Inaugural Class of McNair Scholars Ready to Soar at Baylor and Beyond
Baylor’s 25 inaugural McNair Scholars are ready to soar, like the program’s namesake Dr. Ronald E. McNair, a laser physicist and NASA astronaut who was inspired to work hard and persevere in his studies by his family and by a teacher who recognized and believed in his scientific potential.
Baylor is in its first year of a five-year Department of Education-funded grant to implement the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, known as the McNair Scholars program. The program prepares low-income, first-generation and/or underrepresented students to successfully navigate a path to a Ph.D. program following graduation from Baylor.
The 25 McNair Scholars are immersed in research and a variety of other scholarly activities, with an eventual goal of increasing graduate degree awards for students from underrepresented groups. The University’s grant funding will support 25-30 students each year with substantial mentoring and community building along the way.
"Baylor’s inaugural class of 25 McNair Scholars has been an extremely amazing group of students,” Steven Fernandez, director of the McNair Scholars program, who himself was a first-generation college student at Florida International University, said. “They’re from diverse backgrounds, even from different academic disciplines. We have a large group of veteran students who come with abundant life experiences and students from all different ethnic backgrounds. It really works to create a cohesive community environment, and students have been able to be very supportive of each other.”
Benefits of being a Baylor McNair Scholar include: a paid summer research internship, seminars and professional development workshops, conference travel opportunities, GRE test preparation, graduate school application assistance and faculty mentoring.
A pillar of the program, faculty serve as mentors to the McNair Scholars and guide students through the research process for Ph.D. programs, recommend which conferences to attend, navigate the fellowship application process and connect students to fellow faculty at other universities, Fernandez said.
“It’s the definition of a mentor, of being there when the students need questions answered and being a resource for students when they’re not sure what to do. We can give them the tools here at McNair, but sometimes it’s that inspiration coming from faculty mentors that is so important for our program to be successful.”
A faculty mentor’s investment guides students to academic success and encourages them to persevere in the program to impact their community.
Dr. Lakia M. Scott, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction in the School of Education, appreciates the program’s faculty mentoring focus. Like Fernandez, Scott was a first-generation college student and understands how programs like McNair identify potential in students “well beyond what they can presently see.” Scott has been involved with the Baylor McNair program from its beginning as a member of the grant-writing team. Now, she is invested as a faculty mentor for Olivia Moses, a senior elementary education major and McNair Scholar from Arlington, Texas.
“If you would have told me early in my undergraduate career that I would have a Ph.D. and still be at an institution working and loving research, I would have thought you were crazy because I couldn’t see beyond where I was at the time and my circumstances somehow contributed to that line of thinking,” Scott said.
With guidance and encouragement from their faculty mentors, McNair Scholars students presented their summer research during the McNair Research Symposium Sept. 18 in the Beckham and White Rooms in the Bill Daniel Student Center.
Baylor’s McNair program contributes to the resources developed in the Paul L. Foster Success Center to support underrepresented students and seeks to continue equipping students for global service and impact.
“Programs like McNair are designed to not only allow students, who otherwise might lack the resources, to pursue their highest degree aspirations, but also allow them the opportunity to have a serious impact on the communities they come from,” Fernandez said. “I have a lot of students who return to their original alma mater because they want to give back to these universities who have given them so much and be the voice for their community.”
For more information about the McNair Scholars program and a list of this year’s Baylor McNair Scholars and their faculty mentors, visit baylor.edu/mcnairscholars.