IU’s Office of the Bicentennial is taking IU’s history on the road with its interactive exhibit “All for You,” otherwise known as the “Big Red Bus.”
The bus tour began in September and will visit all 92 counties in Indiana by August 2020.
"Our goal is for visitors to gain a better understanding of how Indiana University impacts the state of Indiana," said Jeremy Hackerd, project manager for the Office of the Bicentennial. "Hopefully the exhibit will inspire people to apply for admission, support university programs or get involved in some other way."
Hackerd said the exhibit’s main focus is to inform Indiana residents of IU’s affect on the state and how the university has improved their lives.
The bus features content from every IU campus and includes historical images, objects from IU’s collections such as old athletic equipment and a championship ring from the 2012 NCAA College Cup, small models of significant sites and objects including Showalter Fountain and the Old Oaken Bucket and even a virtual reality experience of every IU campus.
“We reached out to all the collections at every campus and asked what materials they might have to tell the history of IU,” said Heather Calloway, executive director of University Collections at IU. “We have either an artifact, video or photo from every campus.”
The bus also includes a map of the state depicting locations of all nine IU campuses, interactive touch screen monitors for the viewing of short films along with other artifacts from IU’s history.
The bus stopped Nov. 6 at South Central Community School Corporation in Union Mills, Indiana. Superintendent Theodore Stevens booked the bus after seeing a press release and said he wanted his students to experience an exhibit from a large university.
“It’s exciting because our school is so small, and to have one of the largest universities in the state of Indiana have an exhibit for us is really exciting,” Stevens said.
The Office of the Bicentennial has also included an interactive virtual tour of the Big Red Bus itself online.
Visits from the bus can be booked online through the Office of the Bicentennial’s website. The Office of the Bicentennial will announce bus stops on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram along with its website’s events page.
