The Illinois Tech Undergraduate Research Journal (URJ), an organization recently re-established on campus, is a peer-reviewed journal that offers undergraduate students the unique opportunity to publish their work. Undergraduate students at Illinois Tech play an integral role in the groundbreaking research done on this very campus and the opportunity to publish in this journal will allow them to highlight and promote their work. It is also a rare opportunity for students to get a glimpse into the publishing process as they gear up for careers where research and innovation are central. As we gear up to publish our first journal, we would like to invite you to submit a manuscript.

In addition to the typical research projects, we are also publishing a feature section. For our feature of our first issue this spring, we were inspired by the New York Times Project 1619 to create a learning project about the rich Black American history in Bronzeville, called Project 1890, representing when our school was founded. We are hoping to receive and publish contributions–stories, photographs, or any other expressive work–from Black students both past and present about their experiences here, and any other personal narratives about the Black experience at Illinois Tech from students, faculty, staff, and others affiliated with Illinois Tech. URJ feels that Illinois Tech students should further recognize and appreciate the vivid history and community of Bronzeville that was interrupted by the construction of our university. We hope through this project more students will become aware of how the university negatively disrupted the community and what we can do as students to increase diversity and inclusion on campus and connect with the surrounding areas in meaningful and helpful ways.

The deadline to submit is February 15, 2021 and manuscripts are reviewed on a rolling basis. For more information on our submission guidelines, visit our website at http://urj.library.iit.edu/index.php/urj . If you have any questions or would like to get involved, do not hesitate to reach out to us through email (urjiit@iit.edu) or Instagram (@urj.iit.).