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USCB Beaufort College Honor Students Recognized During McNair Scholar Banquet at USC Columbia

USCB Beaufort College Honor students and Ronald E. McNair Scholars Sierra Brown, Andrea Santibanez and Rose Van Etten took home awards during the program’s banquet at the University of South Carolina-Columbia. Among the cohort of 16 scholars from eight South Carolina colleges and universities, Santibanez received the summer program’s top honor and was selected to present her research in Los Angeles, CA.

As Ronald E. McNair Scholars, Brown, Santibanez and Van Etten spent six weeks this summer at USC Columbia immersed in faculty mentoring, in-depth research and other academic opportunities. Each student in the program worked closely with a faculty member to prepare a postgraduate-level paper, presentation, and poster on a topic of the student’s choice. The McNair Scholars also attended workshops about time management, the graduate school application process, robotics and etiquette.

Andrea Santibanez, a USCB junior and Psychology major, received the Ronald E. McNair Distinguished Scholar Award — the McNair Scholars program’s highest honor. The award recognizes hard work, dedication and academic excellence during the summer session. Santibanez also was selected and funded to present her research about the effects of exposure to domestic violence on children's development at the National McNair Conference. The conference is July 31- Aug. 2 on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

“I am honored to have been a part of the 2023 cohort for the Ronald E. McNair Scholars program,” she said. “I met wonderful professors and made great connections with them as well as with my colleagues. I would tell any student who wants to go to graduate school and has the opportunity to attend this program to go for it! It was challenging but very rewarding in the end.”

Santibanez also received the GRE English Award for outstanding performance in prep sessions for the English portion of the GRE.

Brown, a USCB junior and Nursing Honors student, received the Extra-Mile Award, which recognized her for growth, strength and promise throughout the summer research program.

Brown’s research paper analyzed eight peer-reviewed studies of racial disparities in health care.

“My topic was based on my mother’s experience. She had two knee surgeries and did experience disparities in how her pain was perceived and treated,” she said.

Brown said the six weeks of workshops as a McNair Scholar were “an eye-opening experience and let me know what grad school will be like day-to-day.” After graduating from USCB, she plans to earn a Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP).

Rose Van Etten, a USCB junior and Early Childhood Education major, received the GRE Math Award for outstanding performance during the program’s mathematics sessions.

Van Etten researched Huntingtons disease and its impact on families.

“I chose this topic because three people in my family currently have Huntington’s disease. As I learned more about this disease, it became less scary,” she wrote as part of a reflection on her project.

All three USCB students also received the TRIO McNair Program Certificate of Completion.

The McNair Scholars program’s goal is to increase the number of Ph.D. recipients who are first-generation students, Pell Grant eligible, or from underrepresented groups in graduate education. Participants in the program are recognized, nationally, as high-achieving scholars and are actively recruited by graduate programs, which tend to offer them admission fee waivers, as well as incentives such as graduate assistantships and fellowships.

The students entered the program during the spring, participated in the summer research component and, during the following academic year, will continue their research projects and complete the requirements for graduate school enrollment via an online course.