University Expands Partnership in Orange Community School Initiative

Montclair State University’s Continuing and Professional Education (CAPE) unit will be offering select courses and programs from its catalog to Orange, New Jersey, residents in the Orange Community School’s spring 2019 term. This marks an expansion of the 2013 Orange Community School Initiative (OCSI) partnership, a Montclair State University-assisted community school initiative to help educate, engage and empower members of the Rosa Parks and Oakwood Avenue School communities in Orange.

Barry Devone, community engagement officer for the Orange Public School District states: “Orange Community Schools is delighted to expand its partnership with Montclair State University. The expansion of adult course offerings enhances our ability to provide cradle-to-career education opportunities for the City of Orange Township and surrounding communities.”

Courses and programs that have been selected will help learners acquire new skills to support them in enhancing current employment positions or in obtaining higher-level professional opportunities. Some of the courses that will be offered for the spring term include Spanish for Health and Social Services Professionals, Grant Writing, Cybersecurity, Project Management, and Excel for Business Analytics.

“We have a rather extensive catalog of offerings that are designed to help individuals establish long-term career paths,” says CAPE Executive Director Peter McAliney. “We worked together with the leadership of the OCSI to select courses and programs we felt would align with the needs of the community it serves and augment the programs they are already offering.”

“I am very excited about the budding partnership between CAPE and the Orange Adult School,” explains Bryan Murdock, director of the Center for Community Engagement at Montclair State University. “My role in the OCS is to engage University resources into the Orange Community Schools so that Orange residents can benefit from all the wonderful opportunities the University makes available to local communities. Providing continuing education courses through the Adult School will open up new and exciting educational and economic opportunities that heretofore were not easily available to Orange residents.”