In 1924, Missouri S&T was called the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, its student newspaper had advertisements for 35-cent haircuts, there were 353 students enrolled in fall classes, with 111 of them being freshmen — and the electrical engineering department was officially created. 

Fast-forward a century, and that department, which now is called electrical and computer engineering, recently celebrated its centennial during S&T’s Homecoming weekend and has hundreds more students in its programs than the entire university had enrolled at the time of its inception. 

“A century ago, we had to fight to even exist, and today, we are one of the leading departments on campus with top-notch teaching and world-class research,” says Dr. Jonathan Kimball, chair and Fred W. Finley Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering. “I am looking forward to our second century and the impact we will continue to have through our alumni and our research.” 

According to Dr. Larry Gragg, the university’s historian and a Curators’ Teaching Professor emeritus of history and political science, electricity was a topic in a professor’s lecture as early as 1876, and the first class focused entirely on electricity was offered in 1891. Not long after that, the university offered a two-year program focused on practical electrical engineering.

S&T’s efforts toward potentially offering an electrical engineering bachelor’s degree program were met with some controversy due to the University of Missouri’s competing program, but in 1915, the Missouri legislature passed the Buford Act, which approved S&T to offer degrees in electrical, chemical and mechanical engineering.

The university’s electrical engineering major was first offered through the physics department, and in 1917, that department’s name became physics and electrical engineering.

The following year, a student named Harry Tobias Heimberger completed his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, becoming the first student to do so.

But it would still take six more years for electrical engineering to become its own department.

Gragg says that after the electrical engineering department was formed, it continued to grow steadily over the years, but university leaders still faced roadblocks they had to overcome that were oftentimes political in nature.

Some highlights for the department include:  

● 1937 – Electrical engineering received American Engineers’ Council for Professional Development (ECPD) accreditation. This accrediting body is now called the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, or ABET.  

● 1959 – The Electrical Engineering Building was constructed.  

● 1962 – The department was approved to offer a Ph.D. in electrical engineering.  

● 1980 – The Missouri S&T Academy of Electrical Engineering (now called the Academy of Electrical and Computer Engineering) was formed.  

● 1997 – The department’s building was expanded and named Emerson Electric Co. Hall. 

● 1998 – The name of the department was changed to electrical and computer engineering. 
 
“The story of Missouri S&T’s electrical engineering programs is one of passion and resilience,” Gragg says. “I am sure Dr. Floyd H. Frame, the founding chair of the department who served in the role from 1924-48, would feel a great sense of pride and amazement if he knew how the department would grow and develop a century later.” 
 
To learn more about Missouri S&T’s electrical and computer engineering programs, visit ece.mst.edu. 

About Missouri S&T

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.