The University of Texas of the
Permian Basin began in 1973 as a university that initially offered only junior, senior, and graduate level programs. Among those who pushed for the establishment of UTPB was the oil industrialist
Bill Noël, who with his wife, Ellen Witwer Noël, became major philanthropists of the institution. In 1991 the university began accepting freshmen and sophomore applicants, and in 2000, the J. Conrad Dunagen Library and Lecture Center was completed, featuring a twenty-station multimedia lab and classroom. During 2006, the university was holding discussions with the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the construction of a new High-Temperature Teaching and Test Reactor which, if successful, would finish licensing and construction around 2012. It would also be the first university-based research reactor to be built in the US in roughly a decade, and one of the few
HTGR type reactors in the world. In late November in 2016 the city of Odessa granted site permission. That was the first step in official authorization. On April 17, 2008, the university broke ground on a new Science and Technology Complex. The new building houses chemistry, biology, physics, computer science, and information technology programs. The new building contains 41 labs, 56 offices, six classrooms, and three sunken lecture halls. Despite warnings from a UTPB Geology professor, the contractor failed to identify an underground aquifer that could cause the building supports to sink. Construction was delayed while the contractor reinforced the building supports after drilling into the aquifer; however, the building opened in time for the Fall 2011 semester. The building houses classrooms, multiple laboratories including two large demonstration labs, a 200-seat lecture hall, and a state-of-the-art Data Communications Teaching Lab for undergraduate and graduate students. The Computer Science Department maintains a computer science research lab and a computer networking research lab. A state-of-the-art building known as the
Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center is now open in the Midland campus, off
Hwy 191 and
FM 1788. Construction began in 2009 and the center opened with a grand gala featuring
Rod Stewart on November 1, 2011. The following year, UTPB announced the opening of its 55 million dollar
engineering building. ==Campus==