The
University of Texas at El Paso (
UTEP) is a public, research, Ph.D.-granting institution in the
University of Texas System. The school was founded in 1914 as the
State School of Mines and Metallurgy, and a practice mineshaft survives on the mountainous desert campus. Following a reorganization of the University of Texas in 1920, the school was renamed the
College of Mines and Metallurgy of the University of Texas. It became
Texas Western College of the University of Texas in 1949, and
The University of Texas at El Paso in 1967.