A Message from the Director of the TRIO Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program

As we move through this week and the second week of the spring semester, many members of our University and broader community continue to experience heightened anxiety and uncertainty in response to recent events that have unsettled students, staff, and families across the Twin Cities. Amid continued safety concerns, the stability of our institutions, and the well-being of those we serve and work alongside, we must pause, acknowledge these realities, and reaffirm our shared commitment to care, reflection, and collective resilience.

Against this backdrop, moments of reflection and remembrance take on added meaning.

On January 28, we mark 40 years since the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, a moment of profound national loss that forever shaped the legacy of Dr. Ronald E. McNair. Dr. McNair was a physicist, engineer, educator, and astronaut, but he was also something more enduring: a symbol of intellectual curiosity, perseverance, and service in the face of structural barriers.

The federal TRIO Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program was created in his honor, not simply to remember his life, but to carry his values forward. Today, that responsibility and set of values are very much alive in the scholars who bear his name.

McNair Scholars are engaged in rigorous research, advancing knowledge across disciplines, and preparing for graduate education at a time when higher education—and graduate education in particular—is often met with cynicism or framed as unnecessary. That narrative is both incomplete and misleading, particularly in fields where advanced training is essential to public well-being.  Graduate education remains critical to preparing researchers, educators, social workers, clinicians, policy leaders, and professionals equipped to address complex challenges across education, health, science, public service, and human development. The return on investment is not only measurable in earnings or employment outcomes, but in the capacity to generate knowledge, strengthen institutions, and serve the public good.

This year also marks significant milestones across the University’s TRIO Programs housed in CEHD: 35 years of continuous funding for McNair, 50 years of Student Support Services, and 60 years of Upward Bound. These anniversaries are not simply markers of longevity; they reflect what sustained commitment, collaboration, and shared purpose can achieve over time. Together, the TRIO Programs represent a promise—that educational opportunity pipelines to college, graduate school, and beyond remain open to all students, including those who have historically faced barriers to graduate education, and that talent and potential are cultivated wherever they are found.

The success of these programs has never been the result of a single office or initiative. It reflects the collective efforts of students, faculty mentors, staff, departments, alumni, and community partners working together across disciplines and institutions. In this way, TRIO—and McNair in particular—stands as an expression of hope: that when we invest in people, align around mission, and collaborate across boundaries, we can expand opportunity and strengthen our communities.

As we mark these milestones, I invite the CEHD community to remain attentive to opportunities for reflection, connection, and collaboration in the year ahead—opportunities that honor this shared work while helping shape what comes next amid a period of significant change.

As we remember Dr. McNair and celebrate the milestones of the University's TRIO Programs, we are reminded that legacy is not static. It is built, renewed, and carried forward—by scholars, faculty, staff, mentors, alumni, and partners who believe in the power of education, resist cynicism, and work together to advance opportunity in ways that are both responsive to challenge and sustainable over time.

—Anthony Albecker

Director, TRIO Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program

The views expressed in the Burton Brief message are those of the individual and not necessarily of the program area, department, or college.