Seventeen undergraduate students were chosen this quarter as the first cohort of scholars in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program at UCSB. This is part of a national program that provides participants a summer research internship and research projects during the academic year.

The U.S. Department of Education has funded the UCSB program until the fall of 2011. A five-year funding extension is considered likely by campus organizers.

Faculty mentors are an important part of the effort to encourage students from groups often underrepresented in graduate schools to continue their education, said Associate Dean of Social Sciences Beth Schneider, director of the McNair Scholars Program. Mentors help students identify research projects and learn research skills.

“We want to work with faculty across the campus,” said Schneider, who co-wrote the successful federal grant request with Social Science Dean Melvin Oliver, and former Graduate Diversity Coordinator Kofi Taha. Noting that funding also came from the campus, she said, “In all, $1.8 million has been committed from all sources in support of this prestigious national program.”

Schneider has been recruiting the McNair Scholars Program staff. Lynn Becerra, currently program assistant to the Chumash Scholars Program, has been hired to serve as program coordinator. At press time, recruitment continues for an assistant director who will manage the overall operation of the program as well as for two graduate student mentors

Students from all majors on the campus are eligible to apply. Juniors and seniors from low-income, first-generation, and/or underrepresented minority groups receive the scholarships. The internship provides a stipend of $2,800 as well as independent study credit. Other benefits to the students are a series of professional seminars preparing them for application to graduate school.

More details about the McNair Scholars Program can be found on the Web at <www.socialsciences.ucsb.edu/mcnair.html>.

Though new to UCSB, the McNair Scholars Program was founded in 1986. It is named for Ronald E. McNair, an African-American astronaut and physicist who lost his life when the space shuttle Challenger exploded.