Rate My Professor Tobi Jacobi

Tobi Jacobi is a Professor of English in the Department of English at Colorado State University, where she has been a faculty member since 2003, progressing through the ranks to full Professor in 2016. She earned her Ph.D. in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric, with a focus on Composition and Literacy Studies, from Syracuse University in 2003, with a dissertation titled “Contraband Literacies: Incarcerated Women and Writing-as-Activism.” Prior degrees include an M.A. in English with a specialization in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1998, and a B.A. in English Education with Honors from the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point in 1995. In addition to her professorship, Jacobi serves as Director of the Community Literacy Center since 2005, Program Director of Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy (B.A. concentration), Program Director of Writing, Rhetoric, and Social Change (M.A.), and Assistant Department Chair and University Composition Program Director since 2020. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in argument, public writing, composition theory, feminist theory and methodology, critical pedagogy, and literacy theory.

As a specialist in community literacy studies, Jacobi's academic interests center on advancing adult literacy beyond the GED, the ethics of community-university partnerships, and the activism of incarcerated women writers. Her influential scholarship includes the co-edited volume Women, Writing, and Prison: Activists, Scholars, and Writers Speak Out (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), and numerous peer-reviewed articles such as “Self-Care as Ethical Practice for Teachers and Volunteers Working Behind Bars” in Teaching Literature and Writing in Prison (MLA Press, 2023), “Story Exchange Walls: Bridging Community and Carceral Spaces through Writing” in Feminist Pedagogy (2025), “Against Infrastructure: Curating Community Literacy in a Jail Writing Program” (Community Literacy Journal, 2016), and “What Words Might Do: The Challenge of Representing Incarcerated Women and their Writing” (Feminist Formations, 2015). She has guest-edited special issues of Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric on prison literacy (2004 and 2019). Jacobi's contributions extend to securing grants for SpeakOut! writing workshops from funders like Pharos Fund/Bohemian Foundation and AJL Foundation (2016-2022), and receiving honors such as the Outstanding Engaged Scholarship Award from CSU's College of Liberal Arts (2019), the Nancy A. Myers Research Award from Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition (2020), and Global Teaching Scholar from Semester at Sea (2023). Her work has shaped community-engaged scholarship through jail writing programs, pop-up museums, and collaborative remix projects blending pedagogy with archival texts.