Professor of English
Former Director, Jones WhiteWriting Center
Office:506-QQ HSS Building
Phone: 724-357-3029
Email: benrafoth@gmail.com
Education
EdD, Language Education, University of Georgia, 1984
MA, Linguistics, University of Georgia, 1982
BA, English, Miami University, 1978
Academic Interests
Composition Theory and Pedagogy, Writing Centers, Research Methods
Profile
Ben Rafoth teaches graduate courses in the Composition and TESOL program, including Research Methods, Theories of Literacy, Theories of Composition, and Teaching Writing. He has advised numerous doctoral dissertations on the topic of writing centers and tutor education. He served as graduate director of the Composition and TESOL Program (now Composition and Applied Linguistics), and from 1988 to 2019 he directed the Kathleen Jones White Writing Center. He is succeeded in that post by Dana Driscoll in June 2019. In 2010, Ben was named IUP's Distinguished University Professor, a lifetime title and the highest award for faculty at IUP.
Ben has been a leader and co-chair for three International Writing Centers Association Summer Institutes, most recently in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2013. He served on the IWCA's executive board for six years and delivered the IWCA-NCPTW conference keynote address in Pittsburgh in 2015. In October 2003, Ben chaired the first joint conference of the IWCA and the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He is a recipient of the NCPTW's Ron Maxwell Award for his contributions to peer tutoring. He has published books and articles on composition and been a regular presenter at IWCA. Ben co-edited, with Shanti Bruce, Tutoring Second Language Writers, published by Utah State University Press. His other books include ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors, also with Shanti Bruce and winner of the IWCA Book Award, A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One, 2nd ed., published by Heinemann Boynton/Cook. His latest book, Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers, was published in 2015 by Utah State University Press.