Undergraduate research showcased in Lehigh Review

While journals like the Lehigh Review usually lend themselves to undergraduates in the College of Arts and Sciences, the Lehigh Review still aims to collect the best scholarly and artistic accomplishments from students in all fields of study.

This year, Editor-in-Chief Gabby Pate, ’17, heads the journal’s push for diversity.

“We are actually pushing very heavily this year to not get strictly humanities-based papers, because the journal is for undergraduate work across all colleges, not just the College of Arts and Sciences,” Pate said.

Pate, along with journal facilitator Kyle Brett, has the final say on what makes it into the Lehigh Review. And, while the emphasis on variety remains a major criterion, the Lehigh Review staff still looks for the basics in choosing which submissions make the final cut. Staff members ask themselves a number of questions when reviewing work.

“Is this a paper that was written for a class with that assumed audience in mind?” Brett asked. “Or is this something that could benefit or be worthy to share with the Lehigh community at large?”

Pate said they are looking for eight- to 18-page papers that are well organized and can be followed throughout their entirety. They must also contain strong theses.

Along with ensuring that submissions are up to par, the Lehigh Review staff must ensure they get the word out about the journal and its purpose.

“We post fliers all over campus, we’re on university announcements…and we push it in our classes,” Pate said. “I even found out about the Lehigh Review because the editor in chief from two years ago was in one of my English classes.”

Pate was not the only one who stumbled across the Lehigh Review by chance. Other journal contributors, such as Hugh Bartlett, ’17, happened to find a loose flier and followed along with the submission process in hopes of getting published.

“I had this essay that I had written for a class that was based on a work that I did in Ghana over the summer,” Bartlett said. “I was proud of it, and I had this paper, and there were fliers that said ‘Send your papers to the Lehigh Review, it could be published’ so I said ‘OK’ and I sent it in.”

Bartlett’s piece “Mental Health and Religious Beliefs in Ghana: An Intersection Between Faith and Science” can be found in last year’s edition of the Lehigh Review.

From the contributors’ perspective, the Lehigh Review operates as a sense of pride and accomplishment. Staff members of the Lehigh Review agree that a main priority of the journal is to give the community a glimpse at Lehigh’s student research bubble.

“We aim to present, and put out to the community, the best research that our undergraduates are doing,” Pate said. “We want to say, ‘This is what Lehigh is all about. This is what our undergraduates are capable of.’”