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A civil rights activist with a reputation as one of the most visible spokesmen against apartheid will speak at the Burlington County College main campus on Wednesday at 11:15 a.m. Human rights activist Randall Robinson will speak to students, teachers and the public at the college's theater at the Pemberton Campus on Pemberton- Browns Mills Road (Route 530). The free lecture is being sponsored by the college's Minority Student Union. Tickets must be acquired in advance. After Robinson speaks, he will be questioned by a panel of students about apartheid in South Africa and southwest African countries such as Nambia.

A tentative contract agreement between Burlington County College and faculty members was approved last week by the college's 95 professors. "The mood of the faculty was that they saw this - considering the economic times - to be an acceptable settlement in terms of money and the improvement of some working conditions," said faculty union president Karen Woodward, who added that the proposed contract was given overwhelming approval. Under the terms of the negotiations, both sides agreed not to disclose details of any agreement until it had been finalized.

Mickey Seiler sifted through the rubble of the Burlington County College men's soccer team last year and wasted little time rebuilding the program into the solid structure it once was. After a one-year absence, the seventh-seeded Barons have returned to the Region 19 playoffs and will visit second-seeded Raritan Valley on Tuesday in a first-round game. Before last season, BCC had reached the region playoffs five straight years and finished second in the National Junior College Athletic Association national tournament in 1996.

Burlington County College and Hahnemann Universty of Philadelphia have agreed to allow BCC's nursing students to transfer into a nursing program at Hahnemann that is designed specifically for BCC students. The plan, which will begin in May, is an effort by Hahnemann University officials to recruit BCC nursing students, said BCC spokesman Richard Pokrass. The transfer agreement was signed in November, Pokrass said. Students who earn two-year associate's degrees in nursing at BCC, a program requiring 70 credits, are eligible to transfer into the two-year nursing program at Hahnemann that is designed for BCC students who want to work toward bachelor's degrees, said Pokrass.

Burlington County College's board of trustees has voted unanimously to accept $323,920 in grants from the New Jersey Department of Higher Education to improve the college's facilities. The learning disabilities program, which consists of workshops to help teachers recognize a student with learning disabilities, received $12,028 Nov. 21. The "Success Seminars for Academically High Risk Education Students" program received $43,047 for seminars for students who are on academic probation.

Delran resident Janis Kerrigan on Tuesday night will be seated for a one- year term as an alumni trustee on the Burlington County College Board of Trustees at the Pemberton Campus. Alumni trustees are nominated each September. Elections are held in December, and the trustees usually are seated in January. Kerrigan, who is an English and journalism major at Trenton State College, said that college officials were hesitant about seating her on the board because she is registered in a liberal arts course at BCC, although she graduated in June.

The nursing program at Burlington County College received accreditation the first time it was eligible, according to Richard J. Pokrass, spokesman for the college. The National League for Nursing Board of Review approved the program in June. The accreditation is good until 1994. The college's nursing program was started in 1983 in response to increased demand for nursing classes, Pokrass said. Pokrass said the nursing program has been an immediate success with both area hospitals and students.

Burlington County College president Robert Messina, in the midst of developing a 15-year master plan, is touting a proposal to build a high- technology campus in Mount Laurel as the keystone to secure a role for the college in the next century. Although 4,000 students enroll each year at the 225-acre main campus in Pemberton Township, Messina said, the site is almost fully developed and will never be able to accommodate students seeking technical training. He said $11 million in state money had already been reserved for the project, which is scheduled for construction on 74 acres of farmland and orchards between Route 38 and the Marne Highway near Interstate 295. The land was purchased for $4.5 million in December 1988 by the Burlington County freeholders.

With its engineering department expanding, the nursing school newly accredited and growing, and the cooperative-education program thriving, Burlington County College is getting a reputation as a good place to study if you want to prepare yourself for a good job. But several BCC educators have launched a program designed to be practical on another plane. The program, called LIFT - for Liberal Interdisciplinary Foundations for Transfer - would give students "a crash, one-year plunge into liberal arts," said Fran Conroy, a BCC professor who helped organize it. The idea, said Conroy, "is to help the person find man's place in the universe, through all the disciplines . . . literature, philosophy, history.

Overcoming funding difficulties and setbacks such as the death of the architect in mid-design made last week's groundbreaking for Burlington County College's Academic Services Building seem so much sweeter. "It has been since 1970 since there was any new construction on this campus," college president Robert C. Messina said as he prepared to join college trustees and county freeholders in pushing engraved shovels into the earth Monday. The $8 million building will replace the outmoded classrooms and office space that constitute the East Campus in Pemberton.

When Robert Messina Jr. took charge of Burlington County College 25 years ago, classes were taught in 17 barracks on a sleepy Pemberton campus. Most of the school's 2,000 students were part-timers in their late 20s. But as the popularity of two-year public colleges grew, so did BCC, now a more prestigious institution with four campuses, gleaming glass buildings, 14,000 students, and partnerships with universities that provide bachelor's and...

When Robert Messina Jr. took charge of Burlington County College 25 years ago, classes were taught in 17 barracks on a sleepy Pemberton campus. Most of the school's 2,000 students were part-timers in their late 20s. But as the popularity of two-year public colleges grew, so did BCC, now a more prestigious institution with four campuses, gleaming glass buildings, 14,000 students, and partnerships with universities that provide bachelor's and...

Joe Schramm didn't stay retired for long. Schramm, who retired in June as athletic director at Cherokee after 18 years, has been named athletic director at Burlington County College. He will take over as the AD on Aug. 2. "I'm excited about a new career in a field I've always been part of, both athletics and education," Schramm said in a news release from the college. "This is an exciting time for community colleges in general and BCC in particular. " Schramm will oversee seven sports ?

After five deployments and 20 years of military service, Army Sgt. First Class Marcel Pruner will realize a lifelong dream Saturday: earning a college degree. Pruner, who has served in Central America and Iraq, will earn his associate degree in criminal justice during Burlington County College's commencement for 1,011 students in Pemberton. Pruner, 38, an instructor at Fort Dix, began his military career directly out of high school at age 17. He started college in 1991. "Somewhere along the line I didn't feel like I could continue," he said.

"Oooooh!" said Donald Hudson. "I think I heard it click!" said Robert Messina. "Keep going," Ron Lalusis told Messina. A steel-encased bank vault at a 200-year-old Mount Holly building now owned by Burlington County College was being cranked open by Messina, the college president. Lalusis, the hired vault-cracker extraordinaire, had arranged in recent days to have an 18-inch-wide opening drilled through the side wall. A man had just entered the hole and was working combinations at the vault's 24-bolt, foot-thick steel door from within.

Down a winding road in Burlington Township sits a piece of local history little known to the drivers who whiz past on Jacksonville Road. A small sign announces "Cellunet. " On a recent morning, the sprawling building, once one of the country's busiest lace factories, was bustling with students on a mission from Burlington County College's Design and Fashion Merchandising program. The goal: select lace remnants to fashion whatever their fancies envisioned. The Burlington County College design program, unique in New Jersey, offers students an associate's degree in applied science in fashion design.

In a corner of the new photography lab at Burlington County College's Willingboro campus, instructor David Freese studies Chris Dilouie's picture - a black-and-white image of a light pole and leafless tree in front of the campus building. "Very surreal," Freese said. "Are you a surreal photographer?" "I don't know," Dilouie, 18, responded, shrugging his shoulders. "You'll find out," said Freese, deciding that the contrast and composition of the picture would make it perfect for development.

Robert C. Messina Jr., president of Burlington County College, wants to bridge the gap between high school and four-year college students. And, he says, BCC is a perfect span to connect both ends. "Burlington County College is a best-kept secret," said Messina, who has overseen the college's dramatic growth since his tenure began in 1987. At $66 a credit for in-county students, "we offer the lowest tuition in the state to get a high-quality education," he said, "and we're putting programs in line to strengthen that level even more.

In the rethinking of public safety since Sept. 11, 2001, college and university security officers realized their jurisdictions could be tempting terrorist targets. So armed with a $2 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security, the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators last year began offering free Weapons of Mass Destruction Awareness Training courses, like the one attended yesterday by 50 emergency responders at Bucks County Community College.

George Williams, 69, of Medford Lakes, a retired professor of philosophy at Burlington County College who led antiwar teach-ins, amassed an extensive movie library, and taught philosophy to incarcerated youths, died of colon cancer last Wednesday at home. When the men in the family gathered to watch sports on television, Dr. Williams sometimes sat quietly among them, engrossed in a good book about philosophy, daughter KC Williams said. His interests were eclectic. He cared about global warming, the dangers of religious fundamentalism, and Disney animation.