After being online for three years, the annual Wichita State McNair Closing Symposium returned in person on Friday, July 28 to showcase research by students.
In 206 universities across the country, the McNair Scholars Program exists to honor Ronald McNair, a physicist, astronaut and the second African American to fly in space.
The astronaut died in the 1986 Challenger shuttle crash. WSU’s McNair Program was established on Oct. 1, 1995.
McNair’s mission statement is “to encourage students who are underrepresented in higher education to pursue post-baccalaureate degrees.” The statement notes that it focuses on underrepresented groups.
The all-day event focused on the research component of the McNair Program. Undergraduate McNair juniors and seniors are allowed to work with doctoral degree faculty who then assist them in original research. The required research time for these students is a minimum of 200 hours per year.
Ashley Cervantes, McNair Scholars Program director at WSU, said she’s always been interested in helping students in terms of education. She said the McNair program helps them achieve their goals.
“Coming from a perspective of a first gen student where, college is like a dream, right?” Cervantes said. “To even go beyond that and achieve a doctoral degree is just really exciting.”
The research presentations were split into two sessions. The first session featured five students: Julie Gonzalez-Morales, Lindsey Choi, Jessica Carbajal-Sanchez, Siubhan Mora-Bruce, and Ayshea Banes.
The second session included student research from Ashley Bland, Eduardo Avila, Octavio Pacheco-Vazquez, and Robbyn McKellop.
The students’ research projects featured a range of departments and subjects, like physics and psychology. In between sessions, observers had the chance to observe the students’ research projects.
Awards
Chemistry professor Coleen Pugh also received the LaWanda Holt-Fields Advocacy Award at the event.
This award was in memory of the late Lawanda Holt-Fields who died on Aug. 6, 2022. Holt-Fields was a first-generation college student who spent most of her 30-year Wichita State tenure working with first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students. She had served 400 McNair Students.
Several student awards were also presented. Bland, biomedical engineering major, Avila, human resource management major, and Carbajal-Sanchez, graduate psychology alum, received first through third place awards, respectively, for their posters.
McKellop, anthropology major, received a commitment award for collecting her project data in Texas during stormy weather for 40 minutes each week. Her research aimed to “elucidate the technological choices of the Early Caddo, … the importance of ceramics as social identifiers, and the dissemination of knowledge through generations.”
In addition to his second place poster award, Avila also received an excellence award for his consistent work ahead of deadlined and implementation of criticism with a “positive attitude.”
Avila’s research highlighted the relationship between public transportation and school bussing with student absenteeism. He concluded his abstract by saying, “ Further findings could aid school districts in budgetary decisions to keep such programs and help to reduce chronic absenteeism. “
The McNair Closing Symposium can be viewed in its entirety here.
