Historical milestones
Education and research in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology have been an integral part of the University of Minnesota for nearly 150 years.
Although the College of Science and Engineering (formerly the Institute of Technology) was founded in 1935, its roots extend to the University's infancy. Here are historical milestones to note.
| 2017 | Construction completed on $92.5 million renovation of historic Tate Hall |
| 2017 | College opens 10,000-square-foot Clifford I. and Nancy C. Anderson Student Innovation Labs |
| 2015 | University of Minnesota launches new master’s program in data science |
| 2015 | Science Teaching and Student Services building is renamed Robert H. Bruininks Hall in honor of the former University of Minnesota president |
| 2014 | Amundson Hall Gore Annex addition completed |
| 2014 | Construction completed on NOvA neutrino lab detector in northern Minnesota |
| 2014 | Department of Civil Engineering changes its name to the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geo-Engineering |
| 2014 | Environmental engineering bachelor’s degree program approved |
| 2014 | $16 million major renovation of St. Anthony Falls Lab completed |
| 2014 | Work by the late chemistry Professor Izaak M. Kolthoff is named a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society |
| 2014 | Center for Sustainable Polymers receives $20 million grant to become one of only eight national NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation |
| 2014 | University receives $12 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to lead an Energy Frontier Research Center |
| 2014 | Physics and Nanotechnology Building construction completed |
| 2014 | University of Minnesota launches new master’s program in medical device innovation |
| 2013 | University of Minnesota is first in the world to install FEI ultrafast electron microscope |
| 2013 | University of Minnesota opens newly renovated Medical Devices Center in the Mayo Building |
| 2013 | University of Minnesota gets approval from the Minnesota Legislature for the new Minnesota's Discovery, Research and InnoVation Economy (MnDRIVE) initiative |
| 2013 | Center for Spintronic Materials, Interfaces, and Novel Architectures (C-SPIN) established with $28 million grant from the Semiconductor Research Corporation |
| 2012 | Department of Industrial and System Engineering established |
| 2012 | Industrial and Systems Engineering bachelor's degree program approved |
| 2012 | Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering & Materials Science launch new lab safety initiative with help from Dow Chemical |
| 2011 | University of Minnesota hosts first-ever Cyber Security Summit |
| 2011 | University of Minnesota launches new Wind Energy Research Station at UMore Park in Rosemount |
| 2010 | University of Minnesota is first in the nation to begin using high-tech indoor solar simulator |
| 2010 | The college name changes from Institute of Technology to College of Science and Engineering |
| 2010 | The Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building is renamed Kenneth H. Keller Hall in honor of the former University president and chemical engineering professor |
| 2009 | University of Minnesota Board of Regents approves name change from the Institute of Technology to the College of Science and Engineering effective July 1, 2010 |
| 2009 | The college's Center for the Development of Technological Leadership changes its name to the Technological Leadership Institute |
| 2009 | Officials break ground on $40 million cutting-edge physics laboratory in northern Minnesota near Ash River that will be led by the University's School of Physics and Astronomy |
| 2008 | University launches Medical Device Innovation Fellows program |
| 2008 | The University opens Outdoor Stream Lab, a large-scale environmental research facility along the banks of the Mississippi River adjacent to the St. Anthony Falls Lab |
| 2008 | The University opens state-of-the-art Medical Devices Center research laboratory facility on the fifth floor of Shepherd Labs |
| 2008 | The college hosts first Minnesota high school regional FIRST Robotics Competition at Williams Arena |
| 2006 | The college launches nanotechnology initiative establishing a Center for Nanostructure Applications that will bring together researchers from across the University to focus on emerging applications of nanotechnology |
| 2006 | The college receives $15 million, five-year grant to establish an Engineering Research Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power in collaboration with seven universities and more than 50 industry partners |
| 2005 | The college's Institute for Mathematics and its Applications receives $19.5 million over five years, the largest single math research grant ever made by the National Science Foundation |
| 2002 | Walter Library reopens after a two-year renovation and restoration |
| 2002 | The college becomes a five percent partner in the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), which will be the most powerful on Earth |
| 2001 | Alumnus Daniel McFadden (Physics '57, Behavioral Sciences Ph.D. '62) and University of Chicago economist James Heckman earned the Nobel Prize in economics for their contributions to microeconometrics Renovation and expansion of Mechanical Engineering Building completed |
| 2000 | The college hosts the first annual Medical Devices Conference. |
| 2000 | Biomedical engineering department established |
| 2000 | George T. Piercy Molecular Materials Wing of Amundson Hall completed |
| 1998 | Digital Technology Center established |
| 1998 | UNITE begins offering courses via streaming video over the Internet |
| 1997 | Basic Sciences/Biomedical Engineering Building completed (renamed Hasselmo Hall in 2005) |
| 1997 | College's Center for Educational Programs established to develop and administer enrichment programs for K-12 students, including the U of M Talented Youth Mathematics Program, established in 1981 |
| 1989 | School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture separates from the college, becoming the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture |
| 1988 | Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Building (renamed Keller Hall in 2010) completed on the site of the old Experimental Engineering Building; Newton Horace Winchell School of Earth Sciences dedicated in honor of Winchell, the founder of the Minnesota Geological Survey |
| 1987 | Center for the Development of Technological Leadership established |
| 1983 | Civil Engineering Building completed, extending seven stories below ground |
| 1977 | Former faculty member John Van Vleck and two others win the Nobel Prize in physics for contributions toward understanding the behavior of electrons in magnetic, noncrystalline solid materials. |
| 1975 | Astronaut Donald K. “Deke Slayton (Aero '49) commands Apollo-Soyuz space mission |
| 1972 | Seymour Cray (Electrical Engineering '49) founds Cray Research and leads development of supercomputers. Former faculty member John Bardeen wins his second Nobel prize in physics, for developing the theory of superconductivity |
| 1971 | Kolthoff Hall completed |
| 1971 | UNITE Instructional Television debuts |
| 1970 | School of Mines and Metallurgy abolished; its programs are transferred to the newly reconfigured departments of chemical engineering and materials science and civil engineering; computer science and engineering department established |
| 1963 | Mechanical engineering professor obtains patent for the first automatic retractable automobile seat belt |
| 1963 | Wilson's reorganization continues: mathematics departments from the College of Liberal arts and Institute of Technology (College of Science and Engineering) merge, becoming the School of Mathematics in the Institute of Technology |
| 1962 | President O. Meredith Wilson launches a major University reorganization: College of Science, Literature, and the Arts (SLA) becomes the College of Liberal Arts; Geology and astronomy departments transferred from SLA to Institute of Technology (College of Science and Engineering); physics and astronomy brought together to establish School of Physics and Astronomy |
| 1961 | Melvin Calvin (Chemistry '35) wins the Nobel Prize for his work in photosynthesis using Carbon 14 |
| 1960 | Mechanical engineering professor obtains patent for a first-generation "black box" flight recorder |
| 1958 | Earl Bakken (Electrical Engineering '48) designs the first battery-operated heart pacemaker |
| 1957 | Mines and Metallurgy Building completed (annexed to Amundson Hall in 1970) |
| 1956 | Alumnus Walter Brattain (Physics '27), former faculty member John Bardeen, and William Shockley win the Nobel Prize for inventing the transistor |
| 1949 | Chemical Engineering Building completed (renamed Amundson Hall in 1970) |
| 1948 | Mechanical Engineering Building and Akerman Hall completed |
| 1946 | Professor E.W. Davis develops the first of many processes for converting taconite rock into commercial iron ore |
| 1940 | Professor Alfred O. C. Nier (Electrical Engineering '31) establishes that uranium 235 is responsible for slow fission in uranium |
| 1939 | Alumnus Ernest Lawrence (Physics '23) wins the Nobel Prize for developing the cyclotron |
| 1938 | Vincent Hall and St. Anthony Falls Laboratory completed |
| 1935 | Institute of Technology (renamed College of Science and Engineering in 2010) created by consolidating engineering, architecture, mines, and chemistry in one collegiate unit Samuel Lind named the new college's first dean |
| 1929 | Aerospace engineering and mechanics established |
| 1928 | Physics Building completed (renamed Tate Laboratory of Physics in 1965) |
| 1927 | Former faculty member Arthur Compton wins the Nobel Prize in physics |
| 1924 | Old Electrical Engineering Building and Main Library completed (library was renamed Walter Library in 1959) |
| 1919 | Chemical engineering department established |
| 1918 | Minnesota Technolog, the college's student magazine, debuts |
| 1914 | Chemistry Building completed (renamed Smith Hall in 1971); First Engineering Day celebrated on St. Patrick's Day, this annual celebration (which eventually became Engineering Week in the 1950s and then IT Week in the 1980s and then Science and Engineering Week in 2011) has been held continuously for nearly 100 years |
| 1913 | Agricultural Engineering Building completed |
| 1912 | Main Engineering Building completed Lind Hall in 1975) |
| 1911 | Experimental Engineering Building completed |
| 1910 | Civil engineering department established |
| 1909 | Biosystems and agricultural engineering (later renamed bioproducts and biosystems engineering) department established |
| 1898 | Mechanical engineering department established |
| 1894 | Math department established in the College of Engineering |
| 1893 | Chemistry department established |
| 1892 | Astronomy department established |
| 1891 | Electrical engineering department established |
| 1889 | Physics department established; Pillsbury Hall completed |
| 1888 | School of Mines established |
| 1884 | College of Engineering organized |
| 1874 | Geology and geophysics department established |
| 1872 | Minnesota Geological Survey established |
| 1870 | Math department established in the School of Science, Literature, and the Arts |
| 1869 | U of M reorganized as a land-grant university, with math professor and Civil War army engineer William Watts Folwell as its first president |
| 1862 | U.S. Congress passes the Morrill Act, which establishes the federal land-grant university system |
| 1858 | Minnesota becomes 32nd U.S. state |
| 1851 | U of M founded as a preparatory school |
