History
Just like business and industry, NAIT is always evolving – in fact, it’s been a work in progress since planning for the campus began in 1959. Today, NAIT is still growing and reinventing itself to meet the needs of students and employers.
Did you know…
- The cost to build the NAIT campus in 1962 was over $14.5 million? That’s more than $100 million in 2010 dollars.
- NAIT’s first class – 29 communication electrician apprentices – started their training before the school opened and construction was complete?
- Demand for training grew so rapidly that NAIT undertook its first major expansion just one year after opening?
- In 1964, the Minister of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources gave the president of NAIT’s Student Association an Ookpik – a small and furry northern bird known for its tenacity – because he thought it was an apt symbol of the new institute? The Ook then became NAIT’s mascot.
- In 2008, NAIT was the first post-secondary institution in Edmonton to become a full Heart-Safe site thanks to its eight Automatic External Defibrillators?
- Eight months later one of those defibrillators saved a man’s life?
- In 2008, NAIT became the only college-level school in the country to have full-time coaching staff?
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