Dr. Fred A. Bonner II is on a mission to dispel the notion that “good scholarship” — particularly research on African-American and other minority populations — can only be done at elite predominantly White institutions.
Bonner, who holds an endowed chair in Educational Leadership and Counseling at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, has been busy at work building the Minority Achievement, Creativity, and High Ability Center (MACH-III), a comprehensive research center at the public historically Black university (HBCU).
Although it is still in its formative stage, MACH-III is almost certain to become a game-changer in the way that research is done on minority populations.
The center’s mission is clear: to produce best practices and scholarship that examine the contemporary issues that impact critical populations such as administration, faculty and students across the P-20 spectrum and beyond into workplace contexts.
Bonner, the center’s executive director, launched the enterprise with a Texas A&M University System Chancellor’s Research Initiative (CRI) Grant in 2015 that provided the initial funding for the creation of the spacious center that is housed within the Whitelowe R. Green College of Education at Prairie View.
Several years later, Bonner says that he has a laser focus on developing asset-based approaches to research on critical populations that will establish Prairie View and the MACH-III Center as a “preeminent clearinghouse and national model within academe in general and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) in particular. In a relatively short time, MACH-III is already off the ground, with a committed staff of four and widening interests from scholars across the country who have turned to the Center and Bonner to help find research solutions for some of the nation’s most vexing problems.
“The MACH-III Center is a shining example of the impact an educational research center can have at an HBCU by providing international, national, state and local solutions to advancing our understanding of students of color in HBCU contexts,” says Dr. Chance W. Lewis, the Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Urban Education at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. “Dr. Bonner is doing outstanding work in elevating the educational scholarship in this area.”
