About IDEA HS

paperIllinois recognizes the urgency of homeland security education, so that professionals in every field have the knowledge to prevent, manage, and recover from both natural and human-made disasters. First responders such as police, fire, and EMTs obviously need up-to-the-minute training.  So do administrators and planners in business and industry, education, government, health care, and social services.

In 2006, homeland security education and training were limited in Illinois. Nearly all existing programs targeted first responders, and no certificates, baccalaureate or graduate degrees were available except in computer security.  Expertise did exist, but it was scattered across many of the public universities.

The Illinois Board of Higher Education awarded an innovation grant to Northern Illinois University and Western Illinois University to establish an alliance that shares courses, unique faculty expertise and other resources for homeland security education. The alliance is called Illinois IDEA HS, the Innovative Delivery Education Alliance for Homeland Security.

Now, the eight Alliance universities offer courses needed by students across the state without transferring or shuffling paperwork from multiple universities. Courses are taught by the most qualified instructors in the state, giving students quality experience in homeland security education.

The Alliance has the following purposes:

  1. Create and maintain a seamless system for administration of registration, course sharing, and revenue-sharing for homeland security courses across all participating institutions.
  2. Develop a multi-disciplinary, inter-institutional framework for homeland security education.
  3. Deliver credit and non-credit homeland security education that combines best practices in instruction and cutting-edge research in this multidisciplinary field.
  4. Develop a clearinghouse of information for the public, professionals, researchers, and policy makers.
  5. Provide leadership for grant writing and other initiatives to sustain the work of the alliance.

How IDEA HS Works
For a quick overview of how the course sharing process will work for students and individual university operations, take a look at this presentation.

History of Illinois’ Homeland Security Education Initiatives
Illinois IDEA HS grew out of the work of a committee hosted by the Illinois Board of Higher Education in 2005. This document summarizes committee findings and recommendations.