McNair Program Receives Additional Funding

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Tomicka Green-Wagstaff

Motivation, determination and perseverance are three traits that are necessary to achieve academic success as a McNair scholar at Rochester Institute of Technology.

After submitting a successful proposal, RIT’s McNair program has received a grant for an additional five years of full funding from the U.S. Department of Education. The McNair Scholars Program is a national educational initiative created to increase post-graduate opportunities for students from low-income, first-generation families, particularly those from traditionally underrepresented groups.

“I am excited and honored to have the opportunity to continue working to support, empower and prepare underrepresented and first-generation RIT students to pursue graduate study,” says Tomicka Green-Wagstaff, director of RIT’s McNair program. “The program allows these students to advance intellectually in ways that without this program, may not have been possible.”

In addition to being either underrepresented or first-generation students, scholars in the program are a select group of highly qualified and motivated individuals who were chosen because of their strong academic work ethic and commitment to academic excellence.

“The re-funding of the McNair Scholars Program is a huge success for RIT,” says Green-Wagstaff. “It is evidence of our continued commitment to diversity, retention and preparing our students to be productive members of the global society.”

The U.S. Congress established the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, commonly known as the McNair Scholars Program, in 1986, in memory of Ronald E. McNair, one of the seven individuals who died aboard the space shuttle Challenger. The program serves 194 institutions across the United States and Puerto Rico.