Academic Programs

Montclair State offers a wide and deep portfolio of 300 academic programs at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels, including several that have achieved national reputations. The portfolio includes 38 five-year bachelor’s/master’s programs and 14 4+1 MBA programs.

The University’s entrepreneurial spirit and external orientation have enabled it to quickly develop and launch some 160 new undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs in the past five years. New programs span virtually every discipline, from business to the social sciences, education, technology and health care, and include innovative multidisciplinary offerings that combine the humanities with business and health care.

Colleges and Schools

College of the Arts
A state-designated Center of Excellence in the Arts, the College of the Arts offers more than 50 graduate and undergraduate majors, minors and concentrations through the John J. Cali School of Music, the School of Communication and Media, the Department of Art and Design, and the Department of Theatre and Dance. Programs in Musical Theatre, Dance (undergraduate and graduate) and Music Therapy (undergraduate and graduate) have gained national recognition, while strong but lesser-known programs in Product Design and Theatre Design & Technology consistently see 100 percent job placement rates for graduates. The College is accredited by all four national arts accreditation agencies.

John J. Cali School of Music
The School of Music presents more than 300 performances each year, with over 100 of those streamed worldwide. Students regularly perform off-campus in prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall, often sharing the stage with professional ensembles like the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. International tours have taken student ensembles from Austria to Australia. Artists-in-residence include the Shanghai Quartet as well as 2020 Avery Fisher Prize winner Anthony McGill of the New York Philharmonic.

School of Communication and Media
Housed in the most technologically advanced broadcast and media production facility at any university in the nation, the School covers the complete communication and media landscape with degree programs in film and television, sports media, strategic communications, journalism, and media and communication studies. Co-curricular opportunities include WMSC-FM, The Montclarion newspaper and website, and The Montclair News Lab weekly news program. Student productions have been recognized with two Emmy Awards and an Edward R. Murrow Award. Alumni are active and visible throughout the media industries on both coasts and around the country. The School is also home to the Center for Cooperative Media, a national leader in helping news media organizations collaborate with each other.

College of Education and Human Services
The College of Education and Human Services ­­– with eight academic departments and five centers – created the first doctoral program at Montclair State in the late 1990s and now has three PhD programs in Teacher Education and Teacher Development, Counseling, and Family Science and Human Development. The College was awarded $14.1 million in external grant funding in 2019-20.

Montclair State’s teacher education program has a long and distinguished history and is recognized as one of the best in the country by U.S. News & World Report, which also ranks the Online Educational Leadership program No. 22 nationally. The College has formal partnerships with 33 school districts in northern New Jersey that pay a fee to join the Montclair State University Network for Educational Renewal – a nationally recognized school-university partnership. The College’s educator preparation programs explicitly seek to enroll future teachers and leaders of color consistent with the demographics of the New Jersey student population.

Among the College’s many other outstanding programs are Counseling, Nutrition, Dietetics, Food Science, Family Science and Human Development, Exercise Science, and Public Health. Alumni are on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis in health-related positions as well as in public schools. The Center for Autism and Early Childhood Mental Health is a leader in providing services and consultation in New Jersey.

College of Humanities and Social Sciences
A nexus of curricular innovation, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences melds traditional humanities with other disciplines to provide undergraduate and graduate students a competitive edge in the workplace. The University’s largest academic unit, the College hosts 20 majors, 50 minors and 13 world languages. Its award-winning faculty, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, have engaged students through transdisciplinary programs as well as five-year BA/MA, BA/MS, and BA/MBA programs in fields such as history, psychology, linguistics, and language and business. Select interdisciplinary programs include Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies; International Studies; Environmental Justice; Medical Humanities; Language, Business and Culture; and Child Advocacy and Policy. The College offers doctoral programs in Clinical Psychology, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, and Audiology.

College of Science and Mathematics
The College of Science and Mathematics provides academically rigorous programs that include hands-on research experiences for students. About 90 percent of students are engaged in student-faculty research, much of which is externally funded. Active research funding is about $15 million, including prestigious NSF CAREER awards and a NASA Minority University Research and Education Project fellowship. The College is home to the PSEG Institute for Sustainability Studies; Sokol Institute for Pharmaceutical Life Sciences; New Jersey Center for Water Science and Technology; Clean Energy and Sustainability Analytics Center; and Professional Resources in Science and Mathematics, whose external partnerships help grow New Jersey’s innovation ecosystem. The College is also leading a statewide effort to innovate the teaching of math, funded by Math for America.

The College offers programs in biology, chemistry and biochemistry, marine biology and coastal sciences, computer science, physics and astronomy, earth and environmental science, mathematics education, applied math and statistics, and mathematical science. It has two doctoral programs: Environmental Science and Management, and Mathematics Education.

Feliciano School of Business
The Feliciano School of Business has achieved a prominent place in the state and the larger region. Fully accredited by the AACSB, the School has approximately 3,500 students, and its six academic departments offer an array of degrees, including a BS in Business Administration with 11 concentrations, an MS in Accounting, and a number of MBA offerings.

Home to the Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and the MIX Lab, a 3D printing and innovation center, the School also features a financial trading floor and Bloomberg terminals, providing transformative learning opportunities for students. For the first time, the Princeton Review included the Online MBA and traditional MBA in its annual rankings for 2021. The Online MBA is listed in the U.S. News & World Report rankings and also earned the top spot among New Jersey programs from College Consensus.

School of Nursing
The School of Nursing was established in 2016 to meet the region’s growing demand for highly qualified nurses. Accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, the School offers specialized facilities, including mediated classrooms, a nursing skills lab, an anatomy lab, a home care lab, a mock quarantine room, and high-fidelity simulation labs outfitted with computer interfaced mannequins. A new online MSN program provides concentrations in clinical trials research, nursing education, and, in collaboration with the Feliciano School of Business, in nursing administration.

The School of Nursing is actively participating in Nursing Now, a three-year global campaign to improve world health by engaging nurses in directly addressing 21st-century health challenges. The School’s specific focus, as part of this campaign, will be on service and education in the University’s surrounding communities.

University College
Designed for the approximately 2,000 freshman and sophomore students who have not selected a major, University College allows students to explore academic and career options as “pre-major” students. University College provides an academic home where these students can tap into the support, guidance and programs they need to explore and discover the areas that interest them most. Once University College students declare a major, they move seamlessly on to the college or school of that major, well prepared to progress to completion of a degree.

The Graduate School
The Graduate School supports more than 100 master’s and doctoral programs and works with all academic units to foster continued growth in graduate enrollment, which currently comprises 22 percent of overall enrollment. New and growing programs include Applied Mathematics, Business Administration, Business Analytics, Child Advocacy and Policy, Clinical Psychology, Computational Linguistics, Counseling, Cybersecurity, Nursing, Public Health, Social Research and Analysis, and Social Work.

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