The McNair Scholars Program offers undergraduate students the unique experience of participating in graduate-level activities. One component of the program is an intensive 10-week long summer research project. Participating students spend an average of 40 hours a week exploring their topics, developing a thesis, collecting and reviewing data, and preparing a formal presentation of their findings.

The 2008 McNair Scholars are:

Maria Benaros, a music performance junior, is writing about Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino with an analysis of musical tools used to reflect the lyrics of each song in the “Flores Argentinas” cycle. Benaros will also be performing the piece as a part of her final presentation. (Faculty mentor: Merilee Klemp, Associate Professor, Music)

Peggy Cooper, a senior studying accounting and economics, has been researching the consequences that increased dependency on student loans to post-secondary schooling has on degree attainment rates in public four-year universities. (Faculty mentor: Stella Hofrenning, Associate Professor, Economics)

Robert Goodman, a sociology junior, is exploring the motivations of self-identified heterosexual men that engage in surreptitious homosexual relationships. (Faculty mentor: Shonda Craft, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota, Family Social Science)

Chaundra Kakish-Thotland, an education senior, is conducting research related to the Paideia teaching style. She expects to answer the question “Does training in Paideia seminar methodology affect teachers’ attitudes and behavior towards constructivist learning?” (Faculty mentor: Anne Kaufman, Associate Professor, Education)

Thomas Lopez, a junior majoring in math and physics, is observing and analyzing the effects that mixing odd-even carbon chain structures has on viscoelastic qualities in lipid monolayers. (Faculty mentor: Ben Stottrup, Assistant Professor, Physics)

Jessica Love, an education senior, has been studying the ways that silence is employed in domestic abuse situations between victim and abuser as well as how society, as a whole, reinforces the silence by excusing or disregarding these violent occurrences. (Faculty mentor: David Lapakko, Associate Professor, Communication Studies)

Vanessa Manning, a junior English major, is researching the specific techniques by Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen in their writings translating their theoretical ideas about being African American poets. (Faculty mentor: Mzenga Wanyama, Assistant Professor, English)

Bernell Martin, a history and American Indian studies senior, has been examining federal repatriation in the North Platte Valley and the factors that attracted movement to the Upper Midwest, including industry, railroads and sugar cultivation. (Faculty mentor: Elise Marubbio, Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies)

Krystal Mattison, a history and American Indian studies junior, is working on a comparative study of the East German and North Korean defectors and the influence they have on reunification. (Faculty mentor: Donald Gustafson, Professor, History)

Jenna Mead, a sociology senior, is developing a descriptive analysis of variation in the international portrayal of the events of Abu Ghraib committed by American Soldiers in Iraq. (Faculty mentor: Diane Pike, Professor, Sociology)

Erin Scott, a junior studying sociology and Spanish, is researching the conceptualization of the GLBT movement among a sample of openly trans-identified people. (Faculty mentor: Kathleen Hull, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, Sociology)

Zachary Sommer, psychology and sociology junior, has been analyzing the social structure, norms, and relationships within the video game “Second Life,” with the intention of comparing the virtual world to the existing frameworks of the real world. (Faculty mentor: James Vela-McConnell)

Mohammad Sweidan, an accounting and finance senior, is studying the unstable, changing real estate market to find out if it’s still more economically beneficial to own property versus to rent. (Faculty mentor: Stuart Stoller, Professor, Business-MIS)

Latisha White, a senior majoring in English and journalism, is collecting and interpreting data to help understand why educated African American women between the ages of 20 and 40, interested in relationships with African American men, have never married. (Faculty mentor: Catherine Squires, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, Journalism)

Emily Wiles, a youth and family ministry junior, is looking at the question “Do parentally-bereaved adolescents understand the image of God and how God works in the world differently than adolescents who have not lost a parent?” (Faculty mentor: Jeremy Myers, Assistant Professor, Religion)

Article by Lara Crombie

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Before studying with the McNair Scholars program at Augsburg, Xia did not plan on going to graduate school. Neither of her parents had attended college, making Xia a first-generation college student. “I heard about the McNair Scholars program but did not think much about it until I was encouraged by staff and faculty members to apply. Their encouragement and support meant a lot because they really believed in me, and that made me believe in myself. The McNair Scholars program gave me an opportunity I would not have had otherwise.”

Xia graduated from Augsburg with a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 2005 and from the University of Minnesota with a master’s degree in counseling and student personnel psychology in 2007.  She is now the Assistant Director for the McNair Scholars program at Augsburg.

“If you are thinking about pursuing a graduate degree, McNair is the program,” says Xia. “The McNair Scholars program is a stepping stone for students who are thinking about obtaining a graduate degree. It has changed my life.” The McNair Scholars Program is made up of students from all walks of life, many sharing similar struggles. “The best part about the McNair Scholars Program is that it is more than a program, it is a community where students support each other. Once you become a McNair scholar, you are a McNair scholar for life, and that is incredible!”

“Many McNair scholars such as myself did not believe that graduate school was possible, but students from the McNair Scholars program at Augsburg have ended up obtaining or currently pursuing graduate degrees at places like Princeton, Harvard and Yale — and it all starts here.”

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This is the second time Augsburg has had a McNair Scholars Program — the first was from 1999-2003 — which has demonstrated great success in the numbers of alums who are enrolled in or have earned master’s and doctoral degrees at prestigious institutions across the country. Dixie Shafer, director of the Office for Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity, said, “[this second iteration of] McNair will draw upon the success and wisdom of our McNair alums to support the new cohort of scholars.”

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