Words of Welcome: McNair Symposium

June 28, 2007

On behalf of the administration of the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee, I would like to welcome all of you to the thirteenth annual conference sponsored jointly by the Southeastern Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel and our local McNair program. It is a pleasure for me to extend the warmest greetings to any faculty mentors who are in attendance, as well as to the staff personnel who oversee the SAEOPP and McNair scholars programs on the various college and university campuses represented here today. At many such conferences there are representatives of graduate schools at universities who have journeyed to this symposium with recruitment, no doubt, on their minds, and if there are any here today, I am pleased to see you here as well. Most of all, however, I am delighted to welcome the students who make this symposium possible: the almost 400 student participants from about 30 institutions of higher education from all across the south and into the far west. Many are from the state of Tennessee, but there are also several other states, including Colorado and Wyoming, prominently represented. Wherever you call home, and however far you have traveled to come to this conference, I am happy that you have taken the time to join us here for what I am sure will be a weekend of academic delights.

I know that for most of you this conference is your first opportunity to present your research to a larger audience, and on such an occasion you may be a bit apprehensive. I remember when I gave my first talk at a conference, many years ago now, and how nervous I was when I stared out into the audience and saw all eyes on me waiting for me to say something intelligent. Although I had made presentations many times in classes, holding a talk at a conference is something very different. But after speaking my first few lines, the rest of the talk went fine. I was even able to answer a few of the questions that were put to me, although, as I recall, I was able to muster only semi-coherence in responding. I, of course, was much older than most of you are now, since I was already in graduate school. But I can certainly identify with some of the feelings many of you are now experiencing, the butterflies in the stomach, the dry mouths, the occasional nervous twitch. And allow me let you in on a little secret: the nervosity never goes away completely. I'm a bit nervous right now speaking in front of you. But: having seen many of the abstracts for this conference, I can say with confidence that you have nothing to worry about. From what I know, you come fully prepared in your areas of expertise with excellent research, results, and ideas. So relax, present your research, and have a great time in Knoxville.

What I found quite remarkable in looking through the conference program was the breadth of interests and the sophistication of the scholarship. Although I was a natural science major as an undergraduate B I switched to comparative literature and German studies when I attended graduate school B I am to this day duly impressed by scientific terminology. Thus in looking at the presentations that will occur in the next few days, I noted in particular titles that escaped my comprehension: So, for example, I found myself curious about “Spectroscopic Analysis of Parallel β-sheets in Proteins.” Or: “Solution Phase Encapsulation of Fullescence [C60] in Carbon Nanotubes: Formation of Fullerene Peapods.” Or: to give a final example that contains more scientific jargon than I am able to handle: “Descriptive analysis of ubiquitin ligase dube3a mis-expression phenotypes and interactions with the Rho-GTPase Pbl in D. melanogaster.” I am skipping other natural science titles because I am afraid I will embarrass myself further with mispronunciation. I am much better able to comprehend, based on my personal background and research expertise, the richness and diversity of topics related to the humanities and social sciences. Here the program offers a panoply of themes from various disciplines and perspectives: from concerns with stigma and exclusion in social environments, reflections on the production of green-house gasses, and an examination of the connection between religious affiliation and status to papers on “Name-Brand Sneakers: The Implications of Adolescent Consumption,” The Central American Free-Trade Agreement,” and “Feminist Ethics.” I notice quite a few topics relating to minority communities, especially to African-Americans, and many papers devoted to issues of public health. There are also quite a few papers on the humanities, from eighteenth-century French aristocrats to characters in the works of Alice Walker to the Acting Styles and August Wilson. Some papers are informed by experiences in higher education, for example, “Time Perception and Procrastination in College Students,” which I understand was finished on time. There are also several presentations that have a more popular cultural bent to them, and I single out one that was particularly eye-catching: “Hip-Hop Fiction: An Extension of the African-American Literary Tradition.” Perhaps the most intriguing title is attached to a paper that examines a phenomenon that administrators know about, but with which they rarely have first hand acquaintance; it is entitled “Is Reality Your Friend on MySpace: The Connection Between Life Satisfaction and MySpace.” The program of the conference therefore promises something for all imaginable tastes and academic interests. It should be a tremendously stimulating and exciting weekend for everyone involved.

When I was contemplating what I should say to this audience, I thought it might be a good idea to speak briefly about my own experience with undergraduate research. As an undergraduate from 1967-1971 at a large and fairly prestigious university on the east coast I can sum up my own involvement with research in one word: nothing. It was not that I was not interested or that my friends, who similarly were not integrated into the research activities of the university, were uninterested. The fact is that undergraduate research at that time was something of an anomaly. Certainly there were the exceptional students who somehow participated in laboratory projects or perhaps even in some of the social science research. But by and large undergraduates were kept separate from research: like children in the nineteenth century they were meant to be seen and not heard. We attended classes, did our assignments, listened to the professors behind the podiums, occasionally spoke with them about our aspirations and dreams. But we had to wait until we were graduate students before we were accepted as apprentices in our chosen field.

Universities have changed considerably since that time. Indeed, even in the late sixties they were undergoing an evolution that led to the integration of more undergraduates into the research functions of the institution. Perhaps the greatest impetus for change at research institutions came in the wake of the report of the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University. The title of this report: Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities announces boldly and unmistakably the task of rethinking educational priorities that was so necessary for our campus. It sets up an Academic Bill of Rights for students, the first article of which reads as follows: Opportunities to learn through inquiry rather than simple transmission of knowledge. But its expanded Bill of Rights for students at research universities really set a tone that contrasted starkly with what I had known as an undergraduate at the University or Pennsylvania, as a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and as an administrator at the University of Tennessee. Let me cite for you the four articles:

1. Expectation of and opportunity for work with talented senior researchers to help and guide the student's efforts.
2. Access to first-class facilities in which to pursue research B laboratories, libraries, studios, computer systems, and concert halls.
3. Many options among fields of study and directions to move within those fields, including areas and choices not found in other kinds of institutions.
4. Opportunities to interact with people of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences different from the student's own and with pursuers of knowledge at every level of accomplishment, from freshmen students to senior research faculty.

Tennessee has not always been active in undergraduate research, and even today, when we have had well over a decade of involvement from programs such as the McNair program, we do not do enough in integrating our undergraduates into the research process of the campus. I plan to alter the landscape of undergraduate research here at Tennessee in the coming years by introducing programs that will benefit both undergraduates and faculty. Right now we have programs scattered across the campus, but no real visibility for undergraduate research. I think one of my duties as provost is to make certain that as many undergraduates as possible have a chance to gain a research experience while they are in Knoxville. I hope to expand undergraduate options very soon by introducing an undergraduate apprenticeship program: the Tennessee Undergraduate Research Program. This program will give students academic credit for working with a faculty member on a project. The faculty member will put out a call for research assistance and undergraduates will answer the call with an application. They will then be interviewed and selected for the project by the faculty member, and a Learning Contract will be drawn up between the faculty member and the student detailing the nature and extent of the research. This type of program has been in existence at Berkeley for more than a decade, and I was recently informed that there were a thousand learning contracts in one academic year, which means one thousand research opportunities for undergraduates in this program alone.

The McNair scholars program holds a special place among undergraduate research opportunities here at Tennessee and across the nation. As a faculty member, besides participation in Berkeley’s undergraduate apprenticeship program, I was involved with only one other scholarship program, this one an external program, the Rhodes scholars. As you probably know, the Rhodes scholarship is a prestigious ticket to one of the finest universities in the world, Oxford University in England, but the founder of the scholarship, Cecil Rhodes, established the fund that awards these scholarships at the beginning of the twentieth century with the purpose of extending the domination of the while race in the world. The Rhodes scholarship has long since disavowed the ideology of its benefactor, and students of all races are encouraged to apply. In any event, in its original intent I consider the McNair scholars program to be the antithesis of the Rhodes. As you undoubtedly know the McNair program was named in honor of Ronald E. McNair Jr., the African-American astronaut tragically killed in a mission of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. McNair had graduated from North Carolina A&T University magna cum laude with a degree in physics and subsequently obtained a PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To honor his memory and accomplishments the congress established in the late 1980s the McNair scholars program. It is designed for college students from disadvantaged backgrounds who evidence a high degree of potential, and its avowed goal is to increase the representation of under-represented groups in doctoral programs. In a typical year approximately three-quarters of the participants in the McNair Scholars Program will be classified as low-income and first-generation college students.

Perhaps my fondness for the McNair Scholars Program stems from my identification with those who have obtained these scholarships. Since I came from a low-income household and was in the first generation in my family to have any experience in higher education, I can appreciate what the McNair scholars program has accomplished and why it is so important. I wish such a program had been available to me as I made my way through the intricate maze of higher education on my way to obtaining a PhD. I think I personally understand the necessity for this program and for the conference that you are attending this weekend. I can also appreciate the pride you all must have in your work and the excitement you are experiencing in being here to share your research with your peers. Let me therefore let you get on with your program and allow you to feel the exhilaration that comes with an incipient academic career. But let me remind you that if you are thinking this year or next about graduate schools, remember please that Tennessee is one of the finest institutions of higher education, and that it is getting better all the time. We would love to have you here pursuing your educational goals. For now, however, good luck with your presentations and welcome once again to Knoxville.

Posted: July 20, 2007