Beth McMurtrie

What I Cover

I write about teaching and the future of learning. I like to explore complicated, systemic issues like whether higher education values good teaching and why it perpetuates the damaging myth of the natural teacher. I want to help readers see the patterns in these challenges and understand that they are not alone as they wrestle with them in and around their classrooms.

Most recently, I’ve written about Gen Z students, from their struggles with reading to why they increasingly view college feels as transactional. I have also explored the effects that generative AI has had on teaching and learning.

In our weekly Teaching newsletter, which I co-author with my colleague Beckie Supiano, I get the chance to be in conversation with our readers, who offer us insightful ideas and help us do our jobs better.

My Background

Before I arrived at The Chronicle in 1999, I spent several years working for daily newspapers, including Newsday, The Tampa Tribune, and the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., covering such beats as science, crime, and colleges. I am likely the only Chronicle reporter who has experienced zero gravity.

I earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wellesley College, an ill-fated attempt to understand the world through graphs, numbers and theories. I did find a home in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s community-affairs division, where I started a newsletter about community development. There I realized my passion for reporting and went on to earn a master’s degree from Columbia University’s journalism school.

At The Chronicle I have been both a reporter and an editor. I have covered beats including accreditation, religious colleges, international education, research, and campus culture. I have written about an oral-history project that led to an international murder investigation and examined what happened to some of the early winners of the Peter Thiel Fellowship. I have appeared on National Public Radio and other media outlets to talk about my work.