The university's growing global footprint now includes its flagship campus in Boston and regional campuses in Charlotte, Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Toronto

TORONTO, Nov. 2, 2015 /CNW/ - Building on the success of its regional campus network in selected U.S. cities, Northeastern University will launch its first international campus in 2016. Northeastern, the global leader in experiential learning, will open a location in Toronto, Ontario, where it will offer professional graduate programs that are industry-aligned and tailored to meet the specific needs of learners and employers in the region.

Northeastern is the first comprehensive research university to be granted approval by the Ontario government to offer multiple degree programs in Ontario without a local educational partner.

The campus in Toronto will expand Northeastern's growing global footprint, which includes its flagship campus in Boston; regional campuses in Charlotte, North Carolina, Seattle, and Silicon Valley; and more than 3,000 industry partners worldwide.

"No university can be confined to a single campus," said Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun. "Because of co-op, a Northeastern education has never been limited to the campus. This initiative is a more intentional approach to taking our educational model around the world. Toronto's culture of innovation and increased demand for a highly skilled workforce make it an excellent regional partner for Northeastern. We are excited to build a bright future together." The initial program portfolio in Ontario, beginning in 2016, will focus on fields in high demand from employers in the region, including master's degree programs in project management; information assurance; and regulatory affairs for drugs, biologics, and medical devices. The programs will be offered through online and hybrid delivery, providing learners—particularly working professionals—with flexibility and accessibility to graduate programs without having to leave the workforce.

"This is great news for the city of Toronto," added John Tory, mayor of Toronto. "Toronto is already known for having a diverse, knowledgeable, and innovative workforce, and by joining a network of cities like Boston, Charlotte, Seattle, and Silicon Valley with our very own Northeastern University campus, we will enhance that reputation."

The Toronto region boasts a population of more than 6 million people, along with a strong, diversified concentration of major corporations. The area features a robust knowledge economy with a rising demand for graduate-educated professionals, which will be the focus of Northeastern's educational offerings. Efforts are well advanced to identify the location of the downtown Toronto campus and a systematic search of the market has yielded wide interest and a strong list of candidates for the Toronto campus founding dean and chief executive officer.

The university's Toronto curriculum will provide learners with experiential opportunities that leverage the educational power of their workplace experiences. "We are pioneering new ways to incorporate experiential education into our degree programs, not only through our co-op model, but also through real-world, project-based work with our industry partner," said Philomena Mantella, senior vice president and CEO of the Northeastern University Global Network. "As a global, experiential, urban research university, Northeastern is uniquely positioned to sustain and grow an educational presence in Toronto and to meet the needs expressed by employers and learners in the region."

Northeastern's expanding regional-campus network provides graduate-level education for learners in regions across North America. The portfolio of degrees offered at the university's Charlotte campus has increased three-fold since the 2011 launch, and enrollment at both the Charlotte and Seattle locations continues to climb—including increases of 44 percent and 8 percent in Seattle and Charlotte, respectively, over the past year. The university's presence in those regions has also produced a spike in the number of undergraduate applications to the Boston campus, with increases of 57 percent from the northwest and 46 percent from the southeast regions.

The university's selection of Toronto as the location of its first international campus resulted from a three-year process of research and extensive consultation with industry partners, as well as comprehensive program and organizational reviews completed by Ontario's Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board.

SOURCE Northeastern University

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