The Hispanic Educational Telecommunications System (HETS) received at the beginning of this semester the membership requests from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, National University in La Jolla, California, and the New Jersey City University, as a part of the outreach efforts done recently to affiliate new member institutions. HETS has now a membership of 22 leading higher education institutions in Puerto Rico, Colombia, and states such as California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Founded in 1993, the consortium is the nation’s first bilingual distance education consortium and has its headquarters on the Inter American University of Puerto Rico.
The new HETS member institutions have the commitment of offering to their students a quality educational face to face experience, as well as at a distance. Each of them has unique characteristics that contribute to the enrichment and diversity of the Consortium. Kutztown University is a member of the State system of Higher Education of Pennsylvania. Kutztown University is committed to continuous improvement, partnerships, and collaborations that encourage the development of citizens who contribute to a global society. Currently 8,200 students from 20 states and 40 countries are enrolled at this university.
National University, a 4-year private, not-for-profit university system, is a leader in online education, offering numerous online graduate and undergraduate degree programs, as well as credential and certificate programs. It’s dedicated to making lifelong adult learning opportunities accessible, challenging and relevant to a diverse population of adult learners. National University in La Jolla, has a total enrollment of 16,848 students, out of which 16% are of a Hispanic origin.
New Jersey City University, which is New Jersey’s only public urban college, is the premier cooperative education college in the state of New Jersey. It is also a leader in distance learning, offering courses and degree programs online, as well as valuable web-based support services for their students.
HETS is currently redesigning its website, adding the best links numerous online resources, courses, and programs that member institutions have already located in their own websites. This will give other member institutions the opportunity of sharing valuable online learning and student support resources that may provide a greater access to Hispanic students through the HETS portal. Also, HETS is looking forward to fostering new opportunities for building additional partnerships and collaboration initiatives among all its member institutions. For more information about HETS and its projects, visit us at www.hets.org and virtualplaza.org.