The Yale Center for Media and Instructional Innovation reports to the senior director of Academic and Media Technology (AM&T) as part of Yale Information Technology Services (ITS).

The idea for an innovative media center to enhance pedagogy first arose from recommendations by the Cooke Committee in 1997-98, which explored how Yale could use information technologies to enhance its curriculum and develop its own innovation capabilities through incubation. That innovation could then be shared with constituents outside Yale.

The media center concept evolved thanks to the foresight of then-Provost Alison F. Richard, who in 1998 called upon Diana EE Kleiner, Deputy Provost for the Arts, to lead the effort to create a facility where "faculty can find the encouragement and support they need to experiment with the use of information technology to enhance teaching and learning both at and from Yale."

In 1999, a new committee was created to oversee the creation of this new center and to devise ways to encourage and guide faculty to experiment with interactive methods of instruction. After careful research and exploration, the mandate for this new media center was formalized, and in the autumn of 2000 the CMI was born.

Within five years the CMI had met its original goals and undertook new initiatives in distance education and the application of state-of-the-art technology for teaching and research at Yale.

By 2006 the CMI's mission had grown significantly and was renamed The Yale Center for Media and Instructional Innovation (CMI2). The department is comprised of three unique service areas: Instructional Solutions, Broadcast Group and the Media Team.