Each semester, the Department of English offers 5-7 UPREP projects for undergraduate English majors. The Undergraduate Professional and Research Experience Program (UPREP) allows students the opportunity to work alongside a faculty member on a research project outside of the classroom. Student involvement can range from working as an editorial or research assistant to aiding in the preparation for an academic conference. In order to apply, students must be full-time undergraduates majoring in English.
Students who are selected to work on a UPREP project will:
- serve as a project assistant for a faculty member for up to 100 hours throughout the semester
- gain invaluable practical experience in an area of interest for future academic or career plans
- submit an evaluation report of her/his experience at the end of the term
- have the opportunity to earn academic credit in the form of an ENGL 485 contract
- receive a $750 stipend at the end of the semester when all duties are completed
In order to apply, please complete the UPREP Application and email to engl-undergraduate-office@lists.tamu.edu or drop off a hard copy of your application to LAAH 352 by the deadline. Students may apply to more than one project, but will need to complete a separate application for each one.
All student applications for Spring 2025 are due on *November 12, 2024* by 5:00pm. Students will be notified of a decision by November 18th.
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Description: "This project works at the intersection of game studies and
Latinx studies.The professor and UPREP research assistant will examine how Latinx
identity and peoples have been represented by non-Latinx video creators as well as
how a growing number of Latinx game developers are creating their own stories. How
are characters represented? What experiences do creators attempt to simulate? How
do developers employ and subvert stereotypes and tropes? How do Latinx games
engage with Latin America and increasingly transnational conceptions of Latinidad?
Ultimately, Gaming Latinidad is planned to be a scholarly monograph and a book of
game developer interviews focused on how game developers create Latinidad in
games, and how Latinx game developers have influenced the gaming industries."
Student Involvement: Students will support the professor in interviewing game
developers (compiling a list of first tier and second tier options for interviews, helping
establish contact with developers, creating a list of questions that will be asked to all
developers as well as questions tailored to the specific developer being interviewed).
Students will also transcribe interviews. In addition, as new games are constantly being
released, the student will help the professor find new Latinx games to play. Student may
also play the game themselves to discuss with Dr. Mills, in the hopes of determining its
usefulness for the book-length project or for a future article.Required Skills & Interest: Excellent time management skills, ability to write
professional emails, attention to detail, willingness to try new things, experience playing
games (of any type), available to meet once every two weeks having completed
expected tasks. Experience with transcription is desired, but not required.
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Description: More than 1000 undergraduate students take ENGL 210,
Technical and Professional Communication, each semester. Emerging shifts in
asynchronous approaches and AI technologies have expanded possibilities in both
course design and curriculum, and this project is geared toward exploring how our
Technical and Professional Communication class might better implement new
technologies. This UPREP seeks to hire a student as a project assistant for the
curriculum development in our Technical and Professional Communication course.
Work in the course’s curriculum development is ongoing, and a UPREP student may
contribute to research in curriculum development and asynchronous course design,
data collection, and/or research pertinent to technical and professional communication
and AI technologies in the classroom.Student Involvement: The student’s work is expected to focus on research
surrounding technical and professional writing studies and asynchronous course design.
The student might participate in gathering data regarding assignments and/or
organizing results from data collected from departments who require 210 in their degree
plans. The student may also participate in document design, research on AI
technologies in the classroom, and resource planning.Required Skills & Interest: The primary qualifications are an interest in and
enthusiasm for research and curriculum development. Required skills include attention
to detail and an ability and willingness to conduct research. Interest in practices of
technical and professional writing and AI technologies is useful. Any student interested
in curricular possibilities in the technical and professional writing classroom is
encouraged to apply.
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Description: The New Variorum Shakespeare (NVS), which began with the publication of
Romeo and Juliet in 1871, is now published in open-access in digital form, beginning with two
editions, The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. King Lear and The Comedy of
Errors are currently in production. The digital NVS has been designed with three main goals in
mind: 1) to teach students and early career researchers the concepts behind variorum editing
through interface design as well as tutorials; 2) to enable searching across and within volumes
and variants using Modern English and major Act-Scene-Line numbers; and 3) to be
interoperable with, and allow access to, other major Shakespeare digital resources including
bibliographies of criticism, digital copies of editions published since Shakespeare’s time,
images, and videos (set for third-phase development). Following the practice of state-of-the-art
digital humanities projects, we aim to render Shakespeare’s texts and international criticism
available world-wide.Student Involvement: The student researcher will work closely with me, the associate digital
editors, and NVS volume editors to create and publish NVS volumes online at:
https://newvariorumshakespeare.org/. The student will XML-encode physical volumes for online
publication, locate and correct XML errors that appear in the digital files of Shakespeare’s plays,
assist in maintaining documentation for training and workflow, and help editors and the NVS
backend developer think through the process of transforming physical editions into digital texts.Required Skills & Interest: The student researcher should have an interest in either
Shakespeare or DH—preferably both. Previous experience with XML and/or Gitlab is desired,
but not required. Project-specific training will be provided.
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Description: The prospective UPREP student would help with promoting and
advertising creative writing events, speakers, clubs, and other relevant activities. In
addition, the UPREP student would research creative writing programs and
opportunities that could be applied strategically and productively at A&M.Student Involvement: The student would help use social media and other strategies
for connecting with the A&M community to help inform students, staff, and faculty about
creative writing at A&M, especially activities organized by the English Department and
assisting the Creative Writing Coordinator. Designing flyers that feature creative writing
events and contests would be part of the expected involvement. Also, research of other
creative writing programs, including webpages, curriculum, contests, literary magazines.
Regional cultural opportunities related to creative writing should also be researched.Required Skills & Interest: Effective English communication and social media tools
familiarity and interest in creative writing--also some degree of competence with
designing flyers for print and digital sharing. An interest in doing research of academic
writing programs and literary journals and contests.
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Description: I am seeking a UPREP student support my continuing work with
CoDHR to produce a digital variant edition of Countee Cullen’s 1925 poem, “Heritage,”
a major literary work from the Harlem Renaissance. “Heritage” is one of the most widely
poems in twentieth-century U.S. literature and continues to appear in anthologies in
different versions. This is a project I began several years ago but since the primary
sources have entered the public domain, I have sought to publish an open-access
digital edition of the poem, which has been supported with technical assistance from
CoDHR. “Heritage” is an important literary case study because it appeared in 1925 in
*Survey Graphic*,*New Negro*, and in Cullen’s first poetry collection *Color*. The latter
of these significantly differs and there is not any clear consensus regarding what
constitutes the copy text. I plan to publish a peer-reviewed journal article to accompany
the edition.Student Involvement: I am seeking student involvement in identifying original
publications of “Heritage” in literary anthologies from the 1920s to the present. The
student will identify and collect the sources using the open-source Zotero data
management tool. In addition, the student will be asked to proofread the variant editions
that I am entering into the Corpora data system.Required Skills & Interest: Above all, the student should demonstrate an interest
in literary bibliography, textual scholarship, and editing practices, with good attention to
detail. While students should have a basic knowledge of how to utilize library resources,
they need not have experience with any specific software or applications. All required
training will be provided.
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Description: The New Variorum Shakespeare (NVS), which began with the publication
of Romeo and Juliet in 1871, is now published in open-access in digital form, beginning
with two editions, The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. King Lear and
The Comedy of Errors are currently in production. The digital NVS has been designed
with three main goals in mind: 1) to teach students and early career researchers the
concepts behind variorum editing through interface design as well as tutorials; 2) to
enable searching across and within volumes and variants using Modern English and
major Act-Scene-Line numbers; and 3) to be interoperable with, and allow access to,
other major Shakespeare digital resources including bibliographies of criticism, digital
copies of editions published since Shakespeare’s time, images, and videos (set for
third-phase development). Following the practice of state-of-the-art digital humanities
projects, we aim to render Shakespeare’s texts and international criticism available
world-wide.Student Involvement: The student researcher will work closely with me, the associate
digital editors, and NVS volume editors to create and publish NVS volumes online at:
https://newvariorumshakespeare.org/. The student will XML-encode physical volumes
for online publication, locate and correct XML errors that appear in the digital files of
Shakespeare’s plays, assist in maintaining documentation for training and workflow, and
help editors and the NVS backend developer think through the process of transforming
physical editions into digital texts.Required Skills & Interest: The student researcher should have an interest in either
Shakespeare or DH—preferably both. Previous experience with XML and/or Gitlab is
desired, but not required. Project-specific training will be provided.
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Description: This UPREP will introduce an undergraduate student to Open
Educational Resources (OER) and to the English 203 libguide, both of which are living
documents and require regular attention. For the OER, we will continue to revise and
expand chapters in preparation for the Fall 2024 semester. For the 203 libguide, we will
continue to gather data on frequently-used texts in literature classes and ensure that
reputable copies of those texts are included, whenever possible according to copyright
law, in the libguide. In addition to work on these existing resources, we will also begin
to compile material to expand the “Writing and Research” chapters of the 203 and Sci-Fi
OERs into a standalone “Writing about Literature” handbook OER. Finally, if Abbott
funds are awarded, we will also find a professional conference to attend together, the
registration (and any additional) fees for which will come out of my UPREP bursary.
Because time is short, we will probably attend a virtual conference, but an in-person
conference such as 4Cs should not be ruled out, depending on the student’s availability
and interest. We will meet weekly to make plans and discuss progress.Student Involvement: Student and Dr. Carly-Miles will meet weekly to discuss
progress regarding ongoing 203 OER revisions, expansion of the 203 libguide, and
initial work on expanding OER "Writing about Literature" chapters into an OER
handbook. Student will assist with compiling a list of texts used in English department
syllabi and then either locating viable copies of those texts in the public domain or
requesting they be purchased with unrestricted borrow licenses from the library.Required Skills & Interest: Interest in reading and writing about literature; availability
to meet weekly.
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Description: The Beowulf's Afterlives Bibliographic Database (BABD) is the
most comprehensive record of texts, representations, and adaptations of Beowulf from
1705 to the present, in all languages, genres, and media forms. It contains over 1100
entries and is growing continually. Work developing its content is ongoing, and a
UPREP student may contribute both to this aspect of the project and to enhancing the
data it already contains, as described below.Student Involvement: The student’s work is expected to include
information-gathering, cataloguing, and fact-checking, but a major part of the student’s
duties in this semester would be locating authoritative URIs (Uniform Resource
Identifiers) for persons listed in the database, using such tools as VIAF (the Virtual
International Authority File) or Wikidata, and applying these to existing database entries.
If desired, a section of ENGL 485 could be arranged in conjunction with this UPREP,
and in that case I would shape the UPREP tasks to support the student’s directed study.Required Skills & Interest: The primary needed qualifications are diligence and
attentiveness to detail, and all who have these characteristics are encouraged to apply.
No experience with URI application is expected (training will be provided). Prior interest
in medieval literature is helpful but not necessary. An enhancing qualification might be
competence in one or more non-English languages.