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Schools

OCC Enrollment Predicted to Jump to 15,000 After Kean Building Complete

OCC enrollment is up 42 percent since 2005, while faculty growing 13 percent.

More than the landscape is changing at Ocean County College as it struggles to educate more students in the face of shrinking state and federal support, according to key administrators.

More staff productivity, reorganizations, and reassignments have allowed the college to serve more students while reducing the pace of new hirings, explained Janet Hubbs, the assistant for institutional quality to OCC President Dr. Jon Larson.

"We’re doing more with less,’’ she told the college trustees.

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While enrollment at the college has grown 42.4 percent since fiscal 2005, from 5,675 to 8,082 full time students, the staff has grown just 13 percent, from 490 to 544.

"We’re trying to control costs and increase productivity,’’ Larson said, forecasting continued cuts in public sector aid to community colleges and saying they are going to have to "become more like independent colleges.’’

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Students are benefiting from the approach, said Trustee Stephan Leone, pointing out that while has soared across the nation, it has been stable at OCC for the last two years.

Executive Vice President for Instruction Richard Strada said a team of staff members went seeking more federal aid from one endangered program that was cutting its support to most colleges.

Strada said the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 may be eliminated by Congress, but OCC made an attempt to increase its funding by untying the bureaucratic "knot" around the way the grants are awarded. The result was a $17,500 increase in funds to OCC. The college will spend the money on technology for the criminal justice program and "smart boards’’ that will soon be up and running in every instructional building on the campus.

"I hope this is not the last year for Perkins, but it may be,’’ Strada said.

Strada said those who were able to get the extra money for OCC were Associate Professor of Computer Science Mary Burke, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Carolyn Lafferty, Hubbs, Institutional Research Technician Mary Troy, Acting Director of Institutional Research Chuck Jannarone and the IT staff .

Retiring Vice President of Administration and Planning Dr. Richard Parrish said OCC will soon have an enrollment of 12,000 to 15,000 students due in large part to its partnership with and the ability to offer four-year and advanced degrees in Toms River.

Parrish will stay on after four decades at the college to see the completion of the $30 million Gateway building that will be the physical cornerstone of the Kean @ Ocean partnership.

The trustees approved another of the seemingly endless reorganizations of the administration.

Additional administrative duties will be assumed by Sara Winchester, the current vice president of finance. Effective July 1 she becomes vice president of finance and administration. Her salary will go from $130,340 to $143,643 because of the additional duties, an increase of nine percent over the one percent pay hike she would otherwise have received in her current post.

Ann M. Feneis will remain Winchester’s executive assistant, with her salary going from $38,093 to $42,855.

Fulvio Cesco-Cancian, associate director of engineering and operations, will become the director of facilities on July 1. His salary increased from $86,450 to $93,800 because of the promotion.

contract was extended for five more years. He got a one percent pay hike effective July 1 to $224,422 and $5,200 in a deferred compensation plan.

Future salaries will be negotiated. They are not spelled out in the contract extension.

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