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NJIT Engineering Grads Mentor Equal Opportunity Program Students
To serve these ends, this African American couple, who met while in the New Jersey Equal Opportunity Program (EOP) at NJIT, has mentored scores of EOP students at NJIT. They have passed on their fire for knowledge to their own four children, one of whom, their daughter Colean, 18, is now at NJIT, too, as a freshman electrical engineering major. The EOP at NJIT currently serves 650 undergraduates, providing them with comprehensive tutorial, counseling and financial aid services to disadvantaged students. The EOP pre-freshman summer residential program provides seven weeks of academic enrichment in math, physics, computers and communications, while orienting students to the university environment. The Bembry's have continued to support EOP and the Black Engineering and Technology Association (BETA) functions at the Newark campus through talks with students. They volunteer as guest speakers at counseling groups offering words of encouragement and talking about the type of work they do as engineers. Martha is an industrial engineer working in safety at the Port Authority Trans Hudson Corporation, Jersey City, and Walter is an electrical engineering consultant for Parson Transportation Group, Philadelphia. "Even when I first started out, there was a lack of mentors and positive examples in inner city communities. Many young people grow up with the expectation that they should be paid without putting time and effort into it," says Walter. "EOP shows the facts of life, that you can obtain things legally, but it requires hard work. Though your zip code is urban, you can have a place among the stars." The students ask questions from how much money the Bembry's make to how in the world does what's learned in class apply to the real world. Often, they want to know the Bembry's secrets for success, as people of color in a predominately white male profession. "Some look at success from dollars, others by achieving career goals, but from my point of view a person has to be well balanced," says Walter. Martha measures success by asking: "Am I happy doing what I do and am I making a difference? As a female you have to be two times as resourceful in the field." The couple has lived in Willingboro since 1987. For further information about the Bembry's or EOP contact the public relations office at NJIT. NJIT is a public, scientific and technological research university
enrolling more than 8,800 students. The university offers bachelor's, master's and
doctoral degrees to students in 80 degree programs throughout its six colleges:
Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School of Architecture, College of Science
and Liberal Arts, School of Management, Albert Dorman Honors College and College of
Computing Sciences. The division of continuing professional education offers adults
eLearning, off campus degrees and short courses. Expertise and research initiatives
include architecture and building science, applied mathematics, biomedical engineering,
environmental engineering and science, information technology, manufacturing, materials,
microelectronics, multimedia, telecommunications, transportation and solar astrophysics.
Yahoo! Internet Life magazine cites NJIT as a "perennially most wired" university.
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