In September, students from Brookdale and Ocean County community colleges who hold an associate's degree in business administration can study for a bachelor's degree from Montclair State without ever leaving the Jersey shore.

Montclair State joins four other four-year institutions and the two community colleges in the newly created New Jersey Coastal Communiversity.

Montclair State will offer a bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in management. According to Karen Dennis, assistant dean of the School of Business, Montclair State's Weekend M.B.A. program may be offered in the Communiversity in the future.

The other four-year schools involved in the program are Kean University, Rutgers University, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Georgian Court College. Together, the four-year institutions are offering seven bachelor's degree programs, six master's degree programs and nine graduate certificates.

The Communiversity has been in the making for several years because of limited access to four-year schools at the Jersey shore. "This is a chance for Montclair State to help meet a specific educational demand from this part of the state," Dennis said, "where there are few options for students who cannot travel a long distance because of work or personal obligations, but seek a four-year degree."

In September, Communiversity classes will be held at the BCC campus in Lincroft. The Communiversity will eventually move to a building at Camp Evans, an abandoned military base in Wall Township.

According to Dennis, School of Business faculty will teach classes not only by traveling to the Communiversity campus, but interactively, using the MSU and Brookdale distance learning classrooms, and delivering some courses via the Internet. "This is a great opportunity not only for the students, but for our own faculty who have been investigating ways to use these instructional technologies in their teaching."

All students must meet the admission standards of the college or university from which they want to obtain a degree, and pay the tuition set by the school. Only upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses will be offered. "

The courses for Communiversity students will be the same as those here on campus," said Dennis, who hopes Montclair State's participation in the Communiversity will encourage other students from that area to consider Montclair for other degree programs.