Dr. Peter Burnham, president of Brookdale Community College in Lincroft since 1991, was honored at the 2007 testimonial dinner of the school's Center for Holocaust Studies.

Center officials said the honor recognized Burnham's support for its activities, and especially its ability to continue and expand its educational and programmatic activities during his tenure.

"Dr. Burnham truly deserves this honor," center executive director Dale Daniels told NJ Jewish News, a few days before the Nov. 13 event at the Excelsior in Manalapan.

"As the center's mission has expanded and grown over the years, his commitment has grown right along with it. Our purpose — which is to educate about the Holocaust as well as about more recent examples of genocide and human rights violations, classroom bullying, and bias in schools and communities — is important to him, and Dr. Burnham's support has never wavered."

Burnham recalled that after his arrival at BCC, one of his earliest on-campus meetings took place with the late Norma Klein, former dean of community services and a strong proponent of the Holocaust center.

"We discussed how this type of center could most effectively relate to a community college environment," Burnham told NJ Jewish News. "It was immediately clear that the center could be an incredible resource, and I was already committed to helping the new generations of young people understand, in a local and global sense, that there is still too much genocide in the world."

The opinions and value systems that high school and college-age students begin to form during this stage of their lives is critical to their ongoing awareness and understanding of social issues on a grand scale, said Burnham.

"Through its many programs, workshops, displays, and community outreach efforts, the center has done an extraordinary job of showing the disastrous effects of violence in schools, behavior with malicious intent, and discrimination," he said. "It has also shown the relationship between tragic world events and everyday society —the tragedy in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan is a sad reminder of this. And it's our responsibility to educate the new generation of leaders that they must understand and denounce these kinds of behaviors."

Learning to appreciate and understand diversity is another critical element of the basic mission of the center and the community college, he added.

"But the center has gone even further," Burnham said. "They are teaching students — and others — that they must recognize the warning signs that perpetuate intolerance."

The public speaking engagements and the recorded testimonies from many of the Holocaust survivors who have settled in Monmouth County also have brought painful lessons of the past into the present, and ensured that their words will be preserved for posterity, Burnham said.

"I've been open and candid about this being an inherent part of a community college environment," he said. "Many of the survivors have been willing to share their rich heritage, and we must continue to take advantage of this precious resource."

The center, through its educational mission, has blended with BCC's educational philosophy. In recent years, for example, the center has sponsored the appearance of guest speakers, some of whom lost children during episodes of violence at high schools in the midwestern and southern regions of the United States, Burnham said.

"One mother who lost a child this way spoke of the glorification of violence that inundates the social world of young people today," he said. "Learning about these new signs and indicators can teach us a lot about becoming aware of how negative values surface and grow into something poisonous and destructive — and deadly."

He has pledged to continue to support the center's efforts to sustain the mission of awareness and promote the concept of tolerance.

"I'll work hard to solidify it, so that it remains a part of Brookdale's overall educational portfolio," said Burnham. "We live in an era in which young people can learn that history teaches us about the past and the future. We've seen what happens when freedoms of speech and religion are suppressed, and there are still glimmers of that in our own society. We must guard against any further tipping of the scales toward intolerance."

Burnham, who lives in Colts Neck with his wife, Victoria, an educator at Oak Hill Academy in Middletown, has two college-age sons and a daughter who operates a political consulting firm in Washington, DC. Burnham earned a PhD in higher education administration from Catholic University of America in Washington.

"College presidents come and go, and I hope the mission of the Center for Holocaust Studies transcends me," Burnham said. "It's daunting to realize that our efforts are only a part of a challenge of such magnitude. But the center is dedicated to perpetuating the understanding of the issues that feed discrimination. It's a challenge, but it's worth every ounce of energy that we can devote toward eliminating prejudice here and around the world."