices to talk about the best way to make the case for liberal education. -
The Ticker
U. of Texas President Is Told to Quit or Be Fired
The University of Texas at Austin’s president, William C. Powers Jr., has been told he must resign or be fired when the university system’s Board of Regents holds a scheduled meeting on Thursday, according to several Texas news outlets. -
Faculty
Humanities Scholars Grapple With Their Pitch to the Public
At a gathering in Philadelphia, a panel confronted hard truths about how to defend the disciplines’ value to a world impatient for results. -
The Ticker
Earning Doctorate During Recession ‘Boosts Productivity’
Take heart: New research shows that scholars who earn Ph.D.'s during a recession are more productive in the long run—at least in the field of economics. Source: Timeshighereducation Michael Boehm, a researcher at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance and Bonn University,… -
The Ticker
Duncan Sets Disputed Fine Against Virginia Tech at $5,000
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has decided that a disputed fine against Virginia Tech—one of two levied for safety violations during the 2007 shooting rampage on the Blacksburg, Va., campus—should be $5,000, not a higher amount sought by an office within the Education Department, according to…
