McNair Scholars program reinstated at Concord University

PRESS RELEASE

ATHENS, WV — Concord received the welcome news this spring that grant funding for the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program — more often known as the McNair Scholars initiative — was restored.

The program was previously funded on a five-year cycle set to expire in 2027, but last fall, the U.S. Department of Education cancelled numerous grants nationwide stemming from challenges to eligibility requirements and services originally included in the program. Following a litigation process and program revisions, funding was restored to many TRIO Programs nationwide and to Concord’s McNair Scholars program.

“This is a tremendous win for our students and for the mission of the program, which provides life-changing opportunities for first-generation and low-income students who aspire to pursue graduate education,” CU President Bethany Meighen shared with faculty and staff members in a recent message to the Concord community. “I want to extend a special thank you to [McNair Scholars’ Director] Dr. Rodney Klein for his tireless advocacy and leadership throughout this process. His commitment to the program and the students it serves played an important role in helping secure this positive outcome.”

Losing eight months of funding and programming meant a cohort of students missed out on the workshops, research, and progress they might have gained in the pursuit of graduate school, Klein said.

Amid the disappointment, however, he never gave up on restoring the program, and the much-anticipated news arrived in May, creating a welcome challenge to assemble an abbreviated summer internship.

Since the McNair Program was reinstated, Klein has successfully recruited a new group of students for the McNair Program that includes nine Concord students and one student each from Bluefield State University and West Virginia State University.

Six members of this group recently traveled to the Southeastern Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel [SAEOPP] McNair Research Conference in Atlanta, GA, to see other McNair Scholars present their research, learn about applying to graduate school, and attend a graduate school fair. There’s a similar conference coming up at Baylor University, in Waco, TX, and Klein said that visit will represent another new experience for the students to see the opportunities that are out there. In addition, three students will present their research at this conference.

The summer program kicks off the McNair experience for the new group of students.

“During the summer, they do the workshops and conferences for the most part,” Klein explained. “Students then conduct their research during the academic year. In addition to doing their research during the academic year, we also have some additional workshops that we’ll do that are more timely when it’s getting closer to grad school application deadlines … workshops on studying for the GRE and different types of things for the application process.”

McNair students receive a modest financial stipend to support their academic pursuits and help fund their research focus, provided they meet research and scholarship deadlines as outlined by the program guidelines.

Klein emphasized that McNair is about much more than money to the students it impacts and the futures they are building.

“It’s getting these students the opportunities to do research, to travel, to present, to do and see there are things out there, to be exposed to the different kinds of opportunities that they probably don’t otherwise recognize are available to them,” he said.

Any sophomore or junior enrolled at Concord, Bluefield State, or West Virginia State universities interested in becoming a McNair Scholar should stop by the McNair Scholars office on the second floor of the J. Frank Marsh Library, or reach out to Klein at (304) 384-5222, kleinr@concord.edu, or inside Marsh Hall’s Office 114.

Additional information is also available at McNair Scholars Program.