Lowenfish72

PARAMUS, N.J. – When author and historian Lee Lowenfish visited Bergen Community College to discuss his latest book March 24, attendees received a glimpse into the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers dugout – and they didn’t even have to pack a glove.

Speaking to the “Baseball & American Culture” class offered by the College’s Lois E. Marshall Institute for Learning in Retirement, which provides lifelong learning opportunities for senior citizens, Lowenfish shared research from his book “Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman.” Rickey, the general manager and front office icon who famously helped break the sport’s color barrier by promoting Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers, earned entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967.

Approximately 450 Bergen County seniors enroll in the ILR program, which offers courses in dozens of interest areas for a nominal cost. Volunteer instructors include Bergen faculty Mark Altschuler and Bill Burke, who teach the “Baseball & American Culture” class. For more information on ILR, email [email protected].

Based in Paramus, Bergen Community College (www.bergen.edu), a public two-year coeducational college, enrolls 15,000 students at locations in Paramus, the Philip Ciarco Jr. Learning Center in Hackensack and Bergen Community College at the Meadowlands in Lyndhurst. The College offers associate degree, certificate and continuing education programs in a variety of fields. More students graduate from Bergen than any other community college in the state.

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