Thanks to two record pledges of $5 million and $3.5 million over 10 years, The King’s University College announced it will be launching a School of Business.
Building on its existing and successful Bachelor of Commerce program, this donation, the largest in King’s history, will enable King’s to be a leading provider of Christian business education in Western Canada. While other Christian postsecondary institutions in Alberta offer business courses, King’s will be the only one to do so as a full School of Business.
“These gifts are a major vote of confidence from our supporting community,” said King’s president Melanie Humphreys. “We are truly grateful—these amazing new gifts will allow us to expand our Commerce program through leading-edge initiatives, setting King’s apart from many other undergraduate business programs in Western Canada. Our current Commerce program is highly regarded and has helped launch many successful careers, but limited funding has so far restricted our ability to broaden our course offerings and deepen the expertise of our full-time faculty.”
King’s will add up to six new accounting and finance-related courses as well as a new course called Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Business. The additional accounting and finance courses will allow those pursuing their accounting designation to complete their studies at King’s rather than having to go elsewhere.
“Our four-year B. Com. degree is already well-recognized in the business community,” said Dr. Humphreys. “Now King’s is poised to deliver the next level of leading-edge education in business and meet a crucial opportunity in the broader Christian community, partnering with a group of visionary advisors and sponsors to help us achieve this challenge.”
The School of Business will start July 1, 2014, with intake for September 2014.
About the Author
A former nurse and chaplain, Janet Greidanus is a freelance news correspondent and long-time writer of the In Memoriam column for The Banner.