2013-2014

News Release

REF NO.: 14

SUBJECT: Gardiner Centre expands digital marketing program to Saskatchewan and Minnesota

DATE: September 24, 2013

The Gardiner Centre at Memorial University recently established partnerships to expand its digital marketing program to universities in Saskatchewan and Minnesota.
The Gardiner Centre, an outreach arm of the Faculty of Business Administration which offers management and professional development training to business professionals, is set to offer its digital marketing program at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, Minn., and the University of Saskatchewan in October 2013 and April 2014, respectively. The program also takes place at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University, and at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ont., for a total of five program locations.
"The expansion of the digital marketing program into other universities shows the quality of the training developed by Lyle Wetsch and the Gardiner Centre,” said Brian Hurley, director of the Gardiner Centre. “Partnering not only provides new opportunities for growth – it puts the Gardiner Centre and the Faculty of Business Administration at Memorial on an international stage.
The digital marketing program was developed in consultation with and is facilitated by Prof. Wetsch, an associate professor of marketing at Memorial’s Faculty of Business Administration. Prof. Wetsch has been on the leading edge of the digital revolution for the past 10 years and has received global commendations for his work in social media, including being listed among Social Media Marketing Magazine’s Top 100 Marketing Professors on Twitter, being the only Canadian professor included on the Top 50 Business Professors on Twitter (www.MBAPrograms.org) and being named as one of the Top 100 Web Savvy Professors for 2012 by Best Online Universities.
Prof. Wetsch was also the first person from a Canadian business school to win the 2013 Hormel Master Teacher Award from the Marketing Management Association presented in the spring of 2013, and he won the Faculty of Business Administration Dean’s Teaching Innovation Award in 2012.
“At Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan, we are very excited about being able to partner with the Gardiner Centre to run the digital marketing program locally,” said Christina Dolan, program manager of executive education at the Edwards School of Business. “We are launching our first certificate April 29 to May 1, 2014, on social media and e-marketing and are looking forward to having Lyle Wetsch come and share his knowledge and expertise. After hearing Lyle speak at a conference and witnessing his vast understanding of the content first-hand, we are confident that the pull for this program will be having such a strong facilitator to lead the discussion.”
“At the University of St. Thomas we feel that a consistent and well-delivered message about a topic that is constantly changing is pivotal to our mission,” said Joseph Bork, director of executive education open enrolment and custom programs executive education at the University of St. Thomas. “That is why we sought out a thought leader like Prof. Wetsch. His evolving messages as technology and content changes is the solution to our seminar participants who expect a seasoned thought leader of highly topical material.”
 
About the Gardiner Centre
As an outreach arm of the Faculty of Business Administration, the Gardiner Centre offers management and professional development training to business professionals, employees, executives and entrepreneurs in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Formed in 2008 as an amalgamation of the Centre for Management Development and the P.J. Gardiner Institute, which had served the needs of businesses and organizations for nearly 30 years, the Gardiner Centre offers professional development certificate programs and seminars in a wide array of business areas. To learn more about the Gardiner Centre and its upcoming offerings, visit www.busi.mun.ca/gardinercentre/.   
 
About the Digital Marketing Program
The Digital Marketing Program is composed of three certificate programs, each with six modules, as well as five power workshops and three industry-specific programs. The certificate programs are designed to provide an introduction to digital marketing tools while the power workshops provide more in-depth, personalized learning once one or more of the certificate modules have been completed.
The three certificates are Social Media and E-Marketing Certificate, Advanced Social Media Marketing Certificate and Digital Communications and Advertising Certificate. The power workshops provide targeted information on social media topics such as Google+, HootSuite, Facebook marketing, LinkedIn and YouTube. The industry-specific programs are customized for the unique demands of government, health care and education.
First offered at the Gardiner Centre in St. John’s in 2010, the digital marketing program has been completed by 435 participants while more than 2,500 people have participated in one or more individual modules. For more information, visit www.digitalmarketingprogram.ca.

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