Each semester, the Department of English offers 4-7 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. In order for students to be compensated, they must be enrolled for 3 credit hours for Spring 2026.
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 $900 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 2026 are due on *Friday November 7th* by 5:00pm. Students will be notified of a decision by Monday November 17th.
-
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, Dr. Kris May (Associate
Digital Editor), Dr. Robert Stagg (NVS Director), Dr. Katayoun Tobari (Digital Editor) and NVS
volume editors to create and publish NVS volumes online at:
https://newvariorumshakespeare.org/. They will work on different aspects of the digital editing
process, including locating relevant historical editions of Shakespeare plays for individual NVS
volumes, performing optical character recognition (OCR) and transcribing editions for collation,
and maintaining documentation for training and workflow. Collation is the process of comparing
a large number of editions of Shakespeare’s plays for textual variants. Through the process of
transcription, the student researcher will prepare texts that can then be used in a digital collation
tool, which will automate much of the collation process. Volume editors will then use these
collations to inform the editorial decisions they make to produce New Variorum Shakespeare
editions.Required Skills & Interest: The student researcher should have an interest in either
Shakespeare or Digital Humanities —preferably both. Previous experience with XML and/or
GitHub is desired, but not required. Project-specific training will be provided.
-
Description: The New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare (NVS), which began with the
publication of Romeo and Juliet in 1871, is now published open-access in digital form, beginning
with two editions, The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 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 me, associate digital editor (Dr.
Kris May), associate digital editor (Dr. Dorothy Todd), NVS director (Dr. Robert Stagg), and the
NVS volume and general editors outside of Texas A&M University to create and publish NVS
volumes online at: https://newvariorumshakespeare.org/. They will receive instruction and
training in all aspects of the digital editing process, but their work will primarily involve organizing
and attending various NVS events and English Department recruitment events featuring the
NVS.More specifically, the UPREP student will assist in organizing a major two-day conference in
Spring 2026, centered on two recently released variorum texts: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and The Winter’s Tale. This event will bring prominent Shakespeare scholars from around the
world to Texas A&M and provide the UPREP student with an exceptional opportunity to engage
with leaders in the field. In addition to the conference, the NVS team will be preparing a major
exhibition at the Cushing Memorial Library. This exhibit will showcase variorum editing history,
including editing tools and artifacts such as collators, notecards, annotated manuscripts, and
Texas A&M’s copy of the Second Folio (1632), one of the earliest collected editions of
Shakespeare’s plays. The UPREP student will contribute to the planning and execution of this
exhibition. Through these projects, the student will gain valuable experience working on a
large-scale, international digital humanities initiative while deepening their understanding of
editorial practice, archival research, and academic event coordination.
In addition, the student researcher will have the opportunity to contribute to flyer design and
distribution, event planning for invited speakers, symposia, online engagements, and with
recruitment efforts for the English Department. They will also assist the NVS director with
outreach efforts through various social media platforms and by periodically updating the News
Item page on the NVS website.Required Skills & Interest: Familiarity with Google Suite is desirable. The student
researcher should have an interest in Digital Humanities, Shakespeare, Textual Editing,
event planning, and/or professional networking. They should be detail-oriented, should
follow with tasks in a timely fashion, and should demonstrate strong communication
skills.
-
Description: This UPREP will focus on the teaching of writing and Writing Program
Administration. The larger project this UPREP supports is a holistic examination of trends in the
teaching of writing nationally, including aspects such as assignment structures, course focuses,
and teacher training. Through work compiling a literature review related to writing programs as
well as work examining publicly available information about writing courses and instructor
training at peer institutions, the UPREP student will help contribute to the larger project of
collecting data to take stock of the current focus of our writing courses and its connection to
departmental and program needs and goals as well as national trends.Student Involvement: The UPREP student will engage in program research to examine the
program, course, and assignment structures of peer institutions, as well as to evaluate and
compile research in the broader fields of Writing Studies and Writing Program Administration
about these topics. Depending on needs and student interests, student might also be involved in
the creation of instructor materials to support our writing courses.Required Skills & Interest: Skills required include research and organizational abilities as well
as a willingness to learn. Students interested in pedagogy, composition, technical writing, or
interested in going to a PhD program in English in which teaching core writing courses will be a
part of their training will likely benefit most from this UPREP.
-
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 digital
editor (Dr. Kathy Torabi), the other associate digital editor (Dr. Dorothy Todd), the NVS
Director (Dr. Robert Stagg), and NVS volume editors outside of Texas A&M University 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 digital humanities—preferably both. Previous experience with XML,
TEI, and/or Gitlab is desired, but not required. Project-specific training will be provided.