The first director of UT’s Honors Program, Dr. Becker joined the History Department in 1974. She was a graduate of Ohio University and the University of Pittsburgh and received the PhD from Case Western Reserve. She received the Woodrow Wilson and Mellon Fellowships and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She served as chair of the Women’s Studies Program from 1979 to 1981. She received the Alumni Association Outstanding Teacher Award in 1974 and a Chancellor’s Citation for Extraordinary Service in 1999. She authored The Origins of the Equal Rights Amendment: American Feminism between the Wars (1981) and was coauthor of Discovering the American Past: A Look at the Evidence (1986, multiple editions).