In 2025, almost every kind of creative work done by students and faculty in English Departments is born digital. Writing, editing, design, multimodal and interactive content, podcasts, as well as video for teaching, collaboration, and presentation of research — all of these require digital tools, which are consistently evolving.

But ask yourself — when did you last actually learn a new digital tool, thoroughly? One you'd never used before?

We often figure out how to ‘muddle through’ a new site, app, or application. Usability scholars call this ‘satisficing’ (learning just enough for what we need this moment). But most of us don't ever spend focused time learning to understand new tools, learning how to do new things, or learning to create new works that take advantage of all of the capabilities now available to us. As a result, many people in English aren't really expert with software or hardware.

Which can be an issue, when every kind of creative work is born digital. Especially in a time when generative A.I. seems to be transforming a wide range of genres.

The Media Lab is a space for students and scholars to learn to use to create/edit digital, collaborative, or media-enhanced projects better. The Lab aims to foster pedagogy and cultivate research infused with creative media technology, and to support the development of digital and new media literacies. With infrastructure to support innovative exploration, the Media Lab is, surprisingly, sometimes actually fun.

Students, faculty, and staff are welcome to visit the lab to use our equipment and software. Members get the door code, so they can use the room any time, 24/7. You can borrow items from our equipment library, including digital mixers, mics, cameras, and more. We also run servers and powerful workstations that can produce more sophisticated work than most laptops can—and we have laptop stations, if you do prefer using your own computer—where you can connect your favorite computer to large-screen 4K monitors and a wide range of equipment you don't have.

We also have a small but growing community of other members with skills that can help you complete your project.

Computers are language machines.
—Paul N. Edwards 

The English Media Lab is a space for collaboration. It will offer open-access scheduled meeting spaces with high-end workstations, laptop stations, greenscreen, video, and audio equipment, prosumer cameras, and web, web development, generative A.I. and database servers to facilitate online publishing. It will be available to both on-campus and online members of the department, as well as offer consultations and brown-bag lunches to invite students and faculty to raise the sophistication of multimedia we produce for our teaching and research.

 

Location:Humanities 362Director:Geoffrey Sauer