Pittsburgh Undergraduate Review

Thirty-five stories above the bustling streets of Pitt’s campus, within the hushed… Thirty-five stories above the bustling streets of Pitt’s campus, within the hushed corridors of Pitt’s Honors College, analytical and scientific work by undergraduate students from around the country is given a unique literary voice.

For more than 20 years, from its elevated offices in the Cathedral of Learning, the Pittsburgh Undergraduate Review has published a wide variety of papers by students from coast to coast. The journal counts former Clinton administration policy adviser George Stephanopoulos among its one-time contributors.

With the advertising motto, “It’s not what you have, it’s what you publish,” the PUR looks to print the work of students who think they have written a really good analytical or research paper for a class, but who would normally file it away, or even throw it out, after receiving a grade.

The most recent issue of the student-run, professionally reviewed publication included a critical analysis of works done by the French artist Marc Chagall, an exploration of the often politically volatile term “fetal rights,” and one student’s summary of his software to analyze post-tonal music.

The publication claims to be the “nation’s only professionally-referred undergraduate scholarly journal.” While there are other similar college publications, like the Maine Scholar at the University of Maine and the Dualist at Stanford University, those behind the Pitt journal say that none hold to the ideal of publishing the academic papers of college undergraduates with as wide a subject range as does the PUR.

The evolution of the PUR began in the early 1980s when Pitt student Robert Pape returned from studying in Europe and had a conversation with current Dean of Pitt’s Honors College Alec Stewart.

“We were sitting around a room up here, before it was renovated,” recalled Stewart, “and he said, ‘You know, there is a lot of really good stuff that students write that disappears into the circular file. We should create a journal that publishes first-class undergraduate scholarship.'”

Stewart agreed, and with the support of the honors program, Pape assembled a staff, compiled undergraduate submissions and gathered funding to release what would be the first issue of the PUR in the spring of 1981. It would go on to publish the papers of many talented undergraduate writers in the following years, including a few who would later gain widespread notoriety beyond their academic exploits.

Stephanopoulos, for example, published his paper, “Credibility versus Fear: The Politics of Missile Modernization in West Germany,” in the PUR while studying at Colombia University in 1982.

Following its inception, the publication caught the attention of the National Collegiate Honors Council, an organization of honors programs in state-related universities, and its then-president John Portz. Portz, who was also head of the honors program at the University of Maryland, helped the PUR gain wider attention, Stewart said.

“He said, ‘It would be great if students from honors programs around the country could submit to the PUR,'” Stewart said, “and we thought that was a good idea, too, and we got a lot of visibility through the organ of the NCHC and their newsletter.”

Portz suggested that the PUR request funding from the NCHC, which they did. He also endowed the publication with money for the Edythe Portz Prize, a $250 honorarium named for his wife and awarded to the writer of what is judged to be the most outstanding published work in each issue.

According to current PUR Editor in Chief Hali Felt, it costs around $3,000 dollars in Honors College-supplied funds to put out each issue. Issues are usually released twice a year. She added that the publication currently sports a staff of about 10, including staff members who maintain the journal’s Web site, www.honorscollege.pitt.edu/~pur, as well as editors for the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.

These editors coordinate with a variety of Pitt faculty to have them evaluate a submitted work within a particular academic field. It is this professional review of all works submitted for publication that accounts for the high standards of creativity that, according to Felt, the PUR tries to uphold.

“We’re looking for a certain level of scholarship, but at the same time, we are trying to have a certain thread of creativity run through it,” Felt said.

“We’re not interested in just publishing a paper that somebody wrote for a class that’s a literature review, like ‘The Development of Communism in Russia.’ We’re looking for something that’s innovative in a way where students are pushing themselves to achieve a certain level of creativity in their writing.”

Pitt faculty members act as “referees” to closely critique submissions, even though they are not paid for this service. According to Stewart, however, there is usually no problem finding faculty members willing to take part.

“We rely on the fact that we are approaching faculty on the basis of their own value system — namely, a scholarly one,” Stewart said. “It’s not unusual to get the comment back from these people [who submit work] that they get more comments on these papers, which they’re putting into publishable form, than they got when they wrote them in some class at their home university.”

Stewart considers the extra effort by those who submit papers to the PUR as intertwined with the goals of the publication itself.

“A willingness to do what’s required to get a paper into publishable form means that you have a special passion for the life of the mind, and there has to be an outlet for scholarly initiative for undergraduate students who aren’t yet faculty members who earn their living for it,” Stewart said.

According to Felt, those looking to pick up a copy of the PUR can find it in the Honors College, the Hillman Library and most departmental offices on campus.

Hali Felt is a staff writer for the news desk at The Pitt News.