Author Profile

Jenna A. Robinson

Jenna Robinson is 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 serves on the board of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, the UNC Alumni Free Speech Alliance, the steering committee of the Bastiat Society of Raleigh, and as a member of 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 earned her bachelor’s degree from NC State University. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Robinson is also a graduate of the Koch Associate Program. She has taught courses in American politics at UNC-Chapel Hill, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Wake Technical Community College.

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

Articles by Jenna A. Robinson

Apr 24, 2015 ·

10 ways the Ivory Tower is eroding American values

Students are not actually trained to think for themselves. And radical professors and administrators simply replace one dogma with another instead of creating open-minded critical thinkers. In other words, professors spend their time tearing down American values only to replace them with alternate campus values.

Apr 6, 2015 ·

A coalition for transparency at the UNC Board of Governors is building

UNC Board of Governors meetings are hard to navigate for the uninitiated, such as a member of the public. The committee rooms are small, spread out, and poorly labeled. All the people who attend the meetings seem to know each other. Finding a place to sit in the boardroom often means arriving an hour before the meeting begins. And if you don’t get a seat, you’re out of luck. Although the main board meeting is video-streamed into the lobby, it’s hard to hear and it isn’t recorded.

Jan 9, 2015 · and

How the legislature could craft better education laws

During each legislative session, education is at the forefront of budget and policy discussions. Expenditures on elementary, secondary, and higher education (the University of North Carolina plus the community college system) added up to more than $11.5 billion last year, or 58 percent of the North Carolina General Fund budget.

Dec 8, 2014 ·

5 things American colleges and universities get right

On the whole, U.S. colleges and universities don’t get everything right. They’re overpriced, operationally hidebound, and ideologically stagnant. But American higher education does some things very well—well enough that students from around the world still choose to come to the United States to get advanced degrees.

Nov 21, 2014 ·

Does North Carolina sufficiently support its public universities?

A new report from the Center for American Progress alleges that the “Great Recession” that began in 2008 devastated public university investments nationwide. Specifically, it says that over a five-year period, tuition has skyrocketed, states have withdrawn public investment, and low-income families have been pushed out of higher education.