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Newly Digitized KUHT Films Now Online

Digitization, KUHT Collection, University Archives

Dr. H. Burr Roney teaches telecourse in Biology, 1953.

University of Houston Libraries Special Collections is pleased to announce the recent addition of 112 digitized films from the KUHT Film and Video Collection to the Audio/Video Repository. The films, dating between 1953 and the 1970s were digitized with the generous support of the CLIR Recordings at Risk grant. These films represent some of KUHT-TV’s earliest productions and include examples of the United State’s nascent educational and public television system.

After twelve years experience in Hollywood Arnold Bergene joined KUHT as an editor.

KUHT’s first aircheck took place on May 25, 1953. The station began broadcasting the following month, making it the United States’ first educational, non-profit television station to go on air. KUHT was a pioneering influence in the field of “tele-education,” creating for-credit college courses. Included in these recently digitized materials are several of Dr. H. Burr Roney’s biology courses, which went on the air in the station’s first year. By 1958, the freshman biology telecourse “had the greatest enrollment of any standard college course given by television at any school in the nation.” ¹

In the 1960s, KUHT moved away from the production of for-credit college courses but continued to produce elementary education programs in partnership with the Houston Independent School District, as well as content for the enrichment of all viewers. Many KUHT productions documented the activities of the University of Houston and the Gulf Coast region.

Highlights include from the recently digitized materials include:

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