Bergen Community College
Receives $288,875 Grant to Build Observatory

Thanks to a $288,875 grant from the Emil Buehler Trust, the new Bergen Community College Technology Education Center will house a two-domed
observatory, with two permanent 16-inch reflecting telescopes and a third 16-inch portable telescope for handicapped students.

The new observatory will be made available to the community and will supplement the resources of the Buehler Challenger Space and Science Center, located on the Bergen Community College Main Campus, 400 Paramus Road, Paramus.

"We have the whole universe to teach - the earth, the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, only one of 40 billion galaxies, each containing billions of stars," says Dr. Roger Opstbaum, professor of astronomy at Bergen Community College. According to Dr. Opstbaum, the three sections of astronomy courses offered at the College are filled the first day of registration. The students now travel to the Sperry Observatory at Union County College, where the telescopes, manned by volunteers, are open to the public on Friday nights.

In addition to the observatory, the new $10 million Technology Education Center will include a meeting and training center, a high tech simulated manufacturing laboratory, CAD labs, computer labs, and electronic library. The architects, Frederic Rosen and Ronald Schimdt & Associates, have designed the completely wireless facility to be a Bergen County showcase that will dramatically expand available high technology learning space, increase student access to high technology equipment, and further enhance the quality of Bergen Community College programs that strengthen economics development efforts in the region.

Bergen Community College, located at 400 Paramus Road, Paramus, NJ, enrolls more than 12,000 students in Associate in Arts, Associate in Science, and Associate in Applied Science degree programs, and certificate programs. More than 10,000 students are enrolled in non-credit courses through the Division of Continuing Education and the Ciarco Learning Center, located at 355 Main Street, Hackensack. Information about the College is available at www.bergen.edu or by phoning the Welcome Center at 201-447-7200