EC-Council Announces 2022 Academia Award Winning Cybersecurity Institutions in North America

Awards Recognize Successful College and University Programs Certifying and Graduating Work-Ready Students

TAMPA, Fla , Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today EC-Council announced its Academia award winning institutions from 2022. The eight honored institutions include leading college and university cybersecurity programs with a track record of providing a rigorous, hands-on cybersecurity education program to diverse communities of students. Award recipients are selected annually from among EC-Council's network of affiliated Academia Partner institutions.

"It is a privilege to support a growing number of institutions and academic communities across North America offering influential cybersecurity programs and initiatives. Last year, we noticed drastic changes in flexible learning models and modalities to recruit and retool broad audiences from IT and other fields to the lucrative field of cybersecurity," said Wesley Alvarez, Director of Academics at EC-Council. "With the nation's current gap in cyber jobs, estimated at 700,000 now by the U.S. government's Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency, the role of higher education is mission critical in producing well-rounded leaders capable of managing the people, technologies, and processes that keep our organizations and communities secure. The winning institutions offer some of the best programs for educating these leaders."

The winning institutions include:

Academia Partner of the Year Award winner

Western Governors University (Salt Lake City, UT)

Academia Circle of Excellence Award winners

University of Maryland Global Campus (Adelphi, MD)

University of Phoenix (Phoenix, AZ)

ECPI University (Virginia Beach, VA)

Forsyth Technical Community College (Winston-Salem, NC)

Queen's College of Business, Technology and Public Safety (Mississauga, Ontario)

Academia Innovator of the Year Award winner

Collin College (Allen, TX)

Academia Best Newcomer of the Year Award winner

Maryville University (St. Louis, MO)

The leadership of these honored institutions had a lot to say about their overall mission to enhance cybersecurity skill development and produce work-ready graduates for a successful career. "The values and criteria of the selection process directly reflect our mission of preparing students for EC-Council certifications, graduation and the workforce," said Douglas Harrison, Vice President and Dean of UMGC's School of Cybersecurity and Information Technology. "That the number of UMGC students pursuing EC-Council certifications is one of the largest in the country reflects our commitment to providing students with the skills employers value most."  

"University of Phoenix is honored to receive a Circle of Excellence award for the fourth consecutive year. We are proud of the work we do with EC-Council to educate the current and future cybersecurity workforce through courses, certificates, and degree programs aligned to EC-Council certifications," said Kathryn Uhles, Dean, College of Business and Information Technology. "We look forward to continuing our collaboration with EC-Council to help prepare future cyber professionals and help current cyber professionals specialize in their skills."

"This is an encouraging recognition for our staff and faculty teaching in this program. We are happy with the news and gratefully accept this award," said Jennifer Zhang, CEO and President of Queen's College. "The College has been and is committed to providing high-quality education to international students in a variety of fields, including its Computer School, which is shaped by many different academic programs. They shared that their focus is on the continuous improvement of all their programs, remarking that building solid relationships with third-party experts and renowned organizations like EC-Council helps them to objectively work in that direction. Good news like this reinforces our drive to work harder and make a difference in education. Our goal is to prepare our students for a successful career start. For students in this program, in specific, we want to make sure they will be able to effectively contribute to the Canadian Cybersecurity workforce."

"Collin College is honored to be recognized as the EC-Council Academia Innovator of the Year," said Ervin Frenzel, Director of Workforce Cybersecurity, Collin College. "Working with a program that believes in improving skills for entry-level cybersecurity technicians is critical to better our local, state, and national cybersecurity stance; fortunately, EC-Council consistently delivers needed resources quickly and accurately for our student population." 

EC-Council Academia honors leading institutions and instructors annually through the EC-Council Academia Partner Awards. Individual instructor awards were also recognized earlier this month based on innovative and adaptive teaching styles in their classroom and online. A full list of 2022 partner award recipients is currently available.

About EC-Council Academia

The EC-Council Academia partner program, led by EC-Council's academic division, offers free partnership opportunities to academic institutions globally. These partnerships establish cybersecurity education ecosystems that support students, alumni, faculty, employees, and communities. Through established partnerships, academic institutions can access extensive discounts on content, evaluate learning resources, offer student-stackable credentials, initiate faculty development, provide scholarships, and facilitate cyber competitions. To date, EC-Council supports upwards of 2,500 education networks and institutions globally, with over 1,000 recently participating since the relaunch of the academia program in 2018. EC-Council works with many top cybersecurity programs worldwide, including Western Governors University, the University of Maryland Global Campus, the NATO School, many National Centers of Academic Excellence, statewide education systems, and many ministry initiatives. EC-Council's Academia partner program helps certify tens of thousands of students annually with industry-leading credentials. For more information on EC-Council Academia, please visit www.eccouncil.org/academia.

SOURCE EC-Council