National Disability Awareness Month

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Visit OCC’s Library to view "Speaking for Themselves: A History of Self-Advocacy," an exhibit created by the Museum of Disability History.

OCC Librarians have provided a display of books and videos to accompany the exhibit. The exhibit is a collaborative effort co-sponsored by the Center for Student Success, the OCC Library and Student Life.

Gateway Building Dedication Video

Ocean County College and Kean University recently held a dedication ceremon for the new Gateway Building. Click here to see footage of the evnt from the OCC Viking Video Club.

A New Gateway For Learning At OCC

By Fred Kenney

The Gateway Building, a joint venture between Ocean County College and Kean University, is the newest building on the Ocean County College campus. The building is located on the southwestern side of the Toms River campus.

The building is 74,000 sq. ft. with two parking lots that provide 1,177 spaces. Ocean County College has 14 brand new state-of-the-art classrooms and Kean University has 12. Kean has four seminar rooms, two specialty labs, seven administrative offices, and 22 single faculty offices. OCC has two laptop labs, 15 double faculty offices, one adjunct faculty office, and an administrative assistant office. Both OCC and Kean each have their own conference rooms.

The common spaces for OCC and Kean are: the 210-seat lecture hall, the student lounge, the faculty lounge and the security office. There is also a Coffee kiosk on the first floor.

The Gateway building is truly a “Green” building. It has a Silver rating from the US Green Building Council’s LEED program. There is a geothermal well field that supplies water for heating and cooling. The primary source of electricity comes from the new Combined Heat and Power Plant. The Building has been planned for years. Some early drawing plans were done in 2009. Ground clearing began in 2010 and building construction followed in 2011.

The building was finished and ready to be used for the fall 2013 term. Although the Gateway Building is the newest building on the OCC campus, it probably won’t stay that way. The upper campus has five additional future building sites for Ocean County College, four sites for Kean University and a Bay Avenue entrance planned for the upper campus.