Department History

The Department of Computer Science was created in July, 1980, when the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics was divided into two departments. From its inception until May 1996 the Department was housed in LeConte College in the College of Arts and Sciences. In May 1996 the Department made the long anticipated move into newly renovated space in Sumwalt. This greatly increased the space available; in particular for research laboratories. In 1998 the Department of Computer Science had 13 full-time faculty, 115 graduate students and roughly 40 graduate assistants. Separately, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering was housed in the College of Engineering. In 2000 the Department of Computer Science merged with the computing faculty in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department to form the new Computer Science and Engineering department and moved to its current home in the Swearingen Engineering building.