In 2022, staff at J. Murrey Atkins Library launched a project to remediate metadata for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) in the Niner Commons institutional repository, which hosts UNC Charlotte faculty, staff, and student scholarship on an open access model. Received several times a year in files encoded in ProQuest’s own XML ETD metadata standard, which Atkins transforms into MODS, the ETD metadata in Niner Commons provided a basic level of access to student work but was marred by capitalization irregularities in title and note fields and, crucially, by the lack of controlled subject terms in the FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) vocabulary used in records for all other works in Niner Commons. This case study provides an account of the ETD metadata remediation project at Atkins Library, delineating the metadata problems it was designed to address, the remediation methods and tools used, the problems encountered during the course of the work, and the results of the project and findings. In describing Atkins’ remediation process, it also reflects on some of the possibilities and contradictions of ETD metadata remediation work in the contemporary institutional repository environment, where staff shortages, legacy cataloging practices in other library units, and ProQuest’s own distribution channels for ETD metadata can limit libraries’ ability to ensure metadata quality and consistency across different systems and record formats. Atkins’s experience suggests that a phased approach that does not tackle all remediation issues at once may be a viable strategy for remediating ETD metadata for institutions coping with staffing and technology constraints.