Rachel Ketai

Dr. Rachel Ketai holds her PhD in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English from the University of Arizona, where she specialized in composition theory and pedagogy, writing assessment, developmental composition, and the politics of remediation. Her dissertation project, The Rhetorical Legacies of Affirmative Action: Bootstraps Genres from College Admissions through First-Year Composition focused on the ways language choices shape concepts of college readiness in the admissions essay, composition course placement, and the college writing classroom. Rachel found her passion for promoting access and equity in higher education while earning her undergraduate degrees in English Literature and Spanish at the University of Michigan from 2000-2004, years when the institution was defending its use of race in the admissions process to achieve a diverse student body in two Supreme Court cases. She spent the first chapter of her teaching career working with community college students at El Camino College, where she served as an English instructor for both the Puente Program—an academic support program for educationally underrepresented students—and the Honors Transfer Program. Her most recent work involved supporting other community college educators to engage in their own learning and growth as teachers to promote equity, student success, and institutional reform. As a Lecturer in Writing Programs, Rachel teaches English 2 and English 3D and enjoys working with students and other educators to create a vibrant and supportive intellectual community. Her composition courses invite students to reflect on their identities as students, readers, and writers, to think critically about arguments and sources of evidence, and to develop the literacies that will help them achieve their goals both in and outside of school. When she’s not teaching, Rachel enjoys spending time with her family and dogs, exploring her own writing in creative non-fiction, and advocating for the public schools in her community.