Loyalist College announces new Port Hope campus

A ceremony to announce the new Loyalist College campus took place in Port Hope on Tuesday, with (from left) Port Hope Mayor Bob Sanderson, Loyalist College acting president Mark Kirkpatrick and former president Ann Marie Vaughan. Photo courtesy of Loyalist College

By Victoria Caminha

BELLEVILLE – Loyalist College has announced that it will open a new campus in Port Hope in the fall of 2023.

“Loyalist’s new campus in Northumberland County is an essential pathway for learners of all ages to pursue life-changing educational opportunities within their community,” says a news release issued by the college on Tuesday. 

Port Hope is 79 kilometres west of Loyalist’s main Belleville campus. The new campus is located in the downtown area at 10 Pine St., formerly the site of an elementary school.

In an interview with QNet News Thursday, Loyalist’s acting president, Mark Kirkpatrick, said, “There’s a lot of commonalities between Belleville and Port Hope, and we recognized that there was a need. When you start going down the corridor along (Highway 401), there’s … a number of towns that really do not have any post-secondary institution.”

The new campus will offer three programs: Business, Computer Systems Technician and Global Project Management.

Loyalist has already begun accepting applications for the Port Hope programs from international students, and will start accepting domestic applications next month.

The new campus is intended to connect Port Hope-area companies with new students and is focused on supporting regional economic development, Loyalist says.

“We determined that it made sense for us, it made a lot of sense for them, to open a college in Port Hope,” Kirkpatrick told QNet. “The location was right, and we believe that demand is there for the programming that we can put in place that will support not only the college here (in Belleville) but also Port Hope and its industries.”

The college’s plan is to accommodate 120 students at the new campus in 2023, increasing to over 400 by 2026.