Park University Selects eCollegeSM for Enterprise-Wide Adoption Across all Online and On-Campus Programs: eCollege to Support Continued Growth of Park’s Large and Successful Online Operation
“Because we are committed to innovative educational opportunities for all qualified learners, we provide a high-quality online experience for a growing number of faculty and students,” said Beverley Byers-Pevitts, Ph.D., president of Park University. “As we raise the bar on all our programs, eCollege’s unique ability to support our large-scale operation plays a critical role in Park’s success.”
Byers-Pevitts continued, “Not only does eCollege provide an excellent experience for Park’s student learners, it delivers a cost-effective solution with the highest level of reliability, a feature-rich and easy-to-use platform, and the ongoing support necessary to drive adoption, completion and retention.”
Park University, a pioneer in distance learning, has built a very strong program to serve the evolving educational needs of its non-traditional students, many of whom are active-duty military students facing deployments and transfers or active-duty dependents. The accredited online programs, as well as all student services surrounding Park’s online initiatives, are held to strict standards and benchmarks. All online courses are taught by instructors who have completed intensive training to develop best practices approaches for online teaching.
Park’s online degree programs experienced 47 percent growth last year, and are expected to have more than 40,000 enrollments this year. In addition to its extensive undergraduate online degree completion programs, Park’s online graduate degree programs include an industry-recognized MBA with three concentrations; a Master of Public Affairs with four concentrations; and four separate Master of Education degrees. eCollege will quickly and efficiently convert all of Park’s online degree programs, as well as its online supplements for face-to-face courses, to the eCollege platform for the 2004 summer term.
“Park University is a progressive, entrepreneurially-minded institution, and we look forward to supporting the long-term growth and success of its high-quality offerings,” said Oakleigh Thorne, chairman and CEO of eCollege. “We believe our comprehensive technology and service solution will help Park’s students, faculty and administrators achieve their academic goals.”
About Park University
Park University is a national leader in higher education with a 21,000 plus annual student enrollment located on 41 campus centers in 21 states and online. The University provides educational opportunities for students through day, weekend, evening and online classes. Park boasts a diverse student body of more than 400 international students, representing 98 countries, and a 41 percent ethnic student enrollment. Park University and the U.S. Armed Services have a long-standing relationship and the University has been recognized as one of the largest providers of online undergraduate education to the military in the country. The University has also repeatedly been recognized as one of the top 100 American colleges/universities in the nation graduating Hispanic, American Indian and African American students. Park University’s innovative educational solutions have assisted scholars around the globe achieve academic success since 1875 and Park remains faithful to its founding commitment of academic excellence and equality. For additional information about Park University, visit www.park.edu.
About eCollege
eCollege [Nasdaq: ECLG] is a leading provider of value-added information services to the post-secondary and K-12 education markets. The Company’s eLearning Division designs, builds and supports some of the most successful, fully online degree, certificate/diploma and professional development programs in the country. The Company’s Enrollment Division, Datamark, Inc., helps institutions build new enrollments and increase student retention. Customers include publicly traded for-profit institutions, community colleges, public and private universities, school districts, and state departments of education. eCollege was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Denver. Datamark was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City. For more information, visit www.eCollege.com and www.Datamark.com.
This news release contains statements that are not historical in nature and that may be characterized as “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the securities laws, including those related to the performance of our technology and service solution, customer satisfaction with our products and services, our customers’ expected course enrollments, and the success of our customers’ programs. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks. Actual results may differ materially. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from estimates or projections contained in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, our clients’ ability to achieve successful online programs, our network infrastructure and computer systems failing, the vulnerability of our network to security risks, and such other factors as are discussed in our most recent Form 10-K Annual Report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), which you are encouraged to review in connection with this release. We believe that these forward-looking statements are reasonable, however, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which are based on current expectations and speak only as of the date of this release. We are not obligated to publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this release.
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