University of North Texas

By Gina Pumphrey, administrative coordinator, Engineering Technology

The Department of Engineering Technology will celebrate its 20th anniversary from 6 to 8 p.m., Sept. 20 at Discovery Park with a reception and alumni recognition.

Enrique Barbiere, above right, chair, and College of Engineering Dean Costas Tsatsoulis will welcome about 30 alumni with graduation years ranging from 1942 to 2012. Guests will have an opportunity to visit the labs, talk to faculty, staff and students and see the latest technology being taught to today’s students, and share our vision for the future of ETEC.

The Engineering technology department’s early beginnings are from 1919 until 1926, when technology-related courses were offered in the Department of Manual Arts of the School of Education at then-North Texas Normal College and later North Texas State Teacher’s College. The Department of Manual Arts was renamed as the Department of Industrial Education in 1926, and was the Department of Industrial Arts from 1939 to the early 1980’s.

The need for the department to keep up with regional industry demands prompted yet another change from the Department of Industrial Arts to the Department of Industrial Technology which was also relocated to the College of Arts and Sciences in 1986.

In those years, the university also saw institutional name changes to North Texas State College in 1949, North Texas State University in 1961, and the University of North Texas in 1988.

The ever changing technology and the requirements of professional accreditation organizations motivated yet another change from the Department of Industrial Technology to the Department of Engineering Technology in the Fall of 1992.  Engineering technology was later moved to the College of Engineering in 2003 as one of the college’s three founding departments.