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. In order for students to be compensated, they must be enrolled for 3 credit hours for Fall 2025.
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 Fall 2025 are due on *Tuesday April 1st* by 5:00pm. Students will be notified of a decision by Tuesday April 15th.
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Description: In addition to continued work in revising and expanding the English 203
OER and assessment of it, I am also working on an OER that features Open
Educational Practices/assignments and student examples. The project will include
several different assignments and examples to be developed. One assignment is
currently further along than the others and can be viewed here:
https://odp.library.tamu.edu/ENGL203/chapter/mr-darcy-at-the-ball/ . I'm currently
calling this assignment Score Four as it requires students to choose four critical scenes
from a novel (currently Pride and Prejudice), choose or create a visual to represent
each scene, and choose or create music to score each scene. The assignment benefits
students by encouraging analysis and forging of connections between the text and
students' contemporary interests, and it provides students with opportunities for
self-expression and empowerment to share their voices and perspectives beyond the
classroom.
Student Involvement: Student will assist Dr. Carly-Miles in developing assignments,
uploading student examples into OER, and collaborating on assessment of assignment.Required Skills & Interest: Interest in literature and music.
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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. In addition, the researcher will have the opportunity to contribute to flyer design
and distribution, event planning for invited speakers, symposia, and online
engagements. 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.
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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 research and implementation
of AI Ethics and 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 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.
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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, Associate
Digital Editor Dr. Kris May, Digital Editor Dr. Katayoun Torabi, 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 is preparing texts that are
used by our digital collation tool, which automates 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 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: Starting in 2007, S. T. Joshi and the Hippocampus Press established the
Lovecraft Annual, an academic journal showcasing a collection of essays regarding the
works of H. P. Lovecraft (his fiction, influences, and more). The editor of the journal
reviews all submissions for possible publication within the journal for its August press
run to coincide with the late-author's birthday. Although many academics publish in
journals all the time, the same cannot be said for the undergraduate student experience.
This project will establish a collaboration with the journal in which a TAMU English major
at the undergraduate level composes a professionally-written research essay--with the
mentorship of the faculty member--to be submitted, reviewed, and included in its
publication. The student will work with the faculty member to select a topic for research;
review previous journal publications to gain an understanding of the breadth of material
explored; compose an original academic essay; and work through the writing process
with the faculty member to have the essay published in the journal. During the project,
the faculty member and undergraduate researcher will also work together to create a
new, annual H. P. Lovecraft writing contest for the English department in which the
winner will have their work published in the Lovecraft Annual journal.Student Involvement: The selected student will work with the faculty member to
examine a specific Lovecraft area of literature and/or film to research and compose a
professional essay for peer review, submission, and publication within the Lovecraft
Annual. The student will conduct research via standard protocols, engage in
research-and-writing meetings with the instructor to develop the project, and assist in
the creation of a new writing contest regarding H. P. Lovecraft.Required Skills & Interest: The student should have an interest in the works of H. P.
Lovecraft, Gothic-horror literatures, and academic publishing, but are not required to
have any specific expertise in the subject matter. Basic research methodologies (using
online databases, conducting personal interviews, performing Internet searches, etc.)
are required. Furthermore, the student should have experience with research and
writing at a proficient level, strong communication skills, and an attention to detail and
organization with knowledge of using Google Docs for composing, revising, and editing
text.