The College of Home Economics traces its beginnings to the 1896 cooking courses taught by the institution’s first female faculty member, Minnie A. Stoner. UT was the first land-grant university in the South to offer such courses. Classes stopped when Miss Stoner left the institution for Kansas State following the 1897–98 year.
Anna Gilchrist, who had studied home economics at Teachers College of Columbia University, was employed in 1903 to teach home economics as part of the curriculum of the new Education Department. After the collapse of the Education Department, the Department of Home Economics was incorporated into the College of Liberal Arts. UT was the first state university to credit home economics courses toward a degree and, later, to allow entrance credit for work in domestic science done in secondary schools. The Department of Home Economics was subsequently combined as a school into agriculture. The school became independent of the College of Agriculture in 1938 and was named a college in 1957. The UT Board of Trustees changed its name from College of Home Economics to College of Human Ecology on September 27, 1985, and the college was merged with education into the present College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences in 2002.