BUTLER TWP — The Butler County Community College Board of Trustees made the following announcements and took the following actions on Wednesday:

• The possibility of expanding BC3’s Cranberry campus, either through renovation or a new building, still is being discussed, but remains unfunded.

“Cranberry would be several years down the road,” said BC3 spokesman Susan Chagnon.

“(Expansion or a new building) still is not 100 percent decided. Funding would be a huge issue.”

BC3’s current building in Cranberry Township, erected in the 1980s, was paid off this year, but its expansion to accommodate more students seems unlikely.

“We’re landlocked (for space) there and we have maxed out our enrollment, which is about 800 students,” Chagnon said.

Currently, non-credit courses are being relocated to Seneca Valley and Mars high schools in the evenings to handle the lack of space.

A Detroit-based architect flew to Cranberry this month to review BC3’s artist renderings for a “town square” campus at the corner of Freedom and Rochester roads, Chagnon said.

• Butler County Community College will offer firearms instruction as part of its training for the International Maritime Security Network, a company which supports the maritime industry through education and security.

BC3’s security officers already share a firing range along Litman Road in Butler Township through an agreement with city police and the Butler Area Sewer Authority, but the college on Wednesday updated its firearms policy to accommodate the new training.

“Our local rivers have to be monitored and protected, and these people require training,” said Brian Opitz, director of operations for BC3.

“It was a win-win for everyone.”

The revised firearms policy still prohibits anyone but on-duty law enforcement officers from having a firearm on a BC3 campus, but the wording was altered to allow IMSN or other trainees, following proper military, NRA or law enforcement protocols, to use live ammunition on the firing range during college-approved instruction.

Campus police are responsible for storage and transportation of the ammunition, states the policy, which goes into effect Jan. 14.

“This elevates our public safety training to an even greater level,” said BC3 President Nick Neupauer.