I’m Assistant Professor of English, Writing Center Director, and Latino Studies Core Faculty at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
My PhD is in English, with a concentration in Writing Studies, from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
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I have two last names. Carvajal is my first last name, and Regidor is my second. If you’re looking to cite my work, you can use: Carvajal Regidor, María Paz.
Research and Teaching Interests:
- Literacy and writing
- Latinx literacies
- Latinx students’ educational trajectories
- Language, race, ethnicity, gender
- Writing center studies
- Archival studies
What’s New:
I’m incredibly honored to have received the 2024 National Council of Teachers of English Richard C. Ohmann Outstanding Article in College English Award for my article titled “I’m a Bad Writer:” Latina Students’ Traumatic Literacy Experiences.
I was awarded a North Star Collective Faculty Fellowship for spring 2023. This fellowship supports early career BIPOC faculty across New England. As part of their second cohort, I joined a community of BIPOC faculty in professional development events, a writing retreat, and in other initiatives that supported both my wellbeing and my academic work.
I received the 2022 CCCC James Berlin Memorial Outstanding Dissertation Award for my dissertation, ‘I’ll Find a Way to Make my Voice Heard:” Transformational Literacies of Latinx Students. My co-authored article, It’s Crowded in Here: “Present Others” in Advanced Graduate Writers’ Sessions received the 2022 International Writing Centers Association Outstanding Article Award.
A grant from the UMB Faculty Staff Union provided funding for a project titled “Sustaining Anti-Racist Agendas Through Research & Writing Support for Faculty of Color.” This grant funded a multi-day writing retreat for UMB faculty of color and allowed me to start a research project on faculty of color writing groups.
UMass Boston Writing Center
I’m a founding Director of the UMass Boston Writing Center, which opened in September 2022. The writing center serves the entire campus community, including undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff. The writing center is staffed by undergraduate and graduate consultants from across campus. In addition to one-to-one sessions with writers, we facilitate writing groups and retreats, offer class visits, and provide opportunities for consultants to conduct research, attend conferences, and learn more about the fields of writing studies and writing center studies.
Community and Campus Collaborations:
At the University of Massachusetts Boston I’m affiliated with the Latino Studies Program, and I’m on the Faculty Advisory Board for the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy. I’m also a member of the Faculty Staff Union. In general, I maintain a variety of partnerships to create an anti-racist culture of writing across campus.
Prior to UMB, I partnered with La Casa Cultural Latina at the University of Illinois to discuss how Latinx students use writing as a form of resistance. For one event, I had the pleasure of interviewing Laura Castañeda, Community Opinion Editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune (class of 1987), about her experiences working and writing for La Casa. A recording of that interview is available on La Casa’s FaceBook page. The second event was in collaboration with the Co-Presidents of Nuestra Verdad, Jessica Cruz-Taylor and Fatima Valerio.
University of Illinois alumni, Fatima Valerio and Jessica Cruz-Taylor interviewed me to learn more about Latinx student publications on campus. The interviewed informed their article, “Writing as a Form of Resistance,” which appeared in Nuestra Verdad: Nuestras Hisotrias .
The opinions or statements expressed herein should not be taken as a position or endorsement of the University of Massachusetts Boston.