Senior Writer
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Expertise: Faculty | Professors’ personal and professional lives | Work/life balance | Tenure | Academic freedom | Gender issues in academe, including women in science | Faculty politics | University governance | Dual-career academic couples
Background: With 25 years’ experience covering higher education, Robin Wilson writes “enterprise” stories for The Chronicle of Higher Education. These are in-depth articles about a controversy or issue that often examine the matter in a new light and sometimes run contrary to conventional wisdom. She has also covered Washington politics, edited The Chronicle’s Students section, and served as the paper’s news editor.
Since joining The Chronicle in 1985, Wilson has written widely about faculty members’ personal and professional lives. As enterprise reporter, she brings her longtime knowledge of higher education and its players to some of the most important issues on college campuses. One of her recent articles analyzed Frostburg State University's claim that it had stemmed student drinking and found that, in fact, the culture of drinking at Frostburg—like on most campuses–is alive and well. Another story refuted the accepted idea that borrowing for college has reached such proportions that it is denying graduates the American dream of owning a home, starting a family, and buying a car. In fact, Wilson found, the average student borrows a manageable amount and repays.
Wilson has spoken to academic groups about faculty concerns, including the difficulty that female professors have balancing their home and work lives. Before joining The Chronicle, she worked as a Washington reporter for a news service with papers in New York, California, and Ohio. Wilson graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1982 from the College of Wooster in Ohio with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts.
Honors: First prize for beat reporting, Education Writers Association, 2004: “Personal Lives and the Profession,” for stories about faculty members
Media appearances: Wilson has been interviewed by Robert Siegel on National Public Radio, as well as by a variety of state-based public radio stations and local newspapers, primarily about faculty issues.
