Senior Editor, Commentary

Background: Dianne Donovan joined The Chronicle in 2010 as the senior editor of the Commentary section. Prior to joining The Chronicle, she was a freelance editor for The Washington Post’s Outlook section; a consultant with the American Society for Engineering Education, overseeing postdoctoral programs aimed at increasing diversity and strengthening the STEM disciplines; and a Senior Executive Service-level investigator for the House Appropriations Committee.
 
From 2002 through 2007 Donovan was the editorial-page editor and a vice president at The Baltimore Sun. She moved to her present home in Baltimore from Chicago, where she had been an editoral writer, op-ed page editor and columnist, literary editor, Sunday news editor, and foreign/national copy-desk chief over a 23-year span at the Chicago Tribune. As a member of the editorial board there, her beat was education, and as literary editor she started and edited a stand-alone weekly book review section.
 
Donovan has taught at The Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Oregon School of Journalism. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., and master’s degrees from the University of Missouri (journalism) and the University of Chicago (English language and literature).

Honors: American Society of Newspaper Editors Award for Excellence in Editorial Writing | Chicago Bar Association Award for Excellence in Editorial Writing | Friends of American Literature Award for Literary Criticism.