EdNC’s Liz Bell named Spencer Education Fellow at Columbia Journalism School

Liz Bell has been named one of four Spencer Education Journalism Fellows to join the Columbia Journalism School for the 2026-27 academic year.

“This year’s cohort brings investigative rigor and diverse storytelling to major issues shaping schools and families across the U.S,” says the press release.

Launched almost 20 years ago with support from the Spencer Foundation, the fellowship is designed to “enhance education journalism through deep research.” Bell’s residential fellowship will allow her to study lessons learned from the first attempts at universal child care in the United States.  

The fellows were selected by a distinguished board of scholars and journalists from a record number of applications.

“I am confident that they will bring dynamic ideas and vision to the Spencer fellowship community, the Journalism School, and the field of education journalism writ large,” said Sarah Carr, director of the Spencer Fellowship. “We look forward to welcoming them in the fall to a network of over 50 fellows.”

Bell has been a reporter with EdNC since she graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media in 2016.

That fall, Bell’s photos after Hurricane Matthew garnered the attention of the public, philanthropists, and policymakers.

She went on to turn a three-county project on kindergarten readiness into a full beat on early education, expanding EdNC’s presence and audience to a previously uncovered sector.

Bell built that vertical from the ground up, hosting focus groups across the state to gauge what information parents, educators, philanthropists, and policymakers needed and going on to launch a biweekly newsletter, Early Bird.

Over the last decade, Bell has embraced opportunity after opportunity and tackled challenge after challenge with a professionalism that is unparalleled.

Along the way, she has become a respected thought leader and public intellectual. ICYMI, she is featured in the documentary, “Take Care.”

While Bell is already known and respected nationally, this fellowship creates the opportunity for her research to galvanize national philanthropists and policymakers; her leadership to convene people to discuss the hardest topics; her reporting to build public will; and her multimedia talent to bring the issues she cares most about to life for the public.

Bell brings to her work a spirit that is both inspirational and aspirational, especially her commitment to being on the road and building relationships with those she covers.

In the summer of 2023, Bell took readers across the state as she traveled to communities grappling with child care shortages for young and school-age children. The resulting series, “School’s Not Out,” got picked up by North Carolina’s NPR affiliate as well as republished in The 74 Million and The Good Men Project. The series, and Bell’s following coverage, grounded the state’s conversation in the realities of children and families during a particularly tumultuous moment of turnover and uncertainty in the early childhood field.

Bell says, “It is a privilege to study, report, research, and write on behalf of teachers serving children of any age. And it has become my specific mission to do so on behalf of those who are still having to prove they deserve to be called teachers in the first place.”

While we can’t imagine EdNC without her, the team and the board are excited to watch Bell’s leadership and public service unfold.

Liz Bell, you are loved by us. We could not be more proud.