Alberta-North and eCampusAlberta announce merger

Calgary – Two leaders in the field of distance education – Alberta-North and eCampusAlberta – have announced an agreement to merge their organizations. The merger has been in the planning stages for many months and has recently received approval from both organizations’ Boards of Directors to take effect July 1, 2011.

This move is an exciting opportunity for both organizations and their members to find new ways to work together to better support learner success across the province. The event is also an important milestone on the path towards the realization of the Campus Alberta vision, a strategy led by the Ministry of Advanced Education and Technology that is designed to put the interests of the learner first.

Leveraging expertise
As one merged entity, Alberta-North and eCampusAlberta will have the opportunity to leverage their combined ability to provide both online learning opportunities with community based learner support services to students living in rural, remote and northern areas of the province.

Each organization brings a complementary focus and perspective to the new entity. Alberta-North offers a strong focus on building the capacity of its members to support adult students to participate in online and distance learning endeavours in their home communities. eCampusAlberta brings a strong focus on supporting member institutions to increase access to high quality online learning opportunities, thereby increasing the breadth and diversity of courses and programs available.

“I am excited about the potential Alberta-North and eCampusAlberta have to significantly impact the services provided to the diversity of learners across the province,” says Ralph Weeks, Chair, eCampusAlberta Board of Directors and President and CEO, Medicine Hat College.

“Alberta-North is a leader in providing support to learners living in remote communities in Northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories and they will bring their extensive expertise to the new organization, which will enable learners everywhere in Alberta to benefit from the services they provide,” Weeks says.

“eCampusAlberta will complement this with their expertise in ensuring high quality online learning opportunities are available to learners across the province and through their ongoing commitment to bringing more high quality services to online students,” he says.

“The merger of these two leading distance and online education organizations supports Campus Alberta’s vision of collaboration to deliver quality and innovative learning opportunities to all Albertans. Their combined synergies will foster expansion of core services and lifelong learning for rural online and distance learners from the far north to the south of our great province,” says Don Gnatiuk, Chair, Alberta-North Board of Directors and President and CEO, Grande Prairie Regional College.

With Board approval now behind them, the two non-profit societies will spend the next few weeks finalizing their merger agreement and determining the best ways they can work together to support their members and learners in Alberta’s post-secondary education system.

The merger is not expected to result in the loss of any positions either directly reporting to or associated with either organization.

For more information, please contact:

Tricia Donovan
Executive Director, eCampusAlberta
403-210-5638
tricia.donovan@ecampusalberta.ca