Ocean County College (OCC) is a public community college in Ocean County, New Jersey. Its main campus is in Toms River. Other locations include the Southern Education Center in Manahawkin and over twenty off-campus sites throughout Ocean County.
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered profound changes in post-secondary education, accelerating existing trends of demographic shifts and technological evolution. Students faced abrupt shifts to remote learning, grappling with mental health challenges and technological barriers. Institutions raced to adapt, leveraging technology for virtual classrooms and AI-driven support systems. This chapter explores how the crisis propelled a shift towards student-centered practices and reshaped the evaluation of learning outcomes. Despite its challenges, the pandemic spurred innovations that are reshaping college campuses, fostering a more technologically savvy and resilient future.
Tidal wetlands in the Mid-Atlantic, USA, are experiencing high rates of relative sea level rise, and it is unclear whether they will be resilient in the face of future flooding increases. In a previous study, we found 80% of our study areas in tidal freshwater and salt marshes in the Delaware Estuary and Barnegat Bay had elevation change rates lower than the 19-year increase in mean sea level. Here, we examine relationships between marsh elevation dynamics and abiotic and biotic parameters in order to assess their utility as indicators of vulnerability to relative sea level rise. We further apply a range of marsh vulnerability indicators including elevation change rates to evaluate their ability to corroborate marsh habitat change over the last 30 years. Of the field measurements, soil bulk density and belowground plant biomass were among the strongest predictors of elevation change and accretion dynamics across all marsh types and settings. Both tidal freshwater and salt marshes tended to have higher rates of elevation increase and surface accretion in areas where soil bulk density and live belowground biomass were higher. Nine of the ten marshes experienced a net loss of area from the 1970s to 2015 ranging from 0.05 to 14%. Although tidal freshwater marshes were low in elevation and experienced variable elevation change rates, marsh area loss was low. Conversely, salt marshes closest to the coast and perched high in the tidal frame with a higher degree of human modification tended to experience the greatest marsh loss, which incorporated anthropogenic impacts and edge erosion. Thus, our regional assessment points to the need for a comprehensive understanding of factors that influence marsh resilience including human modifications and geomorphic settings.
This Work In Progress (WIP) paper will provide unique examples that attempt to address key aspects of Gen Z learners. The real-world problems are chosen to evoke high emotional response, since they address social issues as well as show them immediate application of learned skills. This approach was done in the context of the technical subjects of Six Sigma LEAN, Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) and Quality Assurance (QA). The non-traditional assignments enhanced the learning and retention of knowledge that was also gained through more traditional assignments. This paper is written jointly from the perspective of the instructor and a student participating in this course; MNFG 114 Principles of Quality Control in Manufacturing.
In recent years, there has been a rethinking of the concept of white privilege and a development of new concepts like white fragility. At the same time, discourse around ‘white supremacy’ has mostly remained stagnant. Some claim it is anachronistic and no longer applicable. Others fear it will discourage whites from supporting the quest for racial justice. In this article, I advocate for using the term ‘white supremacy’ to name the problem that racial justice theorists and activists seek to dismantle. More specifically, I utilize the work of Charles Mills to defend the use of ‘white supremacy’ against Marxist critics.
