Education and Research Consortium

The Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas (ERC) is a non-profit organization that works to promote better use of technology in education. History The group was created in 1997 by U.S. Representative Charles Taylor (NC 11) to put together a plan whereby Western North Carolina (WNC) could participate in and help develop the new technologies of the time. Out of this meeting a group was created with a board composed of the presidents and chancellors of Brevard College, Mars Hill College, Montreat College, Western Carolina University, and local businessmen. Also included in the ERC's activities are Furman University in South Carolina, University of North Carolina at Asheville and the area's community colleges. The ERC's goal is to work cooperatively to bring the benefits of new technology to WNC and upstate South Carolina, as an integrated region. Projects Projects administered by the ERC include: The Adventure of the American Mind Program (AAM Project) was designed to train in-service and pre-service classroom teachers and college teacher education faculty to access, use and produce curriculum utilizing the Internet and the digitized primary source materials from the collections of the U.S. Library of Congress. Initially, the AAM Project was offered through Brevard College, Mars Hill College and Montreat College in Western North Carolina. Since that time it has expanded to cover nine states.