Rich Vacca is a professor emeritus in the School of Teaching, Learningand Curriculum Studies in the College of Education, Health and Human Services at Kent State University. Rich taught high school English and earned his doctorate at Syracuse University. He began his college teaching career as an Assistant Professor of Education at Northern Illinois University and then as an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut. From 1980- 2003, he was a Professor of Education at Kent State, where he directed the Reading and Writing Center and coordinated the Masters of Arts in Teaching program. He also served as Chair of the Faculty Senate. He is a past president of the International Reading Association (IRA) and is a member of IRA’s Reading Hall of Fame.

Rich is a co-author of Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum, first published in 1981 and currently in its 12th edition, and Reading and Learning to Read, now in its 9th edition. He has also written numerous chapters and articles in professional publications as well as literature and language arts books for students in grades 6 through 12.

In 2001, Rich and Jo Anne Vacca endowed the Vacca Fellowship for Teachers of Literacy which continues to fund coursework in literacy education. The Vacca Office of Student Services, dedicated in 2007, is a welcoming academic advisory center which serves students of every major in the College of Education at Kent State University.