Kean highlands campus to open Fall 2019

By Petruce Jean-Charles | Published by Oct. 3, 2018

Kean University is a world-class institution that strives to build new initiatives for its students. With the progress of the Union campus, Kean Ocean and Wenzhou-Kean, the university found the need for a new campus in a helpful environment such as Kean Highlands located in Oak Ridge, New Jersey.

On Aug. 30, President Dawood Farahi introduced the notion of Kean Highlands as a mechanism for the development of students’ success. He mentioned the continuation of the campus and the progress towards expanding the campus.

Understanding the competitiveness of programming within natural sciences have been put into place and Kean Highlands is progressing into another world-class campus close to nature.

“The Highlands Campus is an example of the type of eight experiential learning that we need to offer our students, and we need to do it across all disciplines,” said Dr. Farahi. “One of the areas where we have transformed the education we deliver to our students is in the natural sciences.”

Dr. Daniela Shebitz, the Chair of the School of Environmental Science and Sustainability has invested a lot of her time into expanding the campus for the prospective students coming to learn.

“The concept for the Kean Highlands Campus has been in development for years,” said Shebitz. “After an agreement was reached in 2014, Kean University, led by President Farahi’s office signed a lease agreement with the state of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection State Park Service in 2015 to lease the property that used to be a monastery.”

With the building only starting a couple of years ago, Kean’s School of Environmental and Sustainability (SESS) was offered field-based courses at the Highlands campus using a trailer as a campus. This then lead to the start of the construction which will be completed by the end of this calendar year for prospective students to attend.

“Kean was awarded a multi-million dollar grant to fund renovation of the property, including bringing it up to code for fire and ADA accessibility, in addition to state-of-the-art equipment, Higher Education Equipment Leasing Funds Grant that will be used for our classes and research at the location,” said Shebitz.

This semester, Kean Highlands is offering outdoor courses in Field Biology and Conservation Biology at the site, and by Fall 2019 upper level classes in Environmental Science and Environmental Biology will be offered as well.

“The idea is that the Highlands will offer people graduating from community colleges in western New Jersey the opportunity to complete a Bachelor’s degree through Kean, without having to drive to Union,” said Shebitz. “ In addition, the natural setting allows students studying the environmental sciences to learn topics including species identification, experimental design, soil and water quality analysis, wildlife management, and much more through experience.

Kean Highlands envision the campus as being a premiere teaching and research facility that inspires students and the general public to want to understand and protect the forests of New Jersey.

It will serve as a place where people can connect with their environment and with their community while developing their education and research skills.

The program is hoping to offer other programs, in addition to Environmental Sciences at the campus including Biology (B.A.), Criminal Justice and Psychology, but will have to first assess what the need is in that region for those programs.

There are plans to roll out degree completion programs not only in Biology and Environmental Science, but also in areas such as Criminal Justice and Psychology for students graduating with Associates Degrees from community colleges and other programs based on a needs assessment that will be conducted of the region.

Other learning opportunities include professional certification short courses for areas such as GIS; Environmental, Health and Safety and Life Cycle Assessment, and classes for the community in species identification, biodiversity assessment, and wetland delineation. The Highlands Campus serves as an ideal location for high school students to take summer camp programs for college credits, for visiting scholars to conduct research, or for writers and artists to hold retreats.

With that being said, the new Highlands Campus offers the exciting opportunity for both students and faculty to become immersed in a biologically rich and aesthetically beautiful outdoor classroom. There are a plethora of opportunities for people of all interest areas to find a connection to this new campus.

According to Shebitz, “Students will be able to take classes that use the forests, mountains, wetlands, lake, and rivers of the Highlands as their living laboratory. With a great diversity of animals, plants, and fungi, the Highlands Campus provides an unparalleled opportunity to explore and document some of the most important ecological interactions that occur in diverse hardwood forest ecosystems.”

In addition to the academic tools that will be provided, there will be a main building called the lodge that will have nine classrooms, two labs, a multi-purpose room, a number of dorms and an indoor basketball court.

“This building will also have an ADA Accessible canopy walk that leads to a treehouse that has two outdoor classrooms. From there, the canopy walk continues to what will be another building, which we will call the cottage that will have additional classrooms. These buildings will have state-of-the-art scientific equipment that will be used for our courses and research. The property consists of over 40 acres of forested land with trails to explore, that connects to thousands of acres of protected state park land,” said Shebitz.

The Highlands Campus offers this opportunity and it is just an hour’s drive from Kean-Union, allowing students interested in the environmental sciences an opportunity to truly understand the complexity of nature, and to study within an intact forest system.

There will be state-of-the-art scientific equipment in the labs and fields of the Highlands Campus that will enable students to collect data that will add to the growing research concerning ecological functions and services provided by the remaining habitats of great biodiversity.

“The faculty and students of the School of Environmental and Sustainability Sciences (SESS) look forward to establishing long-term research projects that will compare the ecosystem dynamics such as  nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, succession, food web structures of this intact, hardwood forest to those of the more urban areas of our state and the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey,” said Shebitz.

---