page_title: Missouri University of Science and Technology
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Missouri University of Science and Technology / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Rolla Building from a southeast perspective, on the Missouri S&amp;T campus in Rolla, Missouri, Homecoming weekend 2008
context_page_description: Missouri S&T, or Missouri University of Science and Technology, is a public land grant and space grant university in Rolla, Missouri. It is a member institution of the University of Missouri System. Most of its 8,096 students study engineering, business, sciences, and mathematics. Known primarily for its engineering school, Missouri S&T offers degree programs in business and management systems, information science and technology, sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts.
context_section_description: Missouri S&T was founded in 1870 as the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (MSM), the first technological learning institution west of the Mississippi River. Early in its history, the School of Mines was focused primarily on mining and metallurgy. Rolla is located close to the Southeast Missouri Lead District which produces about 70% of the U.S. primary supply of lead as well as significant amounts of the nation's zinc.
  The school was founded under the auspices of the University of Missouri in Columbia in order to take advantage of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts to "teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life." The act endowed Missouri a federal land grant of 30,000 acres for each of the state's two senators and nine representatives at the time—or 330,000 acres (133,546.26 ha; 515.62 sq mi). The endowment said that the land could not be sold for less than $1.25/acre and as such as was a minimum endowment of $412,500 for Missouri. There was an intense debate in the state over the location and number of schools before it was finally decided to have one school in Columbia and a branch in the mining area of southeast Missouri.
  Iron County, Missouri (Ironton, Missouri) and Phelps County, Missouri (Rolla) made bids for the school. Iron County's bid was valued at $112,545 and Phelps County's bid was $130,545 so the Phelps bid was officially approved on December 20, 1870.
  Classes began in November 23, 1871 in a new Rolla High School building that the city of Rolla had just built. The college had an enrollment of 28 and three graduates in 1874. The college bought what is now called the "Rolla Building" for $25,000 in January 1875. That building is now used as the Mathematics and Statistics Department's library, chair's office, part of the main office, and other faculty offices following a $2 million renovation in 1995.
  By the 1920s, the school expanded into civil, electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering as well as chemistry, physics, mathematics and geology. The school became home to Missouri's first operational nuclear reactor in 1961.
  In June 2018, the school was approved by the state's Coordinating Board for Higher Education for designation as "highly selective" in its undergraduate admission criteria, joining only Truman State University among the state's public universities at that level. As such, first-time, full-time students seeking degrees are generally only admitted if they have a "percentile score" of 140 points or greater, a combination of their high school class and college testing (ACT or SAT) percentile ranks. Missouri Department of Higher Education guidelines state that schools in this category may admit up to ten percent of students with lower percentile scores, and will automatically admit those with an ACT (or equivalent SAT) score of 27 or better.
caption: The Rolla Building, 2008
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "uD800,S800", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Version 1.1", "Image DateTime": "2008:10:17 16:58:08", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "266", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 37, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "7476", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7937", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "16/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Creative", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "640", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:10:17 16:58:08", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:10:17 16:58:08", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "297/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "88", "EXIF FocalLength": "23/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "855", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "691", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "722", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}