Ocean County College Partners with Monmouth University to Offer Homeland Security Degree

The following article appeared in the May 10, 2011 Asbury Park Press
TOMS RIVER — Ocean County College and Monmouth University signed an agreement Monday to establish a partnership for a curriculum that will offer students a four-year degree in homeland security.  OCC is the first community college in New Jersey to offer an associate’s degree in homeland security.  The partnership with Monmouth will allow students here to make a seamless transition to the university to continue their undergraduate work.  The first transfer of OCC students to Monmouth under the terms of the new agreement is expected to take place in the fall of 2013. 
“One of the things that people find it hard to envision is how enormous the scope and scale of this discipline is and what the potential is for future employment,” OCC President Jon H. Larson said in public remarks at a signing ceremony for the agreement Monday afternoon on the Toms River campus.  “Osama bin Laden’s (death) notwithstanding, the issues are not going to go away.And we are going to be in this business for a long time to come.”  Thomas Pearson, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Monmouth, said the United States has a vital need for colleges and universities to develop such curricula in homeland security.  “One of the great opportunities in partnership is that we will be learning from you and your faculty, just as your faculty will learn from us,” Pearson said.  “And we think we’re putting together a curricular path for students who start here to come to Monmouth and do very, very well in homeland security and perhaps go onto pursue a master’s degree in homeland security.”  Ben Castillo, dean of OCC’s School of Social Sciences and Human Services, said when the two-year college began to put together a curriculum, the question was how focused the area of study homeland security should be.  “If you just take a look at some of the threat potentials, whether it be ... chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear.  “You go into the medical field ... engineering. It’s not only the emergency response component, but those things that are sort of in the background, the people who are in the background to keep us safe,” Castillo said.  Therefore, the agreement with Monmouth University will serve to narrow the focus of where OCC’s homeland security program should best funnel its resources and attention, Castillo explained.  “It’s a good marriage between the two institutions,” said Stan Green, dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Monmouth.  The university has developed a five-year-program for undergraduate and graduate degrees in homeland security, and so this now adds an associate’s degree component as a step in that process, Green said.  Monmouth University President Paul G. Gaffney II will deliver the commencement address at OCC’s 44th annual graduation ceremony May 26.

Erik Larsen