Below are milestones in the life of the School of Engineering Education in the context of Purdue's longstanding advances in educational innovation.
| 1953 | The Department of Freshman Engineering, the first program of its kind in the country, is established to prepare entering Purdue engineering students for their discipline of choice. |
| 1958 | The Department of Freshman Engineering creates Purdue's first honors program, for academically advanced engineering students. |
| 1969 | The Department of Freshman Engineering founds the nation's first Women in Engineering Program. |
| 1969 | The College of Engineering creates the Interdisciplinary Engineering Program. |
| 1974 | The Department of Freshman Engineering founds the Minority Engineering Program. |
| 1975 | The National Society of Black Engineers is founded at Purdue. |
| 2004 | Purdue establishes the School of Engineering Education (ENE), the first of its kind in the nation. The school brings together the First-Year Engineering Program (formerly the Department of Freshman Engineering), Multidisciplinary Engineering/Interdisciplinary Engineering Studies (formerly Interdisciplinary Engineering), and a new graduate program in engineering education. An Indiana Commission for Higher Education-approved Master's and Ph.D in Engineering Education degrees are offered. |
| 2006-2009 | ENE faculty leads in ASEE's Year of Dialogue (2006-07), in the 2006 National Engineering Education Research Colloquies, in the 2008 Research in Engineering Education Symposium, and in the 2009 NSF-sponsored symposium "Creating Engineering Education Opportunities: Why and How"?, making fundamental and comprehensive contributions ot the development of the national research agenda and its advancement. |
| 2006 | ENE grants the the first Ph.D. in the emerging field of engineering education. |
| 2006 | ENE founds the INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering. |
| 2008 | The Ideas to Innovation Learning Laboratory opens, engaging first-year students in the engineering design process. |
| 2009 | The Kamyar Haghighi Headship of Engineering Education is endowed. |
| 2010 | The Dale and Suzi Gallagher Professorship in Engineering Education is endowed. |
| 2012 | The Crowley Family Professorship in Engineering Education is endowed. |
| 2018 | ENE's Teaching and Learning in Engineering Graduate Certificate was approved by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. |
| 2018 | An Indiana Commission for Higher Education-approved version of the Teaching and Learning in Engineering Graduate Certificate goes online. |
| 2019 | An Indiana Commission for Higher Education-approved version of the Master of Science in Engineering Education goes online. |
| 2023 | The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) inducts seven ENE-affiliated individuals to its Hall of Fame, underscoring ENE's trailblazing role in enriching how engineers are prepared. No other university appears more than once on the new inductee list of 30 individuals. |
