Colorado State Hosts Second Annual Mcnair Conference April 5-7

Colorado State University will host the second annual Rocky Mountain McNair Graduate Education Conference and Research Symposium April 5-7 at the Fort Collins Marriott Hotel. The symposium will include about 150 potential graduate-school students from ethnic minorities or low-income, first-generation households.

The three-day conference will feature research presentations, panel discussions, an award ceremony and keynote speakers, including Rick Williams, a Native American educator and storyteller from the University of Colorado. In addition to research presentations, the conference will serve as a forum to introduce college and community college students to graduate education and careers that require a graduate degree. McNair scholars from Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma will present research projects along with in-state students.

The conference is co-sponsored by Hewlett-Packard Co. and the McNair programs at Colorado State University, University of Northern Colorado and University of Wyoming. The programs are named after Dr. Ronald McNair, a shuttle astronaut who rose from a background of poverty and segregation to obtain a doctorate degree. His remarkable life ended in the Challenger explosion in 1986.

Currently, 99 McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement programs across the country are funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The programs help increase the rate of doctoral degrees from groups underrepresented as faculty members or researchers in those fields.

The McNair Program was initiated at Colorado State in Oct. 1995. Since then, 33 students have been involved in the program at the university.

For more information, call Anne Wilcox at (970) 491-3702.