People
McNair Scholars Program Staff
Melvin Oliver
Melvin Oliver is the Dean of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to coming to UCSB, he was Vice President of the Asset Building and Community Development Program at the Ford Foundation. This program helped to build human, social, economic, environmental, and interpersonal assets among poor and disadvantaged individuals and communities throughout the world. From 1978 to 1996, Dr. Oliver, an expert on racial and urban inequality and poverty, was a member of the faculty at UCLA, where he was named the California Professor of the Year for his “extraordinary dedication to teaching and commitment to students.” Dr. Oliver is the author (with Thomas M. Shapiro) of Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality (Tenth Anniversary Edition, published 2008), which has received awards from the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems, as well as 4 co-edited volumes and over 50 scholarly publications. Dr. Oliver received his BA at William Penn College and his MA and Ph.D. at Washington University, St. Louis. He serves on the Board of the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. and is a member of the Advisory Boards of the Division of Behavioral and Social Science and Education at the National Research Council and the National Poverty Center, University of Michigan.
Beth Schneider
Beth Schneider, Director of the McNair Scholars Program, is an Associate Dean of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at UCSB. She is affiliated faculty in the Department of Feminist Studies. Her primary research areas include sexuality and gender studies, political and social movements, and health. Her books include The Social Context of AIDS (with Joan Huber), Women Resisting AIDS: Feminist Strategies of Empowerment (with Nancy Stoller), and The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (with Peter Nardi). She is the lead author of the UCSB report on campus climate for LGBTQ students, staff and faculty. Dr. Schneider served for ten years on the Editorial Board of the international journal Sexualities, for four years as the Editor of Gender & Society, one of the top five journals in gender and women’s studies, and is currently chair of the Sexualities Section of the American Sociological Association. In addition to her work with McNair, Dr. Schneider is the Co-Principal Investigator for NSF grant “Diversity Initiative for Graduate Study in the Social Sciences”. In the local community, she is on the Board of the Santa Barbara Women’s Political Committee, serving currently as Secretary and managing the organization’s archives.
Monique Limón
Monique Limón, Assistant Director of the McNair Scholars Program, holds a M.A .in Education from Columbia University and a B.A. from UC-Berkeley. She came to the McNair Scholars Program after serving for two years as the Director of Diversity, Recruitment, and Retention for the UCSB Graduate Division, where she engaged in long-range planning in support of diversity, outreach, recruitment and retention efforts for all graduate departments on campus. Prior to Ms. Limón’s work at UCSB, she served as the Student Program Advisor for California Student Opportunity and Access Program (CAL-SOAP) at Santa Barbara City College and as Event Coordinator and Assistant Program Coordinator of New Beginnings Counseling Center. Monique Limón has a strong record of involvement in the university and the local Santa Barbara community, currently serving on the Board of Directors of Hermanas Unidas Inc., New Beginnings Counseling Center, as a Commissioner of the Santa Barbara County Commission for Women, and as a Katherine Harvey Fellow of the Santa Barbara Foundation.
Lynn Becerra
Lynn Becerra received her BA in Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCSB. Prior to beginning as the Program Coordinator at the McNair Scholars Program, she served as the Program Assistant of the Chumash Scholars Program in the Office of Academic Preparation. In 2007, Lynn was the primary organizer of the 1st Youth Conference for students from El Puente Continuation School in Santa Barbara. Lynn has recently been a participant at the National Institute for Native Leadership in Higher Education, and at the first annual UC System-wide Native American Professional Development Conference.
2008-09 Graduate Mentors
Francisco Fuentes
Francisco (Franky) Fuentes received his B.A. in Global Cultures and Ideologies at UCSB and is now a Ph.D. student in the newly created doctoral program in Chicana and Chicano Studies. In addition to his Teaching Assistant work for the Chicana/o Studies Department, he has served as a professor at Cal State University, teaching "Religion, Migration, and Identity in the Americas," an upper-division course cross-listed under Chicano Studies, Religious Studies, and Latin American Studies. He has been involved as a graduate researcher in the Library’s California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA), the Chicano Studies Institute, and has worked with Professor Victor Rios as a graduate researcher for the project “Youth Obstacles, Resilience and Subculture in Santa Barbara.” Franky is currently working on CEMA's ImaginArte documentary on Leo Limon, an artist from East Los Angeles.
Bernadette Gaillard
Bernadette Gailliard is a PhD student in the Department of Communication at UCSB. She received her MA in Organizational Communication from UCSB and BS (with honors) in Business Administration from American University. Bernadette’s research focuses on issues of diversity, identity, and socialization in organizational contexts. Specifically, she is interested in how members of underrepresented groups manage multiple identities through discourse and other communicative practices. Bernadette has served as a Teaching Assistant for many Communication courses including Statistical Analysis for Communication, Organizational Communication: A Global Perspective, and Interviewing. She is also a former McNair Scholar and participant in the Leadership Alliance.
Steven Witkowski
Steven Witkowski received his AA from Los Angeles Pierce College and his BA in English and American Studies from UC Berkeley. As a McNair Scholar, he worked as an outreach coordinator for the program while also serving as an admittance and administrative assistant for Berkeley’s Transfer, Re-Entry and Student Parent (TRSP) Center. Steve is currently an MA/PhD graduate student in the UCSB Department of Film and Media Studies. His research interests mainly focus on film and television’s material-based infrastructures and site-specific aesthetics of crisis, diaspora and community. This is his first year serving as a Graduate Mentor for the UCSB McNair Scholars Program.