History
Click on the years to display content
1960s
- Computer Courses were First Taught in Old Main
- The UTEP Basketball team won the NCAA National Championship
- EE 3472 Digital Computers and EE 3474 Analog Computers courses were added to Electrical Engineering
- Texas Western College was renamed The University of Texas at El Paso
- Electronic Data Processing, BUSN 3304, Covering “Punch Card Tabulating, Electronic Data Processing, Principles and Problems of Accounting Systems…” was offered by the newly founded School of Business.
- A crane was used to lift UTEP’s first Major Computer Equipment into Old Main in February 1967. The control data corporation 3100 computer system with twenty components was placed in a newly renovated third-floor space for the computer center coordinated by Physics Professor Robert Schumaker.
- The use of the UTEP computer Center began in 1967 and was expanded in 1973 on the ground floor of Benedict Hall with the acquisition of a new computer.
1970s
- The University Computing Center was established to cover all computer needs on campus: administrative, instructional, and research
- The data processing and computation center in 1974 was located in the former Bell Hall dining room. It boasted an IBM 360/50 with storage capability of 180 million characters.
- In October 1976, the Engineering Science complex was completed
- An interdisciplinary program in computer science was developed by business, mathematics and electrical engineering. This was despite opposition from some of the more traditional-minded faculty, who argued that computers were merely useful appliances, like toasters, and that the notion of “Computer Science” made no more sense than did “Toaster Science”
- The 700 LB Disks with the University seal were hoisted into place in September 1977
- The Computer Science program first appeared in the UTEP catalog. The program was administered by the EE department and had three “options”: Business, Computational (Algorithms) and Computer Systems
- The first full graduating class received their degrees: Jorge A. Fernandez M, Robert A. Coyne, JR., Lee A. Paicurich, Rafael J. Rasura, Daniel T. Rueda, Fernando Saenz-Chavira, and Wesley S. White
1980s
- Courses in simulating and operating systems were added. The languages of instruction included Fortran, Basi, Cobol, Pascal, Assembler
and JCL
- The Computer Science Department was founded. The founding Faculty included Dr. Steve Riter from Electrical Engineering, Dr. Michael Gelfond from mathematics, and Dr. Andrew Bernat, coming from the
institute for Astronomy in Hawaii - The new department was housed on the third floor of the Engineering Building
- In Fall of 1982, there were 657 declared majors in the field.
- Departmental status was granted to the Computer Science program by the coordinating board, Texas College and University System, and approval was given for a master’s degree program in Computer Science.
- Students used two major locations for computer terminals: one of them was in the classroom building and the other in Liberal Arts
- The master of Science in CS was first offered, with thesis and non-thesis options
- Classes in computer graphics and data communications were added.
- The Department Office moved to Bell Hall
- The first students graduate from the MS Program Andreas Hoetzel and Kay Roy.
- Courses in Artificial Intelligence, Distributed Processing, and Senior Professional Orientation were added, and the two-semester software Engineering capstone was introduced.
- The Department Office moved back to Engineering.
- Dr. Diana Natalicio was named President of UTEP.
- Courses in Computer Networks and Computer Vision were added.
- Dr. Riter left the department to become Dean, and Dr. Bernat became Chair
- Dr. Michael Gelfond received the UTEP distinguished Service Award for research
1990s
- The first issue of Ragmag, the student-produced newsletter, appeared with its distinctive humor and inside jokes.
- The old Geology Building was refurbished and CS Moved in
- The Pan-American Center for
earth and environmental studies, PACES, was established with a NASA sponsorship. - The PH.D. Program in Computer Engineering was established.
- The first CS Department website was launched; it also included the Web’s first pages on El Paso and on Juarez
- Dr. Chitta Baral receives the prestigious NSF Career Award
- Dr. Dan Cooke becomes Chair
- Dr. Cooke received the University
distinguished Achievement in Research Award. - The UTEP CS robot team won 3rd prize in the AAAI office navigation contest.
- The international Logic Programming Symposium was held at UTEP.
- The UTEP CS robot team won 1st prize in AAAI vacuum contest.
2000s
- Scheme replaced Pascal as the initial language of instruction.
- The dot.com bubble bursts
- The Masters of Information Technology (MIT) program was established
as joint project of the CS Department and theschool of Business Administration. - The undergraduate program was accredited by ABET
- Raul A. Trejo received the University’s Outstanding Dissertation Award.
- Java replaced scheme as the first language of instruction
- Dr. Gates received the University’s 2003 Chancellor’s
council award for outstanding teaching. - Dr. Kreinovich received the 2003 UTEP faculty Achievement Award for Research
- Mr. Bell’s teaching was recognized with the UTEP distinguished teaching award
- The interdisciplinary MS Program in Bioinformatics was established.
- The Lockheed-Martin “storefront” was established on campus
- Dr. Ward created the acceptance estimator for Computer Science Graduate Admissions
- Oscar Mondragon was given the University Outstanding Dissertation Award
- The Computer Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) was founded with NSF support.
- The PH. D. program in Computer Science was established
- DR. Ann Gates was named Chair
- The Challman Scholarship was established; Nidia
Pedgregon was the first awardee. - Fares Fraij was awarded the first PH.D. in Computer Science and received the outstanding dissertation award for his work.
- The Computer Science fight song was written, to be sung at the TCM and to the tune of Marty Robbin’s El Paso.
- The UNIX teaching lab was upgraded and converted from Solaris to Redhat Linux
- NSF Funding established Cyber-Share Center of Excellence.
- The semi-annual NMSU/UTEP workshop on
mathematic and Computer Science series Began. - UTEP hosted SIGDOC 2007
- UTEP, In consortium with Stanford University and other
partners was awarded the Administration of the ARMY’shigh performance computing research center
- Dr. Roach received the university’s 2008 chancellor’s council award for outstanding teaching
- The curriculum was streamlined to 120 Hours
- The masters of Science in Information Technology program was established.
- San 2007, the 13th GAMM-IMACS International Symposium on Scientific Computing, Computer Arithmetic and Validated Numerics was held at UTEP
- The center for information assurance was formed.
- Dr. Eunice Santos became Chair.
2010s
- UTEP is designated by the NSA and DHS as a national center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education.
- Jaime C. Acosta received the outstanding dissertation award.
- Dr. Martine Ceberio received the prestigious NSF career award.
- CS Hosts NAFIPS 2010.
- The department moves into the new Chemistry and Computer Science building.
- Dr. Nigel Ward becomes the Chair
- The grand opening of the Chemistry and Computer Science Building (CCSB) was on March 2, 2012.
- Luis Jimenez’s sculpture “End of the Trail (with Electric Sunset)” is moved from the library to CCSB
- Dr. Ann Gates returns as chair of the department.
- Dr. Chris Kiekintveld received the prestigious NSF Career Award.
- The Master’s of Science in Software Engineering is approved.
- An undergraduate and graduate concentration in Secure Cyber-Systems is approved.
- Minersvll@UTEP place second in IBM’s Great Mind Challenge: Watson Edition
- UTEP celebrates being 100 years old.