Sylvia Macauley has been named the new director of the McNair Program.<\/p>\n
Macauley, an associate professor of history, has been at the University since 1999. She has a bachelor\u2019s degree from the University of Sierra Leone, as well as doctorate and master\u2019s degrees in history from Howard University in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
Among her professional accomplishments, Macauley has published journal articles and contributed chapters to several books dealing with issues such as education, religion, health and gender in Africa. She has received several awards, including funded fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Sasakawa Foundation in Japan. She is a member of the African Studies Association, the American Association of University Professors and the Mid-America Alliance for African Studies.<\/p>\n
The McNair Program is a federally funded TRIO program established to assist low-income and first-generation college students, and students from other underrepresented groups in higher education attain doctoral degrees. The program prepares the participants for doctoral studies through mentoring relationships with faculty, involvement in research and other scholarly activities, assisting with GRE preparation and the graduate school application process.<\/p>\n
After participants graduate from Truman, the program tracks their progress through to the successful completion of their PhD.<\/p>\n
Truman received its first McNair grant in 1992 and has continued to have a program ever since. In the past year, the McNair Program was under the interim leadership of Janet Gooch, associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication Disorders.<\/p>\n