Put simply, there are not many African-American students pursuing careers in engineering. According to the American Society for Engineering Education, the amount of African-Americans receiving bachelor’s degrees in engineering has precipitously dropped over the last decade. In 2014, African-Americans accounted for 3.5 percent of that group.
To combat these shrinking figures, the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) announced in a press release that it has set a goal to graduate 10,000 African American’s with a bachelor’s degree in engineering annually by 2025. At today’s rate only 3,620 annually graduate with such a degree.
“NSBE’s leadership is totally committed to this campaign,” said NSBE National Chair Neville Green, a senior in chemical engineering at the City University of New York. “As students and professionals in STEM, we know the importance of driving this change, to ensure the future of our communities.”
Launched in October, the “Be 1 of 10,000” is particularly focused on African-American seventh graders, students who would complete their bachelor’s degree in 2025 — should they graduate in the traditional four-year time frame. NSBE wants 150,000 of those students to start thinking about becoming an engineer and as a result, promise to achieve academic excellence in subjects pertaining to algebra, chemistry, and physics. To support these efforts, the students will be granted a number of resources supporting those goals.
African-American seventh graders are not the only students receiving attention from the campaign. NSBE said it must “increase the STEM proficiency of students who are even closer to the start of the ‘pipeline’ to engineering careers” to reach its goals. To help African-American youths in all age groups, NSBE hopes to expand its Summer Engineering Experience for Kids (SEEK) program for students between the third and eighth grade. On the high school level, the society is asking public school’s to offer more calculus.
Since the ultimate goal is to see the students through their college graduation, the campaign focuses on more than just the STEM foundation instilled in the students. The NSBE wants the collegiate students to receive tutoring and other advice from other engineering students that are further along in the process as well as professional members of the society. Study sessions and test preparation will also be encouraged.
The NSBE will work closely with not just the students, but the universities to make sure that those institutions are prepared for the efforts. These efforts task colleges with recruiting enrolling, and graduating more African-American engineering students.
On the surface, moving the average bachelor’s degree graduation rate for African-American engineers to 10,000 from more than 3,600 annually may seem like a lofty task. However, Tolu Oyelowo, NSBE’s national academic excellence chair, thinks those number look more frightening than they actually are.
“10K looks like a big number, until we divide it among our 227 collegiate chapters across the U.S.,” said Oyelowo, a senior in biomedical engineering at North Carolina State University. “If each chapter graduates an additional three members by 2025, we will have met our goal.”
Beyond educating more African-Americans, another benefit of making the campaign a success would be the increased implementation of STEM-trained students in the global workforce.
“Graduating 10,000 black engineers per year will generate benefits that extend far beyond our organization,” says Karl W. Reid, NSBE executive director. “By harnessing the STEM talent of greater numbers of African Americans, we are expanding the corps of problem solvers and innovators in service to the nation.”
More information on NSBE’s campaign can be found at Graduate10K.NSBE.org.