Editor’s Introduction

Abstract

The Journal of Minority Achievement, Creativity and Leadership (JMACL) is a window seat, an intellectual space for academics, policymakers, practitioners, researchers, students, and scholars to view the terrain in its variegated form and structure, especially those extant landmarks positioned at the intersection of achievement, creativity, and leadership. JMACL attempts to provide rhythmic syncopation to the cacophony of voices speaking to the complexities that diverse populations in general, and minoritized populations in particular, experience across the P–20 educational continuum and beyond. Through their collective and individual wisdom, contrib utors share best practices, conceptual models, and theoretical frameworks that illuminate asset-based approaches related to the achievement and success of minority populations. In this issue our authors include:Sharon LaVonne Fries Britt, PhD, and Felicia Onuma, in “The Role of Family, Race, and Community as Sources of Motivation for Black Students in STEM,” argue that understanding the sources of motivation that Black students identify as contributing to their persistence offers invaluable insights into ways to support student success in physics. Knowing the determinants of their commitment to remain in the major provide departments, faculty, advisors and mentors additional areas to reinforce and affirm.Jase Kugiya, Jorge Burmicky, PhD, and Victor B. Saenz, PhD, in “High-Achieving Latino Men and Men of Color Programs: Perspectives from Community College Program Staff,” explore two Men of Color (MoC) programs located at two Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) community colleges in Texas. Using two rounds of qualitative semi-structured interviews, a participant intake form, and an institutional questionnaire, this research applied Schreiner’s (2010) Thriving Quotient and Garcia’s (2018) Organizational Frameworks for Decolonizing HSIs to understand how MoC program staff define high-achievement and how MoC programs support high-achieving Latino men.Derrick Brooms, PhD, in “Black Cultural Capital, Resistance, and Leadership among Black Male Collegians,” examines the college experiences of 65 Black men who participated in a Black Male Initiative (BMI) program at three different colleges. Given the deficit and crisis narratives that dominate the discourse on Black males’ educational experiences and trajectories, more work is needed that attends to their strengths and assets as well as reveals new stories about their possibilities.Nicholas D. Hartlep, PhD, Daisy B. Ball, PhD, Kevin E. Wells, PhD, Hannah M. Wilk, and Brandon O. Hensley, PhD, in “An Exploratory Analysis of Scripps Spelling Bee Winners, 1925–2019: Is There Evidence of Asian American Overrepresentation?,” analyze the demographic and geographic characteristics of the winners of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Included in the analyses are responses to questions such as: Are Scripps National Spelling Bee winners more likely to be males or females? Asians or non-Asians? And, what is the average age of winners?Frank Tuitt, PhD, in “More than a Hashtag: Nurturing Black Excellence in Traditionally White Institutions,” provides some direction as to how traditionally white institutions (TWIs) can move away from superficial enactments of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and instead adopt a racial equity strategy that nurtures and values Black Excellence.Patricia E. Literte, PhD, in “Mobilizing Beyond Black and White: Coalition Building and Identity Formation Among Students of Color at a Public and a Private University,” examines coalition building between Black, Latinx, and Asian Pacific American students, as well as the construction of a panracial “people of color” identity, on two university campuses in California.Our desire is for JMACL to serve as a forum that provides practitioners, researchers, scholars, and individuals in contexts external to the Academy with dialectical space to explore achievement, creativity, and leadership across diverse communities. This issue, with its diverse array of contributors is emblematic of the type of transgressive scholarship that pushes boundaries and evokes new paradigms of thought. We encourage our readers to deconstruct the theoretical approaches and problematize the conceptual frameworks presented here. Hence, as JMACL helps us to know better, it is incumbent upon us to use this knowledge to do better.