Elissa Nadworny
Elissa Nadworny reports on all things college for NPR, following big stories like unprecedented enrollment declines, college affordability, the student debt crisis and workforce training. During the 2020-2021 academic year, she traveled to dozens of campuses to document what it was like to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic. Her work has won several awards including a 2020 Gracie Award for a story about student parents in college, a 2018 James Beard Award for a story about the Chinese-American population in the Mississippi Delta and a 2017 Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in innovation.
Nadworny uses multiplatform storytelling – incorporating radio, print, comics, photojournalism, and video — to put students at the center of her coverage. Some favorite story adventures include crawling in the sewers below campus to test wastewater for the coronavirus, yearly deep-dives into the most popular high school plays and musicals and an epic search for the history behind her classroom skeleton.
Before joining NPR in 2014, 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.
Originally from Erie, Pa., 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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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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Colleges Report More COVID-19 Cases As Students Return To CampusWhile 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.
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Th first stop on an NPR college road trip: move-in day at the University of Georgia, where thousands are beginning an unusual fall semester.
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Despite the coronavirus crisis, this year's most popular high school plays and musicals include The Addams Family, Mamma Mia! and Clue, according to Dramatics magazine.
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Mary Poppins is out and Matilda is in, according to the new high school theater rankings from the Educational Theatre Association. The organization has been publishing its list since 1938. -
More colleges are rolling back their optimistic proclamations of an in-person or hybrid fall. Plans are now more likely to include hefty virtual options, be mostly remote or even entirely online. -
Many international students won't be able to make it to their U.S. college campuses for the fall semester because of travel restrictions and closed U.S. consulate offices.
