Nancy Wall

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Wisconsin Liberal Arts Colleges’ Collaborative Program Awarded $1.1 Million Grant

A highly successful and unique regional collaboration model between Lawrence University, Ripon College and St. Norbert College has been awarded a five-year, $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education TRIO to support the schools’ Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement Program.

The grant will support the McNair Achievement Program beginning in the fall of 2013 and running through Spring 2018. The program focuses on preparing first-generation, low-income and racially underrepresented students for graduate school and the completion of doctorate degrees.

Nancy Wall

“The McNair program helps level the playing field for students from less privileged backgrounds by providing exposure to, experience with, and support for graduate school,” said Nancy Wall, associate professor of biology and Lawrence’s campus coordinator for the program. “I think this is incredibly important because these students bring important and valuable perspectives that would not occur to students from more privileged backgrounds to the table.”

Dan Krhin, director of Student Support Services and McNair Scholars at Ripon, said the private liberal arts schools have a mission to educate everyone and the power of the consortium of the three schools makes it a stronger program.

“We are at a time in our country where we need more highly educated citizens, and we feel we are doing our part through the McNair Program to attain this goal,” said Krhin. “We have one of the more unique McNair models in the United States by combining three prestigious liberal arts institutions into one focused effort. All three schools contribute funding and institutional support to supplement the federal funding.”

The McNair Achievement Program currently is supported by a TRIO grant that runs through the 2012-13 academic year. According to Krhin, in the first four years of the current grant cycle, 40 students have been placed in graduate schools across the county, with 18 going directly into doctorate programs.

“The McNair Scholar’s Program has provided tangible support including financial aid for standardized testing and application fees, advice on the application and interviewing processes and preparatory guidance through my undergraduate education and research projects,” said 2009 Lawrence graduate Bryce Schuler, who is starting his fourth year as a combined Ph.D. and M.D. degree candidate at the Medical College and Graduate School of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

“Not only have I benefitted from being a part of the McNair Program as an undergraduate student,” Schuler added, “but I also have been able to provide insight and support to other McNair scholars as a graduate student. As our program continues to grow and develop, these forms of assistance to McNair scholars will continue to increase.”

Alex Ajayi ’12

New York City native Alex Ajayi, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Lawrence in 2012, says only now is he beginning to fully grasp the program’s “profound value.”

“Beyond the many instrumental resources it provides students to prepare them for postgraduate education, the thing that has stuck with me the most is the recurring narrative that students can circumvent the limitations of their background and aspire far beyond their frame of reference,” said Ajayi, currently in his first year of a Ph.D. program in counseling psychology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. “For students like me, who don’t have the precedence of doctoral education in my family, this program was a beacon of what was possible.”

Kevin Quinn, who coordinates the McNair Program at St. Norbert College, calls it “a life-changing opportunity for the students in it.”

“They are provided with great mentoring, financial support and solid guidance toward successful graduate school applications. Students entering the program not quite sure that they can measure up later find themselves opening up an acceptance letter from a grad program of their dreams.”

About Lawrence University
Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a world-class conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. It was selected for inclusion in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2013 and the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,450 students from nearly every state and more than 50 countries. Follow Lawrence on Facebook.

Lawrence University Awarded $552,000 NSF Grant for Advanced Research Instrumentation

The largest instrumentation grant in Lawrence University’s history — $552,666 from the National Science Foundation — will fund the purchase of a confocal microscope system to support biological research and strengthen hands-on research training.

Confocal microscopy is a cutting edge technique that provides the best available resolution of microscopic images and allows the reconstruction of three-dimensional structures from images obtained through the microscope. Seven teams of faculty mentors and student researchers — six from Lawrence and one from the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley — will use the microscope to advance understanding in developmental biology, cell biology, physiology and biochemistry.

Current research projects the microscope will aid include age-related synaptic decline found in Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, the role a particular protein may play in ALS and some kinds of
tumors and how protein signals in a developing embryo help properly position various parts of the body.

The instrument also will provide Lawrence students opportunities to gain valuable experience through summer research with faculty members as well as upper-level lab courses and Senior Experience projects.  As many as 32 students a year are expected to assist with research involving the confocal microscope.

“It’s incredibly exciting to have a sophisticated instrument like this. We have recognized for several years the critical need for this particular type of microscope if we want to continue providing our students and ourselves with the tools needed for modern biological research,” said Nancy Wall, associate professor of biology. “We’ll finally be able to undertake research projects we have wanted and needed to undertake but couldn’t without a confocal microscope. This is a major boost for faculty research programs and an essential tool for undergraduate training. Professor Beth De Stasio’s hard work and leadership were instrumental in securing the grant funding for this microscope.”

In recommending the grant, NSF reviewers said Lawrence should be considered “a leader and model for undergraduate engagement in research. They have invested significant efforts to move toward inquiry-based learning approaches in their curriculum, with early experiences that feed different but similarly intensive and research based experiences in the summers or during senior years.”

Another reviewer praised the Lawrence faculty for “an impressive track record in successful research collaborations with undergraduate students” while a third mentioned “a culture of “engaging undergraduates in meaningful ways with active research.”

Lawrence faculty researchers incorporating the confocal microscope into their research include Wall; Beth De Stasio, professor of biology and Raymond H. Herzog Professor of Science; Kimberly Dickson, assistant professor of biology; Judith Humphries, assistant professor of biology; Nicholas Maravolo, professor of biology; and Brian Piasecki, postdoctoral fellow in biology.

Strengthening an existing partnership with UW-Fox Valley, the microscope also will be used for research training by Dubear Kroenig, associate professor of biological sciences at the two-year college.

Founded in 1847, Lawrence University uniquely integrates a college of liberal arts and sciences with a world-class conservatory of music, both devoted exclusively to undergraduate education. Ranked among America’s best colleges, it was selected for inclusion in the book “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College.” Individualized learning, the development of multiple interests and community engagement are central to the Lawrence experience. Lawrence draws its 1,520 students from 44 states and 56 countries.