Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Engineering at DU and the Birth and Scope of the ECE Department

Engineering at DU has a history of almost 100 years with a program of Chemical Engineering in 1918. The first degrees were awarded in 1920, followed by the first Electrical Engineering degrees in 1925.

The College of Engineering was formed in 1941 with Dr. Clarence M. Knudson as the founding Dean.

Shortly thereafter in 1945 Mechanical Engineering was launched with the first degrees being awarded in 1948.

Eventually the College of Engineering included five distinct programs: Chemical, Electrical, Administration, Mechanical and Civil.

Due to financial and other reasons, the College of Engineering was officially closed on June 30, 1975 with Dr. Warren Wheeler given the task of disposing of equipment and records and getting the final degrees awarded until January 1, 1977. By the time the College was closed, the total awarded degrees were as follows: 2,195 Bachelor of Science; 420 Masters of Science; 116 Doctor of Philosophy. However, even after the College of Engineering closed, the University of Denver continued to offer a two-year pre-engineering program within the Department of Physics.

In the early 1980s the University decided to expand Engineering again into a four-year degree-granting program. Initially, a single program in General Engineering was proposed. The plan was changed in 1982 to include options in Electrical and Mechanical engineering.

The engineering program was given departmental status in 1984, and integrated programs with the College of Business Administration were added. The degrees offered during the restart of the engineering program were BSE with options in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.

In 1986 the program was carefully evaluated and restructured to meet the requirements for ABET accreditation. The titles of the degrees were also changed to BSEE and BSME to avoid confusion with degrees from the previous curriculum. The programs received their first ABET accreditation in 1989, which applied to graduates from that year. ABET accreditation was renewed in 1992.

In 1996 Computer Engineering was added as a major, and the first graduating class was in 1998. Accreditation was renewed for the BSEE and BSME programs, and it was also obtained for the BSCpE in 1998. All three programs received renewed accreditation in 2004.

In 2003 the Department of Engineering was separated from the college of Natural Science Mathematics and Engineering, to form a new school jointly with the Department of Computer Science called the School of Engineering and Computer Science (SECS).

Most recently in 2007 the Department of Engineering was split into two separate and distinct Departments: Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME), and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).

The birth of the new ECE Department occurred at a time where:

• Globalization is the new reality
• Teamwork is the new paradigm
• Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary education and research is a ‘must’
• Knowledge integration is the key to success
• Virtual communication skill is the new demand
• Distance learning programs offer remarkable educational opportunities

Therefore, a new ‘educational philosophy’ was mandated, and as such, ECE is embracing:

• Active learning promoting creativity
• Innovation in building undergraduate and graduate curricula emphasizing cross-disciplinary integration of technology, science, engineering, medicine and business
• Integration of theoretical, fundamental knowledge with basic, applied research and development linked to real-world applications
• Coupling of education and research with cutting-edge technologies leading to the new product prototypes of the future
• Entrepreneurship in our curricula
• Internationalization and diversification in our programs, degrees and curricula that lead to partnerships and collaborations at the international level
• Strong links with industry offering interdisciplinary graduate programs of the best quality to such professionals