Manja Klemenčič researches, teaches, advises, and acts as a consultant in sociology and politics of higher education, European higher education, and comparative higher education. She is associate senior lecturer on sociology and in general education offering higher education courses at Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University. She is a faculty associate at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University and an associate researcher at the Centre for Educational Policy Studies, Faculty of Education at University of Ljubljana.
Her major research contribution is in the study of student governments and student representation in higher education which is part of her broader research agenda on student agency and the effects of students on higher education. Klemenčič has over 130 publications and over 80 keynotes and invited lectures on a broad array of higher education topics, including student-centered learning and teaching, quality assurance and institutional research, civic role of higher education, academic profession, internationalization, and different aspects of higher education reforms. She is Co-Editor of the Routledge Handbook on Student-Centered Learning and Instruction in Higher Education (Routledge, 2020), and thematic co-editor of the Springer Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions (Springer, 2020). She is also a member of the global research network APIKS – Academic Profession in the Knowledge Society. Klemenčič has been an invited keynote speaker at major conferences of European academic associations.
Manja’s three staple courses SOCIOL1104 Sociology of Higher Education, GENED1039 Higher Education: Students, Institutions and Controversies, and SOCIOL1130 Student Leadership and Service in Higher Education have repeatedly won Harvard’s awards for teaching excellence. Four times, Manja was voted by the Harvard Yearbook Publications one of the favorite professors by the graduating class (’19, ’20, ’21, ‘22). In 2020, she received John R. Marquand Award for Excellence in Advising and Support to Students, and in 2021, she is the recipient of the Phi Beta Kappa Alpha-Iota Prize for Excellence in Teaching at Harvard College, Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Since 2014, Klemenčič serves as editor-in-chief of European Journal of Higher Education and since 2022 as Co-Editor. Since 2015, she serves as Co-editor of the academic book series Understanding Student Experiences of Higher Education, and from July 2022, as Co-editor of book series Higher Education Dynamics. She regularly serves as a consultant for the European Commission, other international organizations, governments, government agencies and higher education institutions on higher education policies and instruments.
