26 Participants Will Benefit from $231,448 Grant
The University of New Mexico’s Ronald E. McNair TRiO Program has been refunded for another four years, according to a recent grant notification from the Department of Education to the office of New Mexico U.S. Senator Pete Domenici. The grant of $231,448 per year will be used to fund 26 undergraduate participants annually in the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Program.
UNM is the lone New Mexico recipient of funding for this program in fiscal year 2007, and was the only applicant from New Mexico for funding under this program in this fiscal year. The project’s purpose is “to award grants to institutions of higher education for projects designed to provide disadvantaged college students with effective preparation for doctoral study,” according to a description provided by the Department of Education.
Types of projects funded under the TRiO McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program include “academic counseling, financial aid assistance, mentoring, research opportunities, seminars, summer internships and tutoring. Guidance for students seeking admission and financial aid for graduate programs also is supported,” according to the Department of Education’s overview.
UNM’s McNair Program is housed under Associate Vice President for Student Services, Tim Gutierrez, who reports to the vice president of Student Affairs.
“The continued vitality of our TRiO Programs at UNM is underscored by this program’s re-funding,” said Vice President of Student Affairs Eliseo “Cheo” Torres. “We continue to grow and nurture programs at our institution that are designed to assist students who are promising and who need a variety of difference kinds of assistance in order to succeed.”
The ultimate goal of the program, according to Department of Education materials, is to “increase the attainment of Ph.D. degrees by students from underrepresented segments of society.”
They also state that “Federal TRiO Programs are educational opportunity outreach programs designed to motivate and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds. TRiO includes six outreach and support programs targeted to serve and assist low-income, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities to progress through the academic pipeline from middle school to postbaccalaureate programs.
TRiO also includes a training program for directors and staff of TRiO projects and a dissemination partnership program to encourage the replication or adaptation of successful practices of TRiO projects at institutions and agencies that do not have TRiO grants.”
For more information about the federal Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, visit the Department of Education’s TRiO Programs Web site at: TRiO Programs.
For more information about the UNM McNair program, call Carolina Aguirre, 277-5491.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu