My Project Proposal

My initial plan was to discuss TRIO programs and how it came to be in Texas A&M University-Commerce. Trio as we might have known from my update includes Upward Bound, Student Support Services and McNair Scholars Program. But doing research in all of these programs would be too broad and so I decided to narrow it down in order for me to focus on McNair scholars programs alone.

However, this project will now be on McNair Scholars Programs. McNair is basically designed to recruit undergraduate students who are interesting in getting their Masters/PhD into graduate school. In other words, it is a research based program that help the scholars attain a greater height in academics with the help of their mentors respectively. It is also a program designed to assist low income earners and those who are under-represented in graduate school.

This project is set to find out and accomplish to what extent this program has really helped the so called low income earners earn their degrees. In view of this, I hope to examine and interview a few McNair alumni scholars to see how and to what extent they have really made use of this opportunity. If they had, how? and if they could not, then I would like to know why?

It is interesting to know that McNair has been in existence since 1996 but this year Feb 2010 is the first time that it is being established in Texas A&M University-Commerce. And so, I would like to find out why it took so long for this program to be finally established, and not only that, not many low income students like African American students are responding to this enviable opportunity despite the fact that they would have their tuition paid for them among other benefits. In view that, I am going to find out why is it that some of the students in A&M Commerce are not so much interested in graduate school and that would be done through interview. I also hope to interview the director of the program on this particular reason.

In addition to that, I am going to make some phone calls to other directors of McNair in other universities that have been running this scholars program for some years now to find out (a) how their own students responded to the program when it was first established (b) how long it took students to get recruited into the program, (c) if students were slow to response, why? And if they were quick to be recruited, what was their motivation (d) and how the McNair staff strategized their publicity to convince the students to be a part of the program, (e) what roles are the alumni playing to help future scholars. Apart from all these, I would be setting up a face to face interview date and time with one of the McNair alumni scholar who is currently a professor in the department of Psychology in A&M University-Commerce to inquire from him his experiences when he was a scholar and how far it has helped to improve his life etc. I think this method of obtaining some of the information I need through phone calls is better for me than sending emails because I would be able to ask more questions and getting direct answers than using emails. Internet information is one of the vital tools I would be exploring also in this project.

Furthermore, as regards obtaining signatures, I am not sure how that will be possible especially when I am ready to correspond with McNair directors in other schools. The only signatures that I am certain to obtain would be from the director of the program, and the professor in Psychology department here in A&M University-Commerce. I would also be looking at some of the photographs from the mini archives in TRIO programs to see what I can share with my classmates.

Finally, the project is actually rooted in the advance literacy of African- American students even though it is not designed for them alone, but in a way, I am interested in knowing how many black people in Commerce would be interested in getting into graduate school with the help of McNair Scholars Programs.