Ronald McNair
The Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, which motivates and supports low-income and first-generation college students to enter and succeed in higher education, is accepting applications through Monday, Oct. 31.
The McNair Scholars Program prepares sophomores to near-graduating seniors for graduate school through immersion into graduate-level research projects and familiarization with the graduate school application process. Students who are accepted participate in a seminar over the spring semester, and then engage in the eight-week Summer Research Institute. Throughout the next academic year, students work directly with staff to apply to graduate programs and identify and secure funding.
Application materials, as well as more information about eligibility and program benefits, can be found on the McNair Scholars Website. For more information, contact Jorge Montiel, program coordinator of the McNair Scholars.
Ronald McNair was born Oct. 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina. He earned his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976 and was selected out of a pool of 10,000 applicants to train at NASA. In 1984, McNair became the second African American to go into space. Two years later, while making his second mission into space, he was one of seven crew members killed in the space shuttle Challenger explosion on Jan. 28, 1986. Following his untimely death, the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program was created in his honor by the U.S. Department of Education in 1989. Inducted under the Federal TRIO Programs, the program now serves a mass number of low-income, first-generation and historically underrepresented students across the country.