Malcolm Bonner, Ed.D., has been named the first director of the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program (“McNair Scholars”) at the University of Pennsylvania. The McNair Scholars program is a U.S. Department of Education-funded program that encourages high-achieving college juniors and seniors from underrepresented groups to pursue graduate and doctoral study. The program, named for the physicist who died in the 1986 Challenger space shuttle explosion, currently operates on more than 100 college campuses nationwide; Penn’s program is the first in the Ivy League.

Bonner comes to Penn from Temple University, where he served as director of Temple’s Act 101 Programs Office. He will oversee recruitment and operation of special intensive summer workshops and support programs for Penn students interested in graduate study in the humanities and social sciences.