Loyola Marymount University has again been awarded a federal grant of $1.3 million to support the McNair Scholars Program. This is the third McNair grant LMU has received since 2012 and will support the program and its scholars for the next five years.
The McNair Scholars Program, a federal TRIO program funded by the U.S. Department of Education at 189 academic institutions in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, prepares undergraduate students for doctoral studies through research and other scholarly activities. McNair participants are either first-generation college students with financial need, or members of a group that is traditionally underrepresented in graduate education and who have demonstrated strong academic potential.
“We have supported 150 students through McNair over the past nine years, 26 of whom have gone on to Ph.D. programs,” said Elizabeth Wimberly-Young, newly appointed director of the McNair Scholars Program and Student Research. “We have had 120 faculty mentor McNair Scholars, many of whom have been involved throughout the decade. We are so grateful for the dedicated faculty and faculty mentors. The program doesn’t work without them.”
Established at LMU in 2012, the McNair Scholars Program moved to the Office of Research and Creative Arts in September 2022, and now connects McNair students and faculty to a range of opportunities that encourage faculty-student engagement throughout the academic and intellectual landscape. The program is named for Ronald Erwin McNair, a physicist whose academic accomplishments led to his being selected by NASA for the space shuttle program in 1978. He was the second African American to fly in space and served as mission specialist aboard the ill-fated U.S. Challenger space shuttle. He was killed instantly when the Challenger exploded one minute, thirteen seconds after it was launched. McNair was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. To mark his achievements, members of Congress provided funding for the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program.
“The McNair program has thrived under the leadership of Ricardo Machón, Ph.D., and Emily Jarvis, Ph.D., and with support from BCLA and Seaver College leadership and faculty,” said Kathleen Weaver, Ph.D., associate provost for research, professional development, and online learning. “The new grant provides an increase in centralized staff support through the Office of Research and Creative Arts and continues to partner closely with faculty on implementation, mentorship of students, and research.”
LMU’s McNair program is supported by program coordinators Beth Marsh, who has worked with the program since its inception in 2012, and Esmeralda Cabrera, who joined the office two years ago.
“Drs. Machón and Jarvis, as well as the dedicated previous directors, have done a wonderful job creating a strong foundation for the McNair program at LMU,” said Wimberly-Young. “By moving McNair under ORCA, we will be able to utilize ORCA’s infrastructure and support while continuing to grow McNair’s signature programming.” “McNair played an instrumental role in helping me reach my dream of going to graduate school,” said Elena Martinez ’22. “It truly made a difference to have a support system as well as the resources that I needed to apply. This meant everything from conducting research, to having the opportunity to present research locally and across the country, to receiving help with graduate school applications themselves. Next fall I will start a Ph.D. program in computational and mathematical engineering at Stanford.”
