A brief look back

On March 11, 1967, the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications Act was signed into law. This act authorized the trustees of the four state-supported universities—Ball State University, Indiana State University, Indiana University, and Purdue University—“to jointly arrange...for the use of a multipurpose, multimedia, closed circuit, statewide telecommunications system...to interconnect the...campuses of the universities, and centers of medical education and service.”

Subsequent legislatures added the trustees of Vincennes University, Indiana Vocational Technical College (now Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana), the Independent Colleges of Indiana, and the University of Southern Indiana to that list.

The system that evolved from this legislation has become known as the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication System, or IHETS. Each public and private higher education institution has equal representation within the IHETS governance structure. Thus, all Indiana colleges and universities are members of the IHETS consortium and, as such, are eligible for and entitled to receive its services.

Over the years, member institutions have increasingly used IHETS to expand outreach and educational services to a wide range of organizations. To maximize the opportunity for collaboration among educational providers statewide, IHETS expanded to include representation from K-12 schools, public libraries, state government, and public broadcasting in 1999.

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