mission driven
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spring 2026
Congress created the McNair Scholars Program from “the belief that higher ed should be a vehicle for social mobility,” says Suffolk program director Bryan Landgren (right), with Jade Buchanan, a McNair Scholar and honors sociology major. Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
Today Lindsay Dieudonne, BA ’23, is a third-year PhD student at the University of Maryland—an accomplished scholar who’s passionate about her research on immigration policy.
Such wasn’t always the case. As a Suffolk freshman and first-generation college student, Dieudonne remembers thinking that “research sounded like a big, scary word.” She didn’t know what it entailed, or if the end result would matter much in the real world.
That began to change after a friend invited her to drop by Suffolk’s Center for First-Generation & Educational Equity to learn more about the McNair Scholars Program. Named for Dr. Ronald McNair, the late Challenger astronaut and physicist, the McNair Scholars Program helps prepare first-gen, low-income college students for doctoral study.
McNair is part of the federally funded TRIO programs established under the Higher Education Act of 1965. “This is legislation rooted in the belief that higher ed should be a vehicle for social mobility,” says Bryan Landgren, director of Suffolk’s McNair Program—a mission that strongly echoes Suffolk’s own. “These programs were created because talent is universal, but opportunity is not. That reality still shapes our work today.”
Through the program—and her work with the center’s director, Dr. Abraham Peña, MSBA ’21, himself a former McNair scholar—Dieudonne learned that research didn’t have to gather dust on a library shelf.
“What drew me in was that I could research something that really interested me,” says Dieudonne, whose family emigrated from Haiti and whose doctoral research explores pathways to citizenship for immigrants with temporary protected status. “Research could open doors that would enable me to impact change.”
By Beth Brosnan
Maximizing talent
Change is a word you hear a lot when you talk with McNair scholars, more than 160 of whom have come through Suffolk’s program since it launched in 2007.
“McNair changes lives” is how Stephanie Breen, BA ’17, puts it (and counts hers among them). Like Dieudonne, she was a first-gen college student who was steered toward the program, in her case by a professor who told her, “You have so much to say. Your passion for social justice and education needs to be heard, and writing and research are powerful ways to share your voice.”
After graduating from Suffolk with a history degree, Breen went on to earn a master’s degree from Columbia and a PhD from the University of Maryland, and is now director of research at the Strada Education Foundation, a nonprofit that works to ensure that education is aligned with better employment opportunities.
“Telling people’s stories has always appealed to me, and now oral histories are part of my work,” Breen says. “People are not just data points. I’m committed to providing a platform where people can share their experiences and have their voices heard. Everyone deserves a platform, and research is a way to do that.”
How McNair changes lives, Landgren explains, is by providing first-gen and low-income students with the tools and guidance they need to maximize their talents. That, he says, includes “intensive research training, sustained faculty mentorship, graduate-application preparation, and a community that reinforces their identity as scholars.”
This robust level of support is one of the reasons that Suffolk has been recognized as a First-Gen Forward institution for five consecutive years—and this year is one of just six US universities singled out as a Network Leader.
“One of the big things that McNair does is instill confidence and life skills, not only to apply to grad school but to be able to engage head-on with life after college,” says junior Victor Cruz Castro, a legal studies major who’s now interning at the Massachusetts State House. “There are experiences that may have held you back in the past, but not anymore. McNair teaches us to advocate for ourselves and to recognize that our experiences have made us into who we are today. You can feel proud of who you are—different but equal.”
While McNair scholars have a welcoming home base at the Center for First-Generation & Educational Equity’s offices in 73 Tremont, one of the program’s goals is to expose them to the wider world, with academic travel opportunities and the chance to present their research at national conferences.
Senior Jade Buchanan, an honors sociology major, hadn’t traveled much before leaving her native Arkansas to attend Suffolk. This year alone, she’s been to San Diego for the National Collegiate Honors Council’s annual conference (where her research on the experiences of sexual assault survivors won third prize in the social and behavioral sciences category) and to Japan as part of an academic travel seminar sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences honors program.
And while still a sophomore, Buchanan—who’d never been out of the country before—was one of just 20 first-gen students selected from across the country for the Keith Sherin Global Leaders Program, an immersive three-week study program held at The Hague in the Netherlands.
“Going abroad showed me that while the world seems big, it’s really not,” says Buchanan, who is bound for a doctoral program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. “Issues that can seem unique to us and our experiences, they’re actually universal. And that means there is hope for solving them.”
In a world that sorely needs problem-solvers, the McNair Scholars Program continues to prepare a new generation of thinkers and doers, even as the political landscape continues to shift.
Dieudonne sees support for TRIO programs as a wise investment in the country’s future. “At the end of the day,” she says, “everyone who goes through the McNair Program is contributing to American society. We are trying to plug in the holes we’ve seen and make this country better together.”
“There are people who should be in these spaces who have so much to contribute. We lose out on so much talent when we don’t provide this kind of mentorship and community,” adds Breen. “Someone saw a light in me that I didn’t see and nurtured that. Now I can pass that along. All of my work is dedicated to this.”
Preparing problem-solvers
Resilience is a defining character trait for McNair Scholars like senior David Rivera, who presented at a national research conference last summer. The McNair Program, he says, has given him “mentorship, community, and the confidence to see myself not just as a student, but as a scholar.” Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
Lindsay Dieudonne proudly wore her McNair Scholars stole when she delivered the 2023 CAS Commencement address. Photograph by Michael J. Clarke