Prof. Pemberton joined Georgia Southern University in 1999 and retired in 2025.

— Biography from the 2025 Spring Commencement program —

Dr. Pemberston received his BA (1975) from the University of California Los Angeles, his MA (1984) from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1984, and his PhD (1990) from the University of California San Diego. He taught in the English department at the University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign (UIUC) for nine years before he moved to the department of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University in 1999. At UIUC and Georgia Southern, he directed the campus writing centers for a total of 35 years, focusing much of his scholarship on writing center theory, the practice of tutoring writing, and the ethics of writing instruction. He has published three books, The Ethics of Writing Instruction: Issues in Theory and Practice (2000), The Center Will Hold: Critical Perspectives on Writing Center Scholarship (2003), and Labored: The State(ment) and Future of Work in Composition (2017) as well as more than 100 articles and book chapters in scholarly publications. In 1994, he co-founded the journal Across the Disciplines, the first national publication on writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines. He served as sole editor of the journal from 2005-2019, during which time it became the official publication of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum (AWAC). In 2014 he founded and continues to serve as series editor for Across the Disciplines Books, and from 2017-2022, he was co-Principal Investigator for a research study on the ethics of text recycling in STEM fields, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. His commitment to service in the discipline is evident in the number of positions he has held in professional organizations including President of the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) from 1999 to 2001, co-chair of the CCCC Committee for Social Justice at the Convention, executive board member of AWAC and the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), editorial board member on nine scholarly journals, Associate Publisher for Journals at the WAC Clearinghouse, and Director of the CWPA Consultant-Evaluator Service, which conducts reviews and evaluations of writing programs across the country and around the world. He has received numerous awards and accolades for contributions to his profession including the Outstanding Scholarship Award for his columns on “Writing Center Ethics” (1994), Best Book Awards from both the IWCA and CWPA for The Center Will Hold (2004), the Southeastern Writing Centers Association Achievement Award (2009), and the IWCA Muriel Harris Outstanding Service Award (2022). In 2021, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum, and in 2024, he was presented with the Ruffin Cup by Georgia Southern’s College of Arts and Humanities which “recognizes the highest achievement in teaching, scholarship, and service in the College of Arts and Humanities.” For his many contributions to the University, its students, and his profession, Dr. Pemberton is deserving of the title Professor Emeritus of English.*