School of Engineering, Yale University, records

Applied science and engineering instruction at Yale began in the year 1846 with the establishment of Agricultural Chemistry and Applied Chemistry professorships by the Yale Corporation. The following year, 1847, this "School of Applied Chemistry" was included within the newly created Department of Philosophy and the Arts. In 1852 a School of Engineering was instituted with the approval of a civil engineering professorship. Science and engineering courses were independent, but listed together in the catalogue "under the aegis of a non-existent institution" known as the Yale Scientific School. Efforts were made in 1856 to formally organize a school of science; a proposed plan was drawn up and fund raising pamphlets issued. The generous donations of funds and property by Joseph Earl Sheffield in 1858 made possible the official establishment of the Yale Scientific School, in which chemistry and engineering courses were offered. In recognition of Sheffield's continued patronage, the Yale Scientific School was renamed the Sheffield Scientific School (SSS) in 1861. The SSS experienced numerous academic and physical changes during the years that followed. In 1932 the School of Engineering was re-established and SSS engineering courses transferred to the new school. The SSS began to function at the graduate level only in 1945 when undergraduate courses for the Bachelor of Science degree were transferred to Yale College. SSS was terminated in 1956, and its faculty moved to the Division of Science to teach graduate courses. In 1961 a separate Engineering and Applied Science Department was established. This department was reorganized in 1981 into the Council of Engineering, which consisted of the Department of Chemical Engineering and three engineering sections: applied physics, electrical, and applied mechanics. The council became the Departments of Chemical, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering along with one section of applied physics in 1983. The Department of Biomedical Engineering was created in 2003. In 2008 the department became the School of Engineering and Applied Science. In 2010 the Department of Mechanical Engineering was renamed the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, the Department of Chemical Engineering was renamed the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, and Applied Physics became a department in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In 2015 the Department of Computer Science became part of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.