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Manuel J Arauz Ramirez: Undergraduate Research 

In the fall of 2019, Manuel Arauz, a junior majoring in Political Science and Economics, began work on a civics literacy project with Visiting Scholar, Peter Watkins. Together with Connie Doebele, Managing Director at the Center for C-SPAN Scholarship & Engagement (CCSE), Arauz and Watkins have been developing podcasts as part of a civic literacy project.

The series, called “My Constitution,” uses the C-SPAN Archives which contains over 250,000 hours of content. Professor of Political Science, Robert X. Browning is the Executive Director of the C-SPAN Archives. The CCSE is housed in the Brian Lamb School of Communication where Browning holds a joint appointment.

Manuel has mined the archives for material that can be used in the podcasts and has even turned himself into an audio engineer, incorporating music, and archival content into each 15-minute podcast.

More than a research project, Manuel now says, “I’ve got the best job on campus. It’s really interesting and I’ve learned so many new skills.”

The podcasts, which are aimed at a college audience, cover material as varied as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention, freedom of speech, civil rights, the Nineteenth Amendment, presidential power, freedom of religion, federalism, and the United States Supreme Court.

Each podcast will be accompanied by ancillary material which will be available on the website of the Center for C-SPAN Scholarship and Engagement. The material includes questions to ponder, the sources used to develop each podcast, and additional clips from the C-SPAN Archives.

Internationally renowned as a research institution, Purdue faculty are eager to work with students on projects. There is a vibrant culture of undergraduate research with almost 2,000 projects completed every year.

Political science professors pursue rigorous and diverse research agendas and publish in the discipline’s top academic journals. Our faculty is eager to work with undergraduate research assistants and to serve as mentors.

Just ask Manuel.