Dr. Rachel Harper is the Associate Dean of the Honors College and the Missouri Scholars Academy. She is also the Coordinator of the Honors Humanities Series and an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of English. She has taught at MU since 1996 and in the Humanities Sequence since 1998.

Originally from Champaign, Illinois, Dr. Harper holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Missouri and a B.A. in English and Spanish from Illinois Wesleyan University. Before becoming the Associate Dean of the Honors College, she was the Director of MU’s Writing Center for ten years. Currently, she is working on a critical edition of Jean Kenyon Mackenzie’s 1928 novella The Trader’s Wife.