McNair Scholars program accepting applications

The Ronald E. McNair post-baccalaureate achievement program is directed at students who want to pursue a Ph.D. program. Past McNair scholars have been accepted into some of the finest graduate programs in the nation.

Currently, 30 Portland State McNair scholars are listed in the program, which was established in 1986 by the U.S. Department of Education and named in honor of Challenger Space Shuttle astronaut, Ronald E. McNair, according to its website.

The program is funded by a grant of $924,000, given by the U.S. Department of Education and cost-share funds, dispersed over a period of four years.

The results of the program have been phenomenal, according to Dr. Toeutu Faaleava, director of the McNair scholarship program at PSU.

“Graduate programs from around the world recruit PSU McNair scholars,” Faaleava said. “We have brilliant students doing compelling research in their fields under the guidance of faculty experts.”

Carmen Anderson, a McNair scholar, is currently the Returning Women Students Program Coordinator for the Women’s Resource Center. Anderson’s awards include PSU Student Ambassador, winner of the 2008 President’s Commission on the Status of Women essay and President’s Awards Award for University Service, according to the program’s website.

“McNair scholars are high-achieving people who are going places, who are doing something serious,” she said.

Anderson said she is also pursuing her lifelong dream of doing comedy. Since her success at the PSU Hellooo Cancer event she held in the Multicultural Center in December of 2009, Anderson has appeared at Club Calabash, A.J. Java on the Rails and Duffy’s Hanger. She may be appearing in Florida in June at a cancer fundraiser.

Other McNair scholars include former senator and PSU professor Avel Louise Gordly and professor Dalton Miller-Jones, according to Anderson.

After serving three terms in the House of Representatives, Avel Gordly was the first African American woman elected to the Oregon Senate, according to PSU’s Black Studies website.

Miller-Jones is a member of the Oregon State Board of Higher Education. He is also a professor of psychology at PSU and served as vice provost for academic affairs for three years and chaired the Black Studies department, according to the Oregon University System website.

Jones said the McNair scholarship program at PSU is “significant.”

 “[The McNair scholarship program] provides a high quality, one-to-one research mentoring experience for students, especially for students from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds,” he said. “Most of the McNair students have a distinct advantage when applying to graduate school or to professional programs in medicine and technology.”

Jones said that in a large urban university, students can get lost in the machinery of paperwork.

McNair scholars involved in a lab or on a research project get outstanding individual career and informal personal counseling from their contact with the faculty, as well as graduate students, Jones said.

The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program is currently accepting applications, which are due on Monday, May 3. To apply, visit sites.google.com/site/psumcnairscholars/home.

Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program information

According to the website, the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program include the following:
-Summer research internship to work on original research project with a faculty mentor
-$2800 summer research internship stipend
-Scholarly activities designed to prepare students for graduate and doctoral studies
-Academic counseling and tutoring
-Assistance in graduate admissions and financial aid
-Assistance in presenting and publishing research