TRIO Programs announced Anna Sheppard has been named director of the McNair Scholars Program. Sheppard has served as the project coordinator since July 2009, taking on additional leadership within the program in June 2011, and named interim director of in March 2012.
Prior to her time at NDSU, Sheppard served as the Desire2Learn site administrator and enrollment manager at the Minnesota Community and Technical College, Moorhead, Minn. During a competitive grant competition in summer 2012, Sheppard wrote and secured another five-year McNair Scholars Program grant totaling $1.27 million and was a recipient of the 2012 Staff Recognition award in the professional band.
NDSU is one of 14 original universities chosen in 1989 to host a Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program. The program was established by Congress, funded by the U.S Department of Education and named for astronaut and physicist Ronald E. McNair. The program is designed to provide disadvantaged college students with effective preparation for doctoral study. Students who have completed or nearly completed their sophomore year, are either low-income and first generation college students or from groups traditionally underrepresented in graduate education and considering study beyond the baccalaureate degree, are invited to apply for the program.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.