The College of Engineering has a long history of excellence.

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In the beginning, there was the Industrial College. Housed in University Hall, the first building on the University Of Nebraska Campus, the college included agriculture and the School of Mechanical Arts, a sort of trade school. The first civil engineering classes were taught in 1877 by an ROTC lieutenant who was paid $400 a year.

As the importance of engineering education grew, so did the need for space. In 1898 the Mechanical Arts Building (later Stout Hall) was constructed, housing Engineering Mechanics, Civil Engineering and the Math Department.

In 1909, the State Legislature passed an act providing for a reorganization of the colleges that formed the University. The act replaced the old Industrial College with two offshoots:

• The College of Engineering and
• The College of Agriculture

At that time the college had 400 students, and by 1911, its first real home in the Mechanical Engineering Building (now Richards Hall). More than three decades later, a chemical engineering wing was added to Avery Hall and in 1958, chemical engineering became a department.

Agricultural Engineering came into existence in 1907 and the Agricultural Engineering Building was built in 1918 on East Campus. Renamed L. W. Chase Hall, after the first head of Ag Engineering, the building now houses the Department of Biological Systems Engineering, which includes Agricultural Engineering.

Around 1950, Electrical Engineering moved into the newly built Ferguson Hall, which was equipped with modern laboratories for electrical study. Until then, classes were taught in buildings scattered across the campus, including the power laboratory in the old "E. E. Barn," a temporary building outside the back door of the Mechanical Arts Building. The temporary building, built after World War I to house surplus electric motors, generators and other equipment, was used for about 30 years. It also was around this time that the Mechanical Arts Building was gutted and rebuilt, primarily for civil engineering. The refurbished building was renamed Stout Hall for Dean Stout, who was dean during World War I, and contained laboratories, new classrooms, offices and an engineering library. It was torn down in 1974 and replaced with Manter Hall Life Sciences Building. Civil Engineering moved into the building in 1974.

The influx of engineering students after World War II created the need for more classrooms and laboratories. To alleviate overcrowding, the university bought six buildings - each measured about 2,400 square feet - from the Lincoln Air Base and several other military installations. Most of the classes held in the temporaries were Engineering Mechanics; however, Bancroft Hall, an elementary school, became the main building for the Engineering Mechanics Department after it was purchased from Lincoln Public Schools in 1941.

Enrollment continued to grow and technologies continued to advance, making obsolete many of the buildings that housed the laboratories and classrooms. The purchase of Nebraska Hall in 1958 from the Elgin Watch Factory gave the University an additional 440,000 square feet; however, it was not until early 1971 that engineering moved into the west half of the building. Nebraska Hall houses the departments of :

• Construction Management
• Civil Engineering
• Engineering Mechanics
• Industrial and Management Systems Engineering
• Engineering Library

The addition of Walter Scott Engineering Center (WSEC), which was dedicated in1972, opened many new possibilities for professors and students in the College with its leading-edge laboratories, research centers and the engineering shops. Later, the link between WSEC and Nebraska Hall was completed and became home to Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Other departments on the Lincoln campus are Computer Science and Engineering in Ferguson Hall, and Chemical Engineering in Othmer Hall.

In the early 1970's, the University of Nebraska became a system of universities comprised of UNL, and the medical center and a municipal university in Omaha. With UNL as the flagship of the system came several changes.

The College of Engineering had become the College of Engineering and Architecture. In 1970, UNL's College of Engineering merged with Omaha's College of Engineering and Technology to form the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Engineering and Technology. Architecture became a separate college 1974. Engineering departments in Omaha are:

• Architectural Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Construction Systems Technology
• Computer and Electronics Engineering
• Industrial Systems Technology Peter Kiewitt Institute

In 1995, the Peter Kiewit Institute for Information Science, Technology, and Engineering was formed to better meet the changing needs of students and local industry. The Institute brings together the UNL College of Engineering and Technology, the University of Nebraska at Omaha College of Information Science and Technology, and local industry. Its goal is to merge the cultures of higher education and business to create an ideal learning environment for Nebraska's information science professionals for the next century. The Peter Kiewit Institute opened in 1999 with each college occupying a wing. The Institute is located at 67th and Pacific streets in Omaha.

The latest change to affect the College of Engineering and Technology is the construction of Donald F. Othmer Hall, the new home of the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Office of College Relations and the Dean's office suite. Othmer Hall is located on the south side of Walter Scott Engineering Center at 17th and Vine streets.

The four-story brick and limestone building features the latest in research laboratory design, including a bio-process manufacturing facility, the first of its kind in any American university; a state-of-the-art computer control system for laboratories; and next-generation distance education technology.

Funding for the $24 million building came from the estate of Mildred Topp Othmer, who died in 1998. Mildred, a 1928 graduate of UNL, was the widow of Donald F. Othmer, a noted chemical engineer and professor at Polytechnic Institute of New York in Brooklyn. Donald graduated from the University of Nebraska with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1924 and earned a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Michigan. Throughout his long career he accumulated 150 patents in a variety of fields. In 1947, he and Raymond Kirk, a Polytechnic colleague, published the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. The 27-volume collection is a mainstay in virtually every university, research facility and company that uses chemical processes.