About Me

My name is Jonathan (Jon) Turk, and I am an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Saint Louis University (SLU). I joined the faculty at SLU in Fall 2021, after years working in higher education policy in Washington, DC. I conduct research on and teach topics related to student success and completion, community colleges, higher education finance and policy, and research methods.

Though I consider Iowa home, I’ve lived in multiple states throughout the Midwest, South, and Mid-Atlantic regions. I am a third-generation graduate of Iowa State University, where I earned both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. While at ISU, I participated in multiple clubs and activities, including being an active member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. During my senior year, I served as the student body president. It was at this time that I first became interested in the study of higher education. While completing my master’s degree in educational research, I also worked as an academic advisor at the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC). Working at DMACC was a truly rewarding and formative experience. I witnessed first hand the power of these institutions to transform lives and knew that I wanted to do work to support the students, faculty, and staff who attend and lead our nation’s community colleges.

Upon completing my master’s degree, I left for Athens, Georgia, where I earned my Ph.D. from the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. I was extremely fortunate to find the IHE. For four years, I worked alongside some truly wonderful and supportive faculty and student colleagues. While at the Institute, I continued to center my research on issues affecting community colleges and their students, while also deepening my focus on quantitative research methods and state and federal education policy. After coursework and while working on my dissertation, I moved to Washington, DC, to join the research team at the American Council on Education (ACE).

My initial appointment at ACE was a graduate fellowship that was supposed to last eight months. My intention was to spend some time in DC, come back to Georgia to finish up my degree, and then go out onto the faculty job market. However, half-way through that graduate fellowship ACE offered me a permanent position conducting federal higher education policy research and research to inform institutional policy and practice. In addition to this incredible opportunity, I also met a brilliant woman—Sara—whom I would marry three years later. So I decided to temporarily set aside my goal of becoming a faculty member to live and work full time in DC, dissertating from afar, and ultimately rising to the position of Director of Research. After seven rewarding years, I was offered the incredible opportunity to join the faculty in the School of Education at SLU. Not only does SLU support my the ability to conduct meaningful research , it also allows me the incredible opportunity to work and learn with some truly excellent faculty and student colleagues.

When we are not working, Sara and I are at home with our beautiful identical twins, William and Henry. I used to enjoy cooking and trying new restaurants, traveling, hiking/camping, cycling, movies (especially horror and science fiction), but these days my time is pretty much taken up by William, Henry, and our rescue tortie cat Ripley (named after Ellen Ripley from Alien).