Students gathered to celebrate the highly anticipated launch of the newest volume of the Seattle University Undergraduate Research Journal (SUURJ) May 28. Many were in attendance for the event, including College of Arts and Sciences Dean David Powers and alumni who traveled from near and far to commemorate the launch of SUURJ. The process of producing the journal takes an entire school year, where student editors work closely with faculty editors to review submissions from undergraduate students over the last three quarters.
Gina Parker, a third-year sociology major and student editor of the journal, talked about the excitement of seeing the journal come together after a year’s worth of work.
“I’ve been involved in this my entire junior year and it’s a year-long process. It starts with the fall quarter and we receive all the papers that have been submitted and we go through a deliberation process. We do a deep dive into the papers and send them over to the faculty editors,” Parker said.
Parker explained how her role at SUURJ helped her grow exponentially in her knowledge.
“For me personally, one of the most fun parts of it was reading so many papers from so many different disciplines and I have learned so much. It has been so insightful,” Parker said.
Avery Segall, a third-year English and women, gender, and sexuality studies double major and also a student editor for SUURJ, was initially drawn to SUURJ to grow as a writer and learn the process of establishing a publication.
Many of the student editors first joined SUURJ with aspirations to break into publishing and hoped to pursue a career in publishing.
“Part of the reason I wanted to go into [SUURJ] was [because] I was considering publishing, as a career. I wanted to learn the process and what it entailed. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about general editing and how to navigate that. In SUURJ it’s more of a collaborative process to create a paper and go through the editing process with my peers along with student editors,” Segall said.
Through their respective roles at SUURJ, the student editors have transformed and learned the inner workings of publishing.
Kaitlyn Delfs, an English and communication & media double major and student editor for SUURJ, opened up about her personal growth as a writer through her role at SUURJ.
“Learning how to edit, what goes into publishing, and how to talk to an editor has helped me better understand the goals for my career and what I’d like to do,” Delfs said
Aside from the student editors who play a critical role in the production of the magazine, there are the faculty editors who have an influential role in shaping and critiquing the material.
Hannah Tracy and Tara Roth, the chief faculty editors of SUURJ, both initially became involved in more recent years in the journal’s history. They spoke about how they have seen students grow and find their voices in the journal and develop a voice through writing.
“Watching what happens as the students work with a faculty content editor and as they work with a student editor; watching the paper grow and change, and get stronger as the course goes on; [and] helping them write for a more general audience is cool,” Tracy said.
The undertaking and workload of the student editors along with the faculty was identified as the most formative and crucial element for the journal.
“The process for editors is also exciting to watch, they’ve come from all different academic disciplines, in the past we’ve had editors from biology, and social science,” Roth said.
Roth and Tracy want SUURJ to be a place where students of all different majors and backgrounds can have a place to be represented and understood.
“We also want to encourage people from other disciplines outside of English to be student editors, regardless of what your discipline is. You can get some experience and there is a lot of support from our faculty mentors.”
