McNair Scholars develop bonds, hone presentation skills at national conference

The McNair Scholars program is designed to make the path to a doctorate more accessible for first-generation and low-income students seeking to maximize the impact of their education.

As part of the federally funded TRIO program, undergraduate students are invited to present research and receive professional feedback at a variety of national conferences over the course of the school year, most recently the University of New Mexico’s McNair Scholars Research Conference on September 10-11.

The CWU McNair Scholars cohort sent a group of six students to Alburquerque to experience the event, four of whom presented their research findings to peers from across the country.

McNair Scholars Program Director Dr. David Schulz, who joined CWU earlier this year, was blown away by the event and the opportunities it presented to the students who attended.

“I’ve been a college professor for 30 years, and I have gone to a lot of conferences,” he said. “From beginning to end, they had this conference dialed in. Professors were volunteering their time to sit in on these panels, and within a week our students had their feedback on how to take their research even further.”

Sociology senior and McNair Scholar Gabriela Ramirez took the opportunity to showcase her research into first-generation students from migrant farmworker backgrounds, and the challenges they face in pursuing higher education.

“I wanted to gain confidence, and to apply everything I’ve learned at Central and put it into context in New Mexico,” Ramirez said. “Research can be lonely sometimes, so going to a conference where everyone knows the struggle and wants to see you succeed — where they know what you’re trying to do — that felt like a push to finish strong and see it all through.”

Ramirez’s peer, Global Wine Studies and Entrepreneurship junior Lesly Portugal, attended the conference to bolster her network and skillset, but after watching Ramirez’s presentation, she is determined to put together her own presentation for next year’s conference.

“Gabriela’s presentation really inspired me,” Portugal said. “I was debating with myself on whether to do a poster or an oral presentation next year, and seeing all the hard work she put into it influenced me to get out of my comfort zone and push myself to do an oral presentation.”

Finding inspiration and drive in each other’s stories is a hallmark of the McNair experience, as exemplified by the camaraderie on the trip, according to McNair Scholars Program Coordinator Yahir Calderon Sotelo.

“One night at the hotel, they stayed up past 11 p.m. just practicing their presentations with each other and making sure they were as prepared as they could be,” he said. “Even the day after, once we got to the conference, they asked to use one of the meeting rooms to keep practicing. When the time came for their actual presentations, they killed it.”

The Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement program falls under the U.S. Department of Education’s TRIO Student Support Services (TRIO SSS) umbrella. At CWU and nearly 200 other institutions around the country, the McNair Scholars program helps students from first generation and low income backgrounds succeed in ways they may never have imagined.

“I never thought I was capable of doing research; I never even considered it as a possibility,” Ramirez said. “My whole world changed, because I went from seeing just the one path to having a million different decisions I could make within this process of getting my education. That’s the important function of TRIO SSS programs like McNair. They show you what’s possible.”