Meet the Team

A BIT ABOUT US

The African American engineering students who came to Purdue University in the early 1970s were small in number, but they came with big dreams. The Civil Rights Movement had brought progress but also unfulfilled promises of social and economic equality. Aspiring Black Engineers at Purdue wanted to see more of their people and their communities empowered by knowledge of STEM.

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Purdue undergraduates Edward Barnette Jr. and Fred Cooper teamed with their faculty advisor, Arthur Bond, Ph.D., to launch a campus organization, the Black Society of Engineers (BSE), in 1971. For the next four years, the work of this student group helped significantly increase the recruitment and retention of Black engineering scholars at Purdue. In 1973, under the leadership of six close-knit Purdue

engineering students from Chicago — Edward A. Coleman, Anthony Harris, Brian Harris, Stanley L. Kirtley, John W. Logan Jr. and George A. Smith — the BSE changed its name to the Society of Black Engineers (SBE) and a year later launched an effort to create a national organization to increase the number of Blacks in the engineering profession across the U.S. Letters of invitation mailed nationwide by the SBE drew 134 students from 28 schools to a gathering on April 10–12, 1975, at Purdue, where the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) was established.

Our
Mission

To increase the number of culturally responsible Black Engineers who excel academically, succeedprofessionally and positively impact the community.

Our
Vision

We envision a world in which engineering is a mainstream word in homes and communities of color, and all Black students can envision themselves as engineers. In this world, Blacks exceed parity in entering engineering fields, earning degrees, and succeeding professionally.