Finding Literacy
We are so pleased to announce the plenary speaker for our 2026 Naylor Workshop on Undergraduate Research, Dr. Rebecca Day Babcock. Dr. Babcock’s diverse scholarship, ongoing commitment to being a literacy educator, and generosity of spirit exemplify the wide array of literacies that drive our human experience.
A consistent supporter of undergraduate research and researchers, Dr. Babcock has been part of the Naylor Workshop team since its beginnings—and we are so pleased to be welcoming her as our 2026 Plenary Speaker.
Dr. Rebecca Day Babcock
Dr. Babcock is the William and Ordelle Watts Professor at the University of Texas Permian Basin where she teaches courses on writing and linguistics. She has authored, co-authored or edited several books on tutoring, writing centers, disability, and meta-research. Theories and Methods of Writing Center Research, co-edited with Jo Mackiewicz, has recently won the best edited collection award from the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum. She has also won best article awards from both the International Writing Centers Association and the Council for Writing Program Administrators, and her latest book, Boom or Bust: Life, Narrative, and Culture from the West Texas Oil Patch, edited with Sheena Stief and Kristen Figgins, was supported by a prestigious NEH grant. Dr. Babcock is a fierce champion for equitable access to the resources needed for undergraduate research. She co-wrote the chapter on access in the Naylor Report on Undergraduate Research in Writing Studies with Alexandria Lockett and Alexis Hart, and has published both a chapter and an article with her colleagues about access and undergraduate research.
Dr. Babcock’s scholarship encompasses the wide range of human expression that should be counted as literacies, and demonstrates her consistent commitment to writing for and with her students. Her recent work explores musical styles such as jug bands and blues from a historical perspective as part of a larger project on the Lovin' Spoonful. She has taught a graduate course on travel and adventure writer William B. Seabrook and is currently writing a book on Seabrook with the students from the course. Another NEH grant from the Dialogues on the Experience of War program, "Mending Mental Gaps," involves reading war-and service-themed literature with military veterans. And she has recently won a grant from the UT system to develop an open educational resource of an upper-level rhetoric and composition textbook with a working group consisting of undergraduates, graduate students, and colleagues from the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley.