{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/98225"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/98225","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Fit before merit: exploring former McNair Scholars’ perceptions of faculty-student relationships","abstract":"The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program is a federally funded program in the United States aimed at preparing underrepresented undergraduate students for graduate school. Within the program, which tends to have a meritocratic disposition, a mentorship component seeks to help students learn how to work with faculty members within the context of research. The central question of this exploratory study was how former McNair Scholars perceive the effectiveness of the mentorship component of the McNair program. This study is a student-centered and invites future studies about other perspectives within the McNair program, especially from faculty members and program staff. Based on eight interviews with former McNair Scholars in graduate school, in addition to complementary insights from my experience as a former McNair scholar and a previous participant observation study on current McNair Scholars’ work, a key finding is that the mentoring component struggled to address the tension between fit and merit within faculty-student relationships. This finding has implications for the future of the mentorship component of the McNair Program in addition to other the theorization of faculty-student relationships.","abstract_html":"The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program is a federally funded program in the United States aimed at preparing underrepresented undergraduate students for graduate school. Within the program, which tends to have a meritocratic disposition, a mentorship component seeks to help students learn how to work with faculty members within the context of research. The central question of this exploratory study was how former McNair Scholars perceive the effectiveness of the mentorship component of the McNair program. This study is a student-centered and invites future studies about other perspectives within the McNair program, especially from faculty members and program staff. Based on eight interviews with former McNair Scholars in graduate school, in addition to complementary insights from my experience as a former McNair scholar and a previous participant observation study on current McNair Scholars’ work, a key finding is that the mentoring component struggled to address the tension between fit and merit within faculty-student relationships. This finding has implications for the future of the mentorship component of the McNair Program in addition to other the theorization of faculty-student relationships.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Vaughan, Terry"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Educational Policy Studies","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["McCarthy, Cameron R.","Dyson, Anne H.","Zamani-Gallaher, Eboni","Brown, Ruth N."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2017,"date_issued":"2017-09-29T16:39:05Z","date_published":"2017-09-29T16:39:05Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:35Z","subjects":["McNair Scholars Program","Higher education","Formal mentoring","Faculty-student relationships","Underrepresented students"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2017 Terry Vaughan"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98225","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["McCarthy, Cameron R.","Dyson, Anne H.","Zamani-Gallaher, Eboni","Brown, Ruth N."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Vaughan, Terry"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2017-09-29T16:39:05Z","2019-09-30T09:15:32Z","2017-06-06","2017-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Educational Policy Studies"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["McNair Scholars Program","Higher education","Formal mentoring","Faculty-student relationships","Underrepresented students"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2017 Terry Vaughan"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98225"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program is a federally funded program in the United States aimed at preparing underrepresented undergraduate students for graduate school. Within the program, which tends to have a meritocratic disposition, a mentorship component seeks to help students learn how to work with faculty members within the context of research. The central question of this exploratory study was how former McNair Scholars perceive the effectiveness of the mentorship component of the McNair program. This study is a student-centered and invites future studies about other perspectives within the McNair program, especially from faculty members and program staff. Based on eight interviews with former McNair Scholars in graduate school, in addition to complementary insights from my experience as a former McNair scholar and a previous participant observation study on current McNair Scholars’ work, a key finding is that the mentoring component struggled to address the tension between fit and merit within faculty-student relationships. This finding has implications for the future of the mentorship component of the McNair Program in addition to other the theorization of faculty-student relationships.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01","The student, Terry Vaughan, accepted the attached license on 2017-06-06 at 10:28.","The student, Terry Vaughan, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2017-06-06 at 10:47.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2017-06-06 at 15:21.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11196 on 2017-09-29 at 11:13:27","Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-29T16:39:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 VAUGHAN-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf: 1084852 bytes, checksum: 9367c8dafd818f0f27b2def4a59caace (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4210 bytes, checksum: 996dc95dc8a5687a7b646e6482cc3548 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-06","Embargo set by: Colleen Fallaw for item 103372 Lift date: 2019-09-29T16:39:52Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Embargo set by: Colleen Fallaw for item 103372 Lift date: 2019-09-29T17:52:45Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Limited Restriction Lifted for Item 103372 on 2019-09-30T09:15:32Z."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Fit before merit: exploring former McNair Scholars’ perceptions of faculty-student relationships"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["McCarthy, Cameron R.","Dyson, Anne H.","Zamani-Gallaher, Eboni","Brown, Ruth N."],"dc:creator":["Vaughan, Terry"],"dc:date":["2017-09-29T16:39:05Z","2019-09-30T09:15:32Z","2017-06-06","2017-08"],"dc:description":["The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program is a federally funded program in the United States aimed at preparing underrepresented undergraduate students for graduate school. Within the program, which tends to have a meritocratic disposition, a mentorship component seeks to help students learn how to work with faculty members within the context of research. The central question of this exploratory study was how former McNair Scholars perceive the effectiveness of the mentorship component of the McNair program. This study is a student-centered and invites future studies about other perspectives within the McNair program, especially from faculty members and program staff. Based on eight interviews with former McNair Scholars in graduate school, in addition to complementary insights from my experience as a former McNair scholar and a previous participant observation study on current McNair Scholars’ work, a key finding is that the mentoring component struggled to address the tension between fit and merit within faculty-student relationships. This finding has implications for the future of the mentorship component of the McNair Program in addition to other the theorization of faculty-student relationships.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01","The student, Terry Vaughan, accepted the attached license on 2017-06-06 at 10:28.","The student, Terry Vaughan, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2017-06-06 at 10:47.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2017-06-06 at 15:21.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11196 on 2017-09-29 at 11:13:27","Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-29T16:39:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 VAUGHAN-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf: 1084852 bytes, checksum: 9367c8dafd818f0f27b2def4a59caace (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4210 bytes, checksum: 996dc95dc8a5687a7b646e6482cc3548 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-06","Embargo set by: Colleen Fallaw for item 103372 Lift date: 2019-09-29T16:39:52Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Embargo set by: Colleen Fallaw for item 103372 Lift date: 2019-09-29T17:52:45Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Limited Restriction Lifted for Item 103372 on 2019-09-30T09:15:32Z."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98225"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2017 Terry Vaughan"],"dc:subject":["McNair Scholars Program","Higher education","Formal mentoring","Faculty-student relationships","Underrepresented students"],"dc:title":["Fit before merit: exploring former McNair Scholars’ perceptions of faculty-student relationships"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Educational Policy Studies"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:35Z"}