Mr. Randall C. Woodard, already a member of N.S.B.E. and regular attendee of the neighboring University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) chapter meetings, with clear purposes in mind set out to establish a chapter of N.S.B.E. at Eastern Michigan University. The Eastern Michigan University (EMU) Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (N.S.B.E.) was chartered by the national organization in October of 2000 with fourteen (14) charter members, five (5) of which held executive board positions.
The struggle was finding a way to get students involved with an organization in which they never heard nor seen before on campus. Members did everything within their power to promote N.S.B.E. to technical and non-technical EMU students. Another challenge facing the chapter at this time was the lack of recognition status by EMU as a student organization on campus. Even when the chapter was recognized by Campus Life as a student organization in January of the Winter 2001 semester, struggles remained as members continued to familiarize themselves with N.S.B.E. while learning how to take advantage of all the resources now available to the chapter on campus.
Subsequently, it was hard to promote the organization and increase membership considerably during the charter year of the chapter. Publicizing of events, meetings, fundraisers and conferences was done primarily by word of mouth. Members would print flyers at their jobs whenever possible in order to cut costs and allow for the dissemenation of N.S.B.E. information in a timely fashion. Meetings were held in dorm rooms, while Resident Advisors played an important role in promoting the organization to freshmen, sophomore and other students on campus.
There were fourteen original chapter charter members who paved the way for the establishment of the EMU Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers during the 2000 - 2001 Academic Year. Out of the fourteen chapter founders, ten (10) were financial with the national organization:
EMU CHAPTER - CHARTER MEMBERS
1) RANDALL C. WOODARD
2) MARK D. CROXTON
3) ALISA MALONE
4) HOLLY TAYLOR
5) CANDICE WHITE
6) LATONYA EDWARDS
7) JERMAINE MILLER
8) ROBERT MORRIS
9) CHEDI OKAFOR
10) JASON S.
11) LATORIAN SIMMS
12) DWAYNE RILEY
13) TANECIA WILSON
14) JOVAN WORDLAW