The Voices Center is built around six principal areas: education and awareness, student engagement and leadership, voices and testimony, community outreach, justice and civic responsibility, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Mission & Purpose
The Voices Center for Genocide, Human Rights, and Justice at Ocean County College provides students, faculty, and the broader community with a place to study the Holocaust, genocide, human rights, and questions of justice. Through education, public programming, interdisciplinary collaboration, historical research, and personal testimony, the Center seeks to create meaningful encounters with history and connect the lessons of the past to the responsibilities of the present.
Impact
The Voices Center is designed to make Holocaust, genocide, and human-rights education an active part of campus and community life. Students will have opportunities to engage with survivors and descendants, participate in public-history and research projects, visit museums and historic sites, contribute to exhibits and publications, and take leadership roles through initiatives such as the Voices Fellows Program.
The Center will also serve the broader Ocean County community through public events, partnerships with local schools and organizations, interdisciplinary programming, and educational resources. Our long-term goal is for OCC to become a recognized regional presence in Holocaust education, genocide studies, public humanities, and civic learning.
Programming & Initiatives
Programs currently being developed for the 2026–27 academic year include:
- A Kristallnacht commemoration featuring Norbert Strauss on Tuesday, November 3, at 11 a.m.
- A confirmed International Holocaust Remembrance Day program on January 27, 2027, featuring Holocaust survivor Manfred “Manny” Lindenbaum
- A return visit by Holocaust survivor Maud Dahme in March or April
- A potential Yom HaShoah program with Dr. Sara Halpern, Fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
- Indigenous history and human-rights programming with Ty “Dancing Wolf” Ellis and tribal elders
- Development of the Voices Student Research Expo
- Development of the Voices Fellows Program
- Development of a Student Voices Journal
- Student public-history exhibits, digital projects, and research initiatives
- Community and K–12 educational outreach
The Center’s broader Voices Series will eventually include programming centered on testimony, justice, memory, literature, the arts, ethics, and contemporary human-rights issues. This reflects the original proposal’s goal of combining survivor and community narratives with interdisciplinary public programming.
Opportunities to Get Involved
Students, faculty, staff, educators, community organizations, and members of the public will be invited to participate in the Center through:
- Support for the Center through the OCC Foundation
- Public lectures, commemorations, films, and discussions
- Student research and public-history projects
- The Voices Fellows Program
- The Voices Student Research Expo
- Volunteer and service opportunities
- Community and K–12 partnerships
- Interdisciplinary collaborations
- Museum visits and experiential-learning opportunities
Contact
If you have any questions or suggestions for future programs and presenters, please contact:
Dr. Justin Pfeifer, Director, Voices Center for Genocide, Human Rights, and Justice
jpfeifer@ocean.edu
732-255-0400 x2334