Ocean County College
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| Ocean County College | |
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| Established: | 1969 (accredited) |
| Type: | Two-year community college |
| President: | Jon H. Larson |
| Students: | 9,351 (2007) |
| Location: | Toms River, New Jersey, USA |
| Mascot: | Vikings |
| Affiliations: | MAISA; AAU |
| Website: | www.ocean.edu |
Ocean County College is an accredited, coeducational, two-year, public, community college located in Ocean County, New Jersey. Its main campus is in Toms River. Other locations include the Southern Education Center in Manahawkin and The Center for Business Education & Training in Brick, N.J. Classes are also offered at over twenty off-campus sites throughout Ocean County.
The Toms River campus also houses the Fine Arts Center and the Robert J. Novins Planetarium.Both offer programming for the local community.
The school enrolls 9,351 students (as of Spring 2007) in Associate in Arts, Associate in Science, and Associate in Applied Science degree programs, and certificate programs. The school offers credit, noncredit, transfer, honors, career, licensing, business education training, continuing and professional education programs, day, evening, weekend, off-campus, Internet and distance learning courses.[1]
Ocean County College offers other programs such as the Honors Program, designed specifically to meet the needs of highly motivated students interested in interdisciplinary studies, independent study projects and exploration of academic areas in addition to their selected major; The Communiversity, which is an alliance of seven higher education institutions offering undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs; the Academy for Lifelong Learningprogram and the Tech Prep Program, which is a rigorous and focused course of study designed to provide the middle fifty percent of the student population with both the essential academic and technical foundations.
Ocean County College is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, having been first accredited in 1969 and most recently reaccredited in 2004.[2] The school is approved by the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education of the New Jersey Department of Education.[1]
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[edit] Online Associate Degree Nursing Program
Ocean County College received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to develop an online education model to address shortages of RNs in the hospital setting, and to create New Jersey’s first online Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) Program. Although there are many online RN to BSN and MSN programs, there are very few online programs at the ADN level.
OCC’s unique program allows those currently employed in the health care field to complete an RN program by attending class only one day per week (primarily on-site in host health care institutions) supplemented by online instruction. By providing educational experiences online, and by taking advantage of space already available at local hospitals, dependence on classroom space at the college is decreased. The program pioneers innovative online delivery modes in teaching and learning, and is designed to attract individuals who could not otherwise pursue nursing studies while working full-time. The goal is to graduate 60 more RNs per year. This should be an extremely effective means of reducing the critical shortage of nurses in New Jersey. In November of 2006 the OCC One Day per Week Nursing Program received a President's Award from the New Jersey Public Health Association honoring this online nursing program for helping to reduce the nursing shortage in New Jersey.
[edit] Student newspaper
Over the past year, the college has received some publicity about its newspaper, the award winning Viking News, which has been published at the school for over forty years. Problems began over claims of alleged mistakes in an article about a time change in the student activity period, charges which subsequently led to an altercation between two editors and the college president, Jon Larson. In 2005, the school announced it would not renew the annual contract for advisor, Karen Bosley, who had been the paper's advisor for 35 years.[3] Bosley claimed this was a reprisal for news articles unfavorable to the President and administration.
But in a temporary restraining order filed in a New Jersey federal court on July 26, 2006, Judge Stanley Chesler reinstated Bosley saying, "Nonetheless,if it is shown that Bosley was removed in retaliation for the content of the Paper’s articles, such a removal would undoubtedly have an impermissibly chilling effect on the Paper’s student editors and their willingness to produce articles critical of the OCC administration in the future. The Plaintiffs, therefore, must demonstrate that the failure to renew Bosley’s contract was motivated by their exercise of protected speech. The Plaintiffs have demonstrated that the Defendants actively disapproved of many of the Paper’s articles and editorials. The OCC administration has sent letters to the Viking News expressing their displeasure with the viewpoints expressed by the Paper and held numerous conversations where the Defendants specifically expressed their displeasure with the Paper and its criticism of the OCC administration. The specific interest the Defendants showed in Bosley’s potential influence over the student editors in expressing their critical views further underpins the Plaintiffs’ argument that the Defendants’ failure to renew her contract, after thirty five years as the Student Newspaper Advisor, was in retaliation for the Paper’s constitutionally protected publication of items critical of the OCC administration."
On the other hand, the College administration expressed concerns about the out-of-date format, the overall poor quality of the paper, the frequent errors, and the failure to produce an online edition even though they were online at www.occvikingnews.com. OCC claimed that this did not interfere with content.
In September 2006, the college's board of trustees reinstated Bosley as faculty adviser to The Viking News, after a District Court Judge issued a preliminary injunction requiring her return.[3]
[edit] Mitchell and Veselits v. Ocean County College et al.
On December 12, 2005, in addition to removing Karen Bosley as the advisor of the Viking News, the Ocean County College Board of Trustees also fired two non-tenured professors, Patrick Mitchell and Karen Veselits. Mitchell, who was up for tenure, had been recommended for tenure by both the tenure committee and his departmental dean. The college refused to disclose any reasons for dismissing Mitchell and Veselits. Critics of the college's administration claimed that they were retaliating against Mitchell and Veselits for supporting Bosley and the Viking News. Mitchell and Veselits sued the college; its president, Jon Larson; its vice-president of academic affairs, Frank Wetta; and its Board of Trustees, demanding to know why they were dismissed. In October 2006, Judge Eugene Serpentelli of the New Jersey Superior Court ruled in favor of Mitchell and Veselits and ordered the college to give both instructors a statement of reasons for their dismissals. This decision set a legal precedent in New Jersey that will require community colleges to give reasons when they decide not to renew a non-tenured professor's employment contract.[4]
[edit] Noted alumni
- John C. Bartlett, Jr., member of the Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders.[5]
- Mike Bucci, Professional Wrestler
- Bruce Springsteen, World-renowned singer.[6]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b OCC Profile, Ocean County College. Accessed February 26, 2008.
- ^ Institution Directory, Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Accessed February 26, 2008.
- ^ a b Finley, Bill. "THE WEEK; College Reinstates Adviser To Paper, on Judge's Order", The New York Times, September 10, 2006. Accessed February 26, 2008.
- ^ Ruling against college in firings sets precedent, Viking News, December 14, 2006
- ^ John C. Bartlett, Jr., Ocean County, New Jersey. Accessed February 26, 2008.
- ^ Born Again - Bruce Springsteen: The Rolling Stone Interview, Rolling Stone by Kurt Loder, December 6, 1984, "In pursuit of what can only be called his dream, Springsteen has been tenacious: dropping out of Ocean County College in his native New Jersey in 1968 to take his unlikely chances as a songwriting rock & roller and stubbornly waiting out a devastating, yearlong legal dispute with his then manager, Mike Appel, that prevented him from recording for nearly a year in the mid-Seventies."
