Our Mission
Our Writing Program is one of the largest programs in the institution. Every academic year, there are around 4,000 students enrolled in ENGL 1302 alone, and with each student comes a wealth of amazing ideas, inquiries, and talents that are shared in our classrooms every day. But why should all this innovation stay contained in the classroom when so many others in the university and beyond would benefit from learning from these students as well?
With this in mind, we proudly present "NovaRhet", an undergraduate research symposium aimed at giving student researchers in ENGL 1302 courses a platform to share their work and voices across the university and the Rio Grande Valley.
NovaRhet began as an idea composed at a 2019 conference held by the Council of Undergraduate Research (CUR), which is an organization dedicated to fostering and promoting undergraduate research nationwide. Once the idea was formed, it was our goal to host the first iteration of an event where students would be able to showcase a wide variety of projects and presentations in a variety of formats, with hopes that the event would evoke an interactive, engaging, almost festival-like atmosphere. But since the first event was to take place in 2020, the pandemic changed our best laid plans and the inaugural NovaRhet event became a virtual one.
Still, even that version of NovaRhet went fantastically and we already saw great promise in what could already become. The following year when circumstances became safer, the event moved back to being a live event as originally intended, starting out small but hopeful. And every year since, we have only seen NovaRhet continue to grow as we expand to host it on more UTRGV campuses and welcome more participants from other universities (sometimes even crossing borders to welcome international visitors and participants). It's been an amazing thing to witness and we only foresee even more growth as our event gains more followers and participants who are looking for a space to share their voice.
This all starts with you, the student. You truly do amazing work that continually impresses us every single day, and we truly believe that that work deserves to be shared with others so that we may all learn and grow for each other. That's why we're so excited that so many of you chose to participate, and we can't wait to show off your brilliant thoughts and ideas because you truly deserve a large spotlight that others can witness and learn and grow from.
To that end, please visit the links above to check out more information, see pictures from past events, and leave us your thoughts as we continue to expand. And please consider becoming part of this wonderful community in whatever capacity you can because we'd love to add your brilliant mind to our beautiful ever-expanding mosaic of voices.
Welcome, one and all, to NovaRhet!
Sincerely,
Charles, Cyndy, Jose, Marcela, Saul, Stephanie, Silvia, & Tomas
