Top leaders of the National Society of Black Engineers are meeting this week at Virginia Tech to discuss how to drastically increase the number of black engineering degrees.
Since its foundation in 1975, NSBE has been committed to increase the number of black engineering students that succeed professionally and also positively impact their local communities. The organization has nearly 16,000 members worldwide, including Tranicè Warner:
“NSBE has kind of been the driving force behind my academic success. It has been the reason why I wanted to get my PhD. I’ll be starting my PhD program in August because I want to be that representation that I didn’t have growing up – people can’t be what they can’t see.”
The organization is working hard towards increasing the number of black bachelor’s degree recipients in engineering to 10,000 annually by the year 2025. Matt Nelson, the group’s national chairman, says that goal will be achieved by bringing universities, other non-profit minority engineer organizations and engineering accreditation groups all together:
“And so we’re bringing everybody to the table to start to say, ‘I’m not going to tell you as an organization what you need to do, but let’s agree on the outcome and then let’s look at what the best practices are from each institution to share that, track it, and then document it so that we can for years to come have a road map to move forward.”
Nelson also believes that Virginia Tech, where the conference is being held for the first time this week, is a leader in promoting minority engineering education.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.