By Danielle Capalbo

Tamika Gordon is soft-spoken. She is a middler computer engineering major, a McNair Mentor and a Resident Assistant. She is also the architect of a bridge she designed herself. It spans from the university’s Black Engineering Student Society (BESS) to a high school community less than one mile’s walk from campus.

For almost four years, Gordon has been involved with Northeastern’s chapter of BESS.

“When I came for orientation, someone told me about it,” she said. “They said it was great, so I started going to meetings as a general member. In my second year, I became the financier.”

Another year passed and Gordon was promoted to the executive board as its Pre-Collegiate Initiative (PCI) co-chair. She has retained that title, and is nominally responsible for encouraging high-school students to develop interests and skills in math and science.

Gordon’s new role inspired her to rekindle an old relationship between City on a Hill, a Boston charter school, and BESS.

“We had a chapter with them in previous years, but it was inactive,” she said.

City on a Hill, located near Northeastern at 320 Huntington Ave., is a tuition-free public charter school whose mission statement is “to graduate responsible, resourceful and respectful democratic citizens prepared to advance community [and] culture.”

Similarly, the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), according to its website, seeks to “increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.”

For Gordon, the school’s location and the ideological similarities between City on a Hill and the National Society of Black Engineers, BESS’s parent organization, were ample enough reasons to resurrect their connection.

Gordon said many City on a Hill students were already familiar with Northeastern’s campus. They pass through it frequently and use its facilities.

“But this was a good opportunity to show them about students, engineering and university organizations,” she said.

Gordon wanted to put BESS members in contact with ambitious City on a Hill students to acquaint them with new academic areas for exploration, she said. Her initiative, revisiting and revamping an old framework, was set in motion in early 2006.

Northeastern’s Student Outreach Organizer Lindsey Fusen recalled her introduction to Gordon’s project. As a liaison between the university and neighboring communities, Fusen regularly read about potential projects, and said Gordon’s was effective.

“[It] really impressed me,” she said. “Not only does it provide academic support to City on a Hill high school students, but it also empowers them.”

The initiative reflects well on Northeastern too, said Fusen, who sees it as a means for bolstering the local academic community.

“It’s a way of increasing test scores, and decreasing potential dropouts,” she said.

Gordon, alongside her BESS peers, has become a positive role model for City on a Hill students, Fusen said.

In Nov. 2006, about eight 11th graders traveled with BESS from Boston to Buffalo, N.Y. Their destination was NSBE’s 30th Fall Regional Conference, an annual event geared toward preparing alumni, collegiate and pre-collegiate attendees for pursuits in the professional world.

Held in the Hyatt Regency Hotel, the conference consisted of three days of workshops, activities and competitions. Five of Gordon’s students competed in the “trimathelon,” a regional high school math competition.

“It was their first time,” Gordon said. “They’d been training for about two to three months.”

Amir Kahrim, academic chair of BESS, prepared the group rigorously, constructing and doling out packets of sample SAT questions, Gordon said.

“They met each week,” she said. “We went over [the packets], and talked about what they didn’t understand.”

Gordon, who is usually reserved, livened when she recalled a moment from the conference’s closing banquet.

In the audience, she anticipated an announcement. To a full assembly of NSBE members, the “trimathelon” results would soon be disclosed.

It was later announced that her group won third place.

Gordon took the bronze ranking graciously, without discouragement, she said. As newcomers to the conference, not knowing what to expect, she said, her group did surprisingly well.

“We made sure everyone knew… they worked very hard,” she said.