Arthur J. Bond
Encyclopedia
Arthur J. Bond was the dean
Dean (education)
In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...

 of the School of Engineering and Technology at Alabama A&M University in Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, United States, and an activist in the cause of increasing black enrollment and retention in engineering and technology. He was a founding member of the National Society of Black Engineers
National Society of Black Engineers
National Society of Black Engineers , founded in 1975 at Purdue University, is one of the largest student-run organizations in the US, centered on improving the recruitment and retention of African-American engineering students.-History:...

 and part of the team that fought for state funding of engineering at Alabama A&M University.

Education

Arthur J. Bond came to Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

 in 1957 to study electrical engineering on National Merit Scholarship
National Merit Scholarship Program
The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and college scholarships administered by National Merit Scholarship Corporation , a privately funded, not-for-profit organization. The program began in 1955...

 and Purdue's Special Merit Scholarship. After two years, however, he had to drop out due to a softball injury. After he recovered, he joined the army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

, "because Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 was looming on the horizon," he would later recount.

Bond returned to Purdue in 1966, was graduated with a BSEE in 1966, MSEE in 1968, and Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in 1974.

Student organizing

Bond was a student leader at Purdue during the time when the civil rights movement was in full swing. He would become a founding member of Purdue's Black Cultural Center and a founder of the National Society of Black Engineers.

At Purdue, Bond led students to demand that Purdue open up its engineering schools to more blacks and women. Frederick L. Hovde
Frederick L. Hovde
Frederick Lawson Hovde was an American chemical engineer, researcher, educator and president of Purdue University.Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Hovde received his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, where he played on the football team...

, Purdue's president at the time, was sympathetic to the cause. He appointed Bond to a steering committee, which organized the first national effort to increase minority participation in engineering.

Responding to students' need for a place where minority students could bond and study, Purdue provided black students with a house, which Bond and his friends would "move in and decorate it and call it a Black Cultural Center," Bond later said.

When two undergraduate black engineering students approached the dean of engineering to create a Black Society of Engineers, the dean agreed and assigned Bond, then a graduate student, to be the group's advisor. This group would grow into a national organization that is now the National Society of Black Engineers.

Activities after graduation

Upon receiving his doctorate, Bond became an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Purdue for five years, and then an associate professor at Purdue Calumet. He then went to work in industry for RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

, AlliedSignal
AlliedSignal
AlliedSignal was an aerospace, automotive and engineering company that acquired and merged with Honeywell for $15 billion in 1999, after which the new group adopted the Honeywell name.AlliedSignal was created through a 1985 merger of Allied Corp...

, and Bendix
Bendix Corporation
The Bendix Corporation was an American manufacturing and engineering company which during various times in its 60 year existence made brake systems, aeronautical hydraulics, avionics, aircraft and automobile fuel control systems, radios, televisions and computers, and which licensed its name for...

.

In 1989, Bond joined Tuskegee University
Tuskegee University
Tuskegee University is a private, historically black university located in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund...

 as head of its department of electrical engineering, where he helped the Electrical Engineering Department regain full accreditation from the Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

In 1992, Bond joined Alabama A&M as Dean of Engineering and Technology. At the time, the land-grant university was involved in the notorious Knight v. Alabama lawsuit, in which the plaintiff class, joined by the U.S. Justice Department
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

 argued that the State of Alabama's system of public university funding is a violation of equal rights.

The case resulted in a 1995 decree that ordered Alabama to fund engineering at Alabama A&M. The ruling further ordered that whatever level of the engineering program that would be built up in nine years would constitute the required level of funding by the state.

As dean, Bond played a pivotal role in meeting the nine-year challenge. A&M's efforts bore fruit in 1997, when it was able to offer the first engineering courses. In 2000 mechanical and electrical engineering at A&M was accredited with the effective date made retroactive to 1998.

Honors

  • 1994: Minorities in Engineering Award (formerly Vincent Bendix Award), American Society for Engineering Education
    American Society for Engineering Education
    The American Society for Engineering Education is a non-profit member association, founded in 1893, dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education....

    http://www.asee.org/activities/awards/archive/national2.cfm
  • 2000: Golden Torch Award for Academic Visionary, National Society of Black Engineers
  • 2000: Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer, Purdue University
  • 2005: Distinguished Engineering Alumni, Purdue University
  • 2009: Doctor of Engineering (Honoris Causa), Purdue University
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