The contemporary national and higher education contexts have experienced a wave of backlash, pushback, and retrenchment in the efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). These terms that once invoked discourse that offered hope and promise as it related to how they would be operationalized in colleges, schools, universities, and workforce settings has now been deemed at best divisive and at worst counter productive to uniting the States of America. Thus, this session will shed light on how seasoned higher education scholars and administrators have navigated and continue to negotiate the terrain as it relates to advancing their administrative and scholarly engagements in environments. And, how they have ultimately shifted their foci to foreground Belonging when the focus on DEI left them at a crossroads. 

Fred A. Bonner II, Ed.D. is Professor and Endowed Chair in Educational Leadership and Counseling at Prairie View A&M University and Founding Executive Director and Chief Scientist of the Achievement, Research, Creativity and High-Ability (ARCH-III) Center at Prairie View A&M University. In 2020, Dr. Bonner was selected for the prestigious Regents Professor Award by the Texas A&M University System. As a thought-leader in the field of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, his work has consistently centered microcultural populations developing attitudes, motivations, and strategies to survive in macrocultural settings. He has published numerous articles, books and book chapters that foreground: Academically gifted African American male college students in an array of contexts (Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Predominantly White Institutions, and Community Colleges); teaching in the diverse classroom; belonging in student affairs; diverse millennial students in college; success factors influencing students of color in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM); and faculty of color in Predominantly White institutions (PWIs).

He is formerly the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair in Education in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University. Prior to joining Rutgers, he was Professor of Higher Education Administration and Dean of Faculties at Texas A&M University-College Station. He earned a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of North Texas, an M.S. Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from Baylor University, and an Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration & College Teaching from the University of Arkansas. Bonner has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Association for Higher Education Black Caucus Dissertation Award and the Educational Leadership, Counseling and Foundation’s Dissertation of the Year Award from the University of Arkansas College of Education. He is the author of the books, Square Pegs and Round Holes: Alternative Approaches to Diverse College Student Development Theory (2021), Belonging in Higher Education: Perspectives and Lessons from Diverse Faculty (2025), and the recently released op-ed, We Are Not Like Them (2025).