Elissa Nadworny
Elissa Nadworny covers higher education and college access for NPR. She's led the NPR Ed team's multiplatform storytelling – incorporating radio, print, comics, photojournalism, and video into the coverage of education. In 2017, that work won an Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in innovation. As an education reporter for NPR, she's covered many education topics, including new education research, chronic absenteeism, and some fun deep-dives into the most popular high school plays and musicals and the history behind a classroom skeleton.
After the 2016 election, she traveled with Melissa Block across the U.S. for series "Our Land." They reported from communities large and small, capturing how people's identities are shaped by where they live.
Prior to coming to NPR, Nadworny worked at Bloomberg News, reporting from the White House. A recipient of the McCormick National Security Journalism Scholarship, she spent four months reporting on U.S. international food aid for USA Today, traveling to Jordan to talk with Syrian refugees about food programs there. In addition to USA Today, she's written stories for Dow Jones' MarketWatch, the Chicago Tribune, the Miami Herald and McClatchy DC.
A native of Erie, Pennsylvania, Nadworny has a bachelor's degree in documentary film from Skidmore College and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
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College towns depend on business from the students that attend the school. In places like Ann Arbor, Mich., residents are nervous about returning students bringing the coronavirus with them.
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In Michigan, there are two big state universities, situated barely an hour apart. Both of them have been stymied in the first weeks of school by the rapid spread of the coronavirus.
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A look at the state of colleges in Iowa, which has the third-highest number of new infections per capita in the U.S. Iowa State will play its first game of the season in an empty stadium.
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Colleges and universities are trying to mitigate the risk of students spreading the coronavirus by moving social activities outdoors and mandating social distance in class and in dorms.
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Colleges have been publicly shaming students for partying — even fellow students are reporting others to campus police. But experts say shame has never worked in public health interventions.
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College reopenings have led to a coronavirus spike in many towns. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced a two-week lockdown after a testing program didn't control the virus spread.
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The college's testing program has been touted as a potential model for reopening. But a new rise in cases puts into question whether any amount of testing can make campuses safe. -
With desperate pleas and social contracts failing to curb college parties, schools have turned to punitive consequences. But are the students the ones to blame?
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Millions of college students are starting the fall semester online — that's meant some students are scrambling to get the technology they need to take the classes.
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While many colleges are online this semester, more than 20% of four-year schools are primarily in-person. More positive COVID-19 cases are emerging as students move back and socialize.
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Student journalists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were thrust into the spotlight after a headline with an expletive describing the coronavirus outbreaks on campus went viral.
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Students across the U.S. are continuing to move into college dorms. At the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill that's happening in reverse. Students are moving out following COVID-19 outbreaks.
