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The Purdue Boilermakers Frederick S. Cooper III Started Visionary Engineering
Legacy Still Lives In The USA And Abroad With NSBE
Celebrating Black History by Dr. Charles L. Singleton
Looking back in time, Cooper’s keen “attention to detail,” including, an impactful athletic performance, and his extraordinary vision helped to jump-start an amazing engineering accomplishment to improve black engineering student recruitment numbers and retention rate. During his keynote address at the Minority Engineering Program (MEP) and National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) 40th Year Celebration, on September 13, 2015, Fred Cooper stated that, “The problem we were trying to address back then was to help stop the 80% drop out rate of black engineering students at Purdue.
The way we approached it was to form a support group ourselves to help and support each other. But we also wanted to be a recognized group on campus to have access to university resources. And more importantly, we wanted Purdue to be committed to our success.”
In 1971, the precursors, Fred Cooper and fellow student Edward E. “Big Ed” Barnette Jr (1949-1991), shared an “engineering social idea and a pressing need” for starting the Black Society of Engineers (BSE) with Dr. John C. Hancock, Purdue University’s Dean of Engineering. And, after student conferencing with the dean, the prominent Dr. Arthur J. Bond (1939-2012) was assigned as BSE’s advisor.
During this time, he was the only African American faculty member on Purdue’s faculty. Progressively, several timely-motivated meetings and conversational discussions eventually created the Black Society of Engineers (BSE). The first president of the Black Society of Engineers (BSE) was Ed Barnette in the NSBE Photograph Below:
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| Edward E "Big Ed" Barnette JR. 1949-1991, Purdue University from 1969 until 1973 |
