Travis Webster

Travis Webster, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum

_{Department of English

408 Shanks Hall

181 Turner Street NW

Blacksburg, VA 24061

twebster2@vt.edu}

Travis Webster is an assistant professor of rhetoric and writing at Virginia Tech. He is the author of Queerly Centered: LGBTQA Writing Center Directors Navigate the Workplace (Utah State University Press, 2021), which won the International Writing Centers Association's 2022 Outstanding Book Award and the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s 2023 Lavender Rhetorics Book Award. His articles and chapters appear in College Composition and Communication, Writing Center Journal, WPA: Writing Program Administration, The Peer Review, and edited collections. He has worked in writing centers since 2002 and, since 2006, has taught undergraduate writing courses at all levels and graduate courses about writing centers, WAC, composition pedagogy, and cultural rhetorics.

Principal Areas of Research Focus

Writing Centers
Writing Across the Curriculum
Queer and Cultural Rhetorics
LGBTQIA+ Labor and Higher Education
Lifespan Writing

Education

Ph.D., Michigan State University, 2012
M.A., Miami University, 2008
B.A., Stephen F. Austin State University, 2005

Professional Roles

Review Board, WAC Journal, 2022-present
At-Large Representation to the Executive Board, International Writing Centers Association (IWCA), 2018-2021
Chair, IWCA Research Grants, 2018-2020
Co-Chair, IWCA LGBTQIA+ Standing Group, 2018-2020
Review Board, The Peer Review: Journal for Writing Center Practitioners, 2016-present
Review Board, Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric and Society, 2019-present

Awards and Honors

2023 Lavender Rhetorics Book Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship, Conference on College Composition and Communication
2022 Outstanding Book Award, International Writing Centers Association
2021 Thank-a-Teacher Recognition, VT Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
2019 Educator of the Year, Pace University-Westchester LGBTQA Center
2016 International Writing Centers Association Research Grant

Publications

Books

Queerly Centered: LGBTQA Writing Center Directors Navigate the Workplace. Utah State UP, 2021.

Journal Articles

“Unicorn Status, Queer Activism, and Bullied Laboring: LGBTQ Writing Center Administrators Talk About Invisible Work.” Writing Center Journal 39.1-2: 97-118.

“Antiracism Across the Curriculum: Practicing an Integrated Approach to WAC and Writing Center Faculty Development.” (with Rebecca Hallman Martini). WPA: Writing Program Administration. Special Summer Issue on Black Lives Matter and Antiracist WPA Projects 44.3 (2021): 100-105. Eds., Jennifer Sano-Franchini and Sheila Carter-Tod.

“Embracing the Always-Already: Toward Queer Assemblages for Writing Across the Curriculum Administration.” (with Jonathan Rylander). College Composition and Communication 72.2 (2020): 198-223.

Book Chapters

“Queer Rhetorics as Intervention Methods: The Curious Case of Conversion Violence.” The Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetorics. Routledge (2022): 382-89. Eds., Jackie Rhodes and Jonathan Alexander.

“What Online Writing Spaces Afford Us in the Age of Campus Carry, ‘Wall-Building,’ and Orlando’s Pulse Tragedy.” (with Rebecca Hallman Martini). Writing and Composing in the Age of MOOCs. IGI Global (2017): 278-93. Eds., Elizabeth Monske and Kristine Blair.

“Kairotic gaze/gays: LGBTQ Identity and Graduate Student Professionalization in the Rhetoric and Composition Field.” (with Matthew B. Cox). Metamorphosis: The Effects of Professional Development on Graduate Students: The Fountainhead Press X Series for Professional Development. Fountainhead Press (2016): 83-100. Eds., Andrea Davis and Suzanne Webb.

Other Creative Works

“Writing Centers as Brave/r Spaces.” (edited with Rebecca Hallman Martini). The Peer Review: Journal for Writing Center Practitioners 1.2 (2017).