Author Profile

Jenna A. Robinson

Jenna Robinson is the president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. She joined the Martin Center in January 2007 as campus outreach coordinator and later became the center’s director of outreach. She was previously the E.A. Morris Fellowship assistant at the John Locke Foundation, where she had worked since 2001.

Robinson graduated from N.C. State University in 2003 with a major in political science and French. She has studied at the University of East Anglia School of American Studies in Norwich, United Kingdom. She received her master’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2005 and her Ph.D. in political science, with a concentration in American politics and a minor in methods, from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2012. Robinson is also a graduate of the Koch Associate Program.

Robinson’s work has appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Roll Call, Forbes, American Thinker, Human Events, Carolina Journal, and the Raleigh News & Observer. She has taught courses in American politics at UNC-Chapel Hill, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Wake Technical Community College.

Robinson serves on the board of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, the UNC Alumni Free Speech Alliance, and the Board of Visitors at UNC-Chapel Hill. She has previously served as a member of the North Carolina Longitudinal Data System Board, the North Carolina Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and the Classical Liberals in the Carolinas. 

Robinson lives in Cary, NC, with her husband and two sons.

Articles by Jenna A. Robinson




How Do Work Colleges Work?

Warren Wilson College is a tiny university tucked away near Asheville, N.C. But it’s a crucial part of a distinctive yet underappreciated segment of the higher-education marketplace: work colleges. As…



New Accreditors Are the Future

In 2020, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos deregulated college and university accreditation by ending regional accreditors’ monopoly status. The purpose of the move was to introduce innovation and competition to…


Thank a Taxpayer for UNC’s Low Tuition

Earlier this month, the UNC Board of Governors began an important conversation about possible tuition increases for some in-state undergraduate students in FY 2026-27. That shouldn’t overshadow North Carolina’s remarkable…


VCU’s New Protest Policy Makes Sense

In the wake of last year’s pro-Hamas campus protests, universities around the country are revising their facilities-use policies, as well as other “time, place, and manner” restrictions on campus protests.…



UNC Asheville Should Start Over

Last month, UNC Asheville chancellor Kimberly van Noort proposed the closure of several academic programs and departments in response to budget deficits. The cuts were prompted by UNCA’s declining enrollment…