Gary R. Hafer is a composition specialist whose interest and scholarship lie chiefly in teaching all students to become effective, accessible writers. He is known primarily as a "conference teacher," meeting individually with his student writers as part of their coursework.

His short studies on writing instruction have appeared in College English, The Journal of Developmental Education, and Computers and Composition. He is currently working on Conserving Literacy, an instructional book for professors outside the English discipline who want to incorporate writing more successfully into their coursework. As production design editor for Brilliant Corners, a journal of jazz and literature, he is responsible for the graphic and typographical composition of each issue. In addition, he is also researching the relationship between fiction and film-particularly film noir-for a future introductory literature course at the college.