By Nicholas R. Cabezas
FIU’s Undergraduate Research Journal (URJ) has taken writers as far as Cambridge and Kyoto, capturing the school’s scholarship while indicating its students’ promising futures.
Founded in Summer of 2022, FIU’s URJ will turn three next spring. The URJ is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed academic journal, looking to publish undergraduate research and provide professional development opportunities for undergraduate students.
“It’s kind of set my personal goals with the research I want to conduct,” says Lucas Vieira, a graduate student in English Literature at FIU’s English department.
“This paper was towards a point of active change in the media that I myself consume as well as other people consume,” he said. “I want my future research to have a similar effect.”
Published in the most recent volume of the URJ, Vieira’s “‘The Way to Dusty Death’: The Feminist Revision of the Western in Nomadland (2021)” explores the progression towards “a more inclusive and equitable filmic language,” he said.
Vieira cites his piece as the key to getting accepted into FIU’s graduate program.
A wholly voluntary effort, the URJ is at once a professional development opportunity for student writers, editors, and interns as well as a marker of FIU’s growing scholarship and impact.
Of those involved, over 50 members are FIU alumni, offering their experience while picking up new skills. To date, articles have had over 3,000 downloads globally, with numbers growing exponentially with each volume launch—student work is being read in over 20 countries.
Publishing scholarship is not just a solitary act, but also a collaborative enterprise, with professional development on both fronts. Vieira himself has also worked as an editorial intern, digital projects assistant, and layout designer.
“I came in towards the end of the first issue because [the URJ’s] values aligned very much with my own,” Vieira said. “I am a person who loves and appreciates interdisciplinary studies. So I was very excited to work behind the scenes in this case because it put my skills that were traditionally on the back burner during my degree.”
Internal and external support for the URJ suggests that this is not just about research, but the holistic development of our student body, signalling the impact of the enterprise.
A substantial donation to the URJ came from InnerCat Music Group’s CEO Paris A. Cabezas for the publication of the second issue. InnerCat’s motto—“empowering independent artists”—translates well to the journal’s mission of uplifting undergraduate work.
While a mathematician by training, Cabezas emphasized the importance of the humanities. “The study of literature, language, and culture is not only a gateway to personal growth but also a means to foster empathy, cultural understanding, and effective communication,” he said.
When asked why he remained in so many different capacities, Vieira emphasized the journal’s mission.
He defined the URJ as “a kind of a professed bastion, attempting to bridge so many different disciplines together for the common mission of trying to platform writers who may have a harder time to get published as an undergrad.”
“That’s why I’ve stayed involved with them because I think that what they’re doing makes a big difference in our community,” Vieira said.
The URJ is the concentration of everything FIU stands for—opportunity leads to innovation leads to change. Almost every serious institution has some sort of undergraduate review; this is FIU stepping up, with our students at the forefront.
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