HIGH DEMAND FOR SCHOLARS
Fortner-Wood finds that McNair Scholars benefit from the program’s strong reputation. Graduate schools want McNair Scholars, she said.
“They know that students who’ve been through this program have engaged in intense, valuable research, that they are prepared for graduate school, to be successful, because they do their darnedest to live up to this name and honor the legacy of Ron McNair,” Fortner-Wood said this year at a Jan. 28 vigil on the anniversary of the Challenger explosion.
Michael L. Jeffries, special assistant to the president for McNair Scholars at the Council for Opportunity in Education, called Winthrop’s program highly productive.
“I have taken note of students from Winthrop who I reviewed their scholarly presentations, all were stellar,” Jeffries said. “They were very knowledgeable about their cutting-edge research topics, and they could answer questions posed by faculty, students and administrators in the audience.”
PROUD LEGACY
The students’ successes make Ron McNair’s family proud.
Eric McNair, Ron’s youngest brother who works in Rock Hill and met with the Winthrop group last year, said the program comforts his family. The scholars prove that Ron hasn’t been forgotten.
Ron had many interests besides science and would be pleased that the scholar program helps students studying a variety of disciplines. “My brother was interested in helping young people as much as he could,” Eric said.
To date, the Winthrop McNair program has served 107 students since its inception. Winthrop offers its McNair services to those at other South Carolina colleges and universities because it is one of only two universities in the state that houses the McNair program.
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Take a look at how the program has crisscrossed the university’s divisions:
ARTS AND SCIENCES
Majoring in biology and environmental studies, senior Jordan Lewis (featured on the cover) from Orangeburg conducted an award-winning study, with faculty mentors Matt Heard and Victoria Frost, on the effects of coastal engineering projects on bacterial communities at Folly Beach. He talked about the importance and value of mentoring in a recent NPR interview.
“The McNair program has been instrumental to my success as an undergrad and my preparation for my career,” he said.
Lewis is weighing graduate school options. His career goals include working for a federal agency such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Environmental Protection Agency.
RICHARD W. RILEY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Holly Rittenberry (featured on page 2) credits her newfound love for biomechanical research to the McNair Scholars program. The senior parlayed her Winthrop Experience into a career goal that will take her this fall to the University of Oregon’s Ph.D. program to study human physiology. “I honestly believe I wouldn’t have gotten into the program if I wasn’t a McNair Scholar,” said Rittenberry, an Aiken native majoring in athletic training.
For her research, she worked with faculty member Joni Marr Boyd ‘07 and athletic trainer Seth Faulkner on how the lack of lower body flexibility creates problems for baseball pitchers.
Rittenberry will be the first in her family to earn a graduate degree.
COLLEGE OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS Shannon Snelgrove said the McNair Scholars program
Claudia Salazar 5 Shannon Snelgrove
has pushed her to go for the “big” opportunities.
“I have so many McNair peers who are getting highly competitive awards and getting accepted into high-profile programs,” said Snelgrove, who is interested in digital art and is earning a bachelor’s degree in anthropology with a minor in art at Clemson University.
Snelgrove came to Winthrop for two summers to work with Fine Arts Professor Laura Gardner on researching black women artists’ experiences.
McNair gave the Richburg native the opportunity to present at conferences. “I had never done so before.
On my own, I would not have considered applying to present at conferences,” Snelgrove said. “I thought that was something only older, more experienced, more educated people did. But now, when I get an email asking for conference proposals, I actually consider applying.”
ARTS AND SCIENCES
Ecuador native Claudia Salazar ’16 praised the McNair Scholars program for giving her the confidence to continue her studies.
“As a first-generation college student, it is a little daunting thinking about graduate school, but they provided endless support and guidance for me,” she said.
Salazar worked with her mentor, Psychology Professor Merry Elizabeth Lambert
Sleigh, on researching “Adults’ Emotional and Cognitive Reactions to Self-Reported Stereotype Experiences.” Their findings were accepted for publication in the Journal of Psychological Inquiry, and it won first place for the Minority Research Award through the Southeastern Psychological Association.
Working as a program assistant in the Institute of Psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina, Salazar is weighing graduate school offers.
COLLEGE OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Senior accounting major Elizabeth Lambert of Chesnee studied whistleblower state laws and its effects on the rate of corporate fraud exposed in the United States. Lambert and her mentor, Assistant Professor of Accounting Adriana Cordis, conducted a review of the current literature surrounding the
topic, created methodologies to test the relationship, ran regression analyses and made conclusions.
She hasn’t decided what area of accounting to pursue for her career. “I am an intern at a small accounting firm that works in the areas of tax and audit. I am still trying to find out which I prefer,” she said.
“However, I know I must attend graduate school. McNair has exposed me to many great opportunities that I would not have had access to as a first-generation college student,” Lambert said. “I am so grateful that Winthrop is a host school to such an important program.”
For more information on the McNair Scholars program, please visit
www.winthrop.edu/McNair.
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