Our university has gone through several name changes: the Missouri School of Mines (MSM, established in 1870) became the University of Missouri - Rolla (UMR) in 1964 and Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) in 2008.

Although our university has offered English classes for more than 100 years, the English major was created in 1967. At that time, English was part of the Department of Humanities. A separate English department was created in 1984. The first chair of the Humanities department was Dr. Jim C. Pogue, and the first chair of the English department was Dr. Jim Wise—both of whom were English professors.

Missouri S&T has been offering technical writing courses for more than a century, as well, but the B.S. and M.S. degrees in technical communication are relatively new: they were launched in 2005. At about the same time, the Department of English changed its name to the Department of English and Technical Communication.

History of Missouri S&T

History of Technical Communication at Missouri S&T