As 2024 draws to a close, we analyzed reader data to see which stories resonated the most with you.
So without further throat-clearing, we present the topics, stories, and job searches that generated the most reader attention in 2024.
Word count
We’ve written over 1,500,000 words. To put this number into perspective, it’s like writing 15-18 novels, 5,000 emails, or 50,000-75,000 text messages. An audio version would take about 166 hours to record — nearly a week. Of all these words, you searched for these most often:
Most-read story
When it comes to stories, we’ve written and published more than 815 articles this year. The one that stood out to you — our most-read article of 2024 — is “When a Department Self-Destructs,” by Emma Pettit, a senior reporter who covers how politics appear on college campuses today. Emma’s investigation revealed how battles over money and allegations of racism led to a chair being ousted at Pomona College. You spent a collective 255,622 minutes, or about 25 weeks, reading her story. That’s almost half a year.
Rounding out the top five
Our second most-read story was “Is This the End of Reading?,” by Beth McMurtrie, a senior writer who covers teaching and learning. Beth’s reporting was informed by 50 Chronicle readers who shared their experiences with student reading and ideas about why comprehension may be declining. She also interviewed several professors and spoke to teaching experts and researchers who have insight into adolescent mental health, digital distraction, and social connection.
These two top stories also became the most downloaded episodes in the first season of our new podcast, College Matters, hosted by Jack Stripling.
Your third most-read story is another investigation: “The Distortions of Joan Donovan,” by Stephanie M. Lee, a senior writer. Stephanie’s reporting poses a provocative question: Did a famous misinformation expert’s bombshell claims about her ouster from Harvard stand up to scrutiny? Or were they misinformation?
In the fourth spot is an essay by Steven Brint, a professor at the University of California at Riverside and a frequent contributor to our opinion section, The Review. In “If Trump Wins …,” Brint anticipates a second Trump administration and argues that the moment requires academic leaders who are less evasively managerial and more confidently plain-spoken in defense of core principles.
The fifth most-read item is our DEI Legislation Tracker, which uses mapping and a comprehensive table to explore where college diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are under attack. Our newsroom started this project in March 2023 to keep you up to date on the rapid changes happening across the country. About 20 of our Chronicle colleagues have contributed to updating it.
More most-read stories
Here are the rest of the top 20 stories you paid the most attention to:
Our two most-read topics of this year
The year in review
Some of these stories and others have been featured on the covers of the print edition of The Chronicle.
On the jobs front
These are the positions a lot of academics are seeking right now — at least according to Chronicle Careers. Your search terms also reflect trends in higher-education hiring, like the increased demand for remote work, and some of the budget cuts that have hit colleges across the country. Here’s your 20 most-searched terms on our job site:
Behind these search terms is your intense interest in professional development. Many of you have turned to our advice stories, guides, and our most popular professional-development workshop, the Academic Leadership Crash Course.
Looking into the future
This year, you also wanted to look ahead, especially when it came to contemplating the outlook of higher education, adapting to artificial intelligence, and understanding the future of graduate education.
Our annual Chronicle Festival, or ChronFest, as we refer to it internally, focused on The Road Ahead to 2035. It proved our most successful ChronFest to date, with more than 9,000 of you registering for the three-day event — and even more of you catching segments on demand.
You also showed an intense interest in the future of students, as evidenced by our most popular virtual event, the Student-Success Journey: Improving the First-Year Experience.
Good timing
Chronicle readers cumulatively spent nearly 17 years perusing our articles in 2024.
Elyssa Fernandes, Gwendolyn Lefevre, and Andrew Otis contributed data for this story.