What is today Lawrence Technological University was founded in 1932 as Lawrence Institute of Technology. The founder and first president was Russell E. Lawrence, who at the height of the Great Depression envisioned a new model of higher education that served both traditional students as well as working adults, and combined a teaching philosophy espousing both theory and practice.
He felt that engineering and technological achievements would be what would spur economic growth and recovery, both for the region and the nation. Henry and Edsel Ford agreed to lease their former Henry Ford Trade School building, located at 15100 Woodward Avenue at their iconic Model-T assembly complex in Highland Park, to the new university. The Institute remained in this facility from 1932 until a 102-acre campus in then-rural Southfield was developed in 1955 on what had been a General Mills research farm.
Lawrence Institute of Technology was founded as an engineering school, so it is perhaps fitting that the first building constructed on the new campus was the College of Engineering building. The campus master plan was created by professer Earl W. Pellerin, who also led the teams that designed the Engineering, Architecture, and Science Buildings, University Housing-South, Campus Facilities building, and what was originally the president’s residence.
