Jenna Schnuer

Edible Alaska: Farm UFall 2017

When the new crop of farmer hopefuls arrived at Calypso Farm in Ester last April, there was no soil in sight. The farm’s acreage remained buried under thick snow. “Everything was dead,” says California native Holly Brookings. Interior Alaska doesn’t give up on winter easily.

The Farmer Training Program would start May 1, but for several weeks more, the students would just have to imagine climbing up and down the soil terraces, planting rows of flowers, vegetables, herbs, and, soon enough, crouching down to thin and weed the plants to encourage abundance.

Read the piece, the second of a four-part series, on Edible Alaska.

One+: Tell It Like It IsApril 2013

There are many traits common to real New Yorkers: A love of discussing how much they pay for their apartments; the absolute confidence with which they hand out subway advice; and the inability to keep the first appointment of the day—it’s part of the narrative of New York life.

So it wasn’t a big surprise when Joan Firestone, executive director of New York-based storytelling organization, The Moth, emailed to change the next day’s interview time. But Firestone had the most NYC-of-all reasons for the change: She was going to former Mayor Ed Koch’s funeral. 

Read my profile of Firestone from the April One+.

One+: The InterdisciplinarianMarch 2012

It’s practically a requirement to raise an eyebrow at a person who calls herself an innovator. Innovator. It’s such a grand word. Isn’t that something we get to brand a person, not something she gets to call herself? Yet, every once in a while, somebody gets a pass. Or more than a pass. Every once in a while you come across a person who really should have “innovator” bedazzled on all of her shirts and printed on her license plates.

Take, for instance, Cathy Davidson. After a few minutes of eyeballs a-jumping through her bio—co-founder of the 7,000-member Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC), former Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke from 1998-2006, current English professor at Duke; after scrolling through the list of books she’s written or edited, which cover territory from understanding Japanese culture to the rise of the American novel to brain science; after finding out about her role in the creation of programs at Duke, including the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the program in Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS); and, even more so, after hearing the sheer excitement in her voice when she discusses the Internet, education, her newfound love of young adult fiction and her ability to tie ideas together and make them accessible—well, innovator sounds downright humble.

Read the profile.

Continental: Custom FitJuly 2008

When it comes to executive education, it’s a buyer’s market. For execs in need of new ideas on everything from finance to leadership to innovation, there’s a course just waiting out there.

In the past, nondegree executive education programs were generally run in one of two ways: open enrollment, in which any executive (usually company-sponsored) could show up; and custom programs, where the corporation would hire the university to create an educational experience for a target audience. Though those categories still exist, there’s more crossover between them than in the past.

Read the article on the Continental site.

American Way: School of RockJune 15, 2008

 Sung to the tune of The Brady Bunch theme song:

Here’s the story
of a law prof named Mark
who was merrily teaching contract law.
He favored the Socratic method,
asking tough questions and
pushing students to think them through.

Here’s the story
of a first-year student
who in 1980 handed Mark a poem about a case.
It was a bold move,
and it set off a creative spark in the class
that continues to this very day.

Read the whole story on the American Way site.

Continental: School's OutAugust 1, 2007

Going along for the ride definitely has its benefits. New York University student Erica Swallow figured she had nothing to lose when her freshman-year roommate invited her to attend an information session about a new program the university was starting in Shanghai. Living in China wasn't something that Swallow, 19 years old at the time, had ever expected to do. An international business and marketing major, she had never been outside the United States and spoke barely a word of Chinese. But spurred on by her strong desire for a unique study-abroad experience, Swallow, along with 17 other students, took up temporary residence in Shanghai for the fall semester of her sophomore year.

Want to find out why Swallow--and 1000s of other undergrad and grad students--are going abroad to get schooled in business? Read the rest of the article.

Continental: Learning Their NumbersFebruary 1, 2007

Here’s just some of what’s on 16-year-old Ali Goedecke’s mind: Latin class; crew team and field hockey; the state of public libraries in her hometown, Washington, D.C.; and the middle-class quagmire.

The middle-class quagmire?

Yes. The middle-class quagmire. With two and a half years to go until she takes a seat in the first massive lecture hall of her college career, Goedecke knows that her family probably won’t qualify for a ton of financial aid. But the sophomore overachiever — her daily schedule would exhaust an ultramarathoner — is putting her passions in play to make sure her parents don’t get stomped by college costs.

Read the rest of the story on Continental magazine online.