We are pleased to announce an exciting new research opportunity for students in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Students writing an honors thesis, senior capstone, or advanced research paper on Early American topics may apply to participate in the Fifth Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop, hosted by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. The workshop will take place during the 2013 Spring Semester at the Penn campus in Philadelphia. Students will be matched with a graduate student mentor, introduced to research in Philadelphia archives, and will present their research at a conference at Penn. The McNeil Center will provide lodging and meals while at the conference and reimburse travel expenses. This is an amazing opportunity to be a part of their international learning community and form connections with its leading scholars, authors, editors and publishers.
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania is an interdisciplinary community of scholars who study the histories and cultures of North America in the Atlantic world before 1850. The McNeil Center is the largest and most important institution of its kind for the field of Early American studies. The McNeil Center supports scholarship drawing on architecture, archaeology, anthropology, art history, economics, history, literature, political science, sociology, and material culture studies. The Center annually offers over a dozen year-long residential fellowships to scholars working on Early American and Atlantic topics and hosts regular seminars and conferences. To further disseminate the best new scholarship in the field, it publishes Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and sponsors the Early American Studies monograph series published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
The McNeil Center Consortium
TCNJ has recently joined the McNeil Center Consortium, which will provide certain benefits for TCNJ students and faculty
working on Early American topics. The Consortium’s membership now includes the American Philosophical Society, the David Library of the American Revolution, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library Company of Philadelphia, Brigham Young University, Bryn Mawr College, the Catholic University of America, Fordham University, Franklin and Marshall College, George Washington University, Gettysburg College, the Johns Hopkins University, Lehigh University, Millersville University, New York University, the Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, Rider University, Rutgers University, the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Stony Brook University, Temple University, the University of Delaware, Ursinus College, the University of Pennsylvania, and The College of New Jersey.
Consortium benefits for TCNJ include:
* An Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop for selected undergraduate students and their advisors is held each spring semester, culminating in a two-day conference in April, at which students present a portion of their research and graduate student mentors affiliated with the Center will provide comments. Funds for travel and overnight lodging for the students are provided. This event is only open to students from Consortium schools and represents an extraordinary opportunity for talented undergraduates to present their research in a community drawn from other colleges and universities in the region.
* At least one Center fellow may be invited to participate in a class or to make a public presentation related to his or her research at our institution during each academic year.
* An open invitation is extended for TCNJ students to join their faculty at any of our seminars or other programs, either in a curricular or extracurricular capacity.
* At least one summer residential research fellowship at the Center is reserved, on a competitive basis, for faculty members from undergraduate and M.A.-granting consortium institutions.
For more information on the McNeil Center and its programs, please visit the Center’s website:www.mceas.org.
Apply Today:
To apply, please email the application materials to Michele Lise Tarter (tarter@tcnj.edu) and William Carter (wcarter@tcnj.edu) by Monday, January 28, 2013. From the pool of applications that we receive at TCNJ, we will select up to two to submit to the McNeil Center for further consideration. We will notify selected applicants on Wednesday, January 30, 2013. The required materials include:
- A brief description of the proposed research project (500 words maximum), including the research question, purpose and significance of the project, approach and/or method. Please submit this as a Word or PDF file.
- A one-page resume highlighting your academic experiences.
- The name of your faculty mentor for the project. Your faculty mentor must be prepared to have a letter of recommendation prepared by Friday, February 1, 2013.
- A copy of an unofficial TCNJ transcript.