February 4, 2017 – Moorpark College

Moorpark College is part of the Ventura Community College District and is tucked nicely in the foothills of Moorpark California about 40 miles north of Hollywood.  Some might say dealing with all the elements of community college involvement is like running a zoo and at Moorpark they take that quite literally.  At Moorpark College they run a Zoo as well as a community college.  Moorpark is the home of Americas Teaching Zoo and an Exotic Animal Training and Management program.  The Zoo, which is only open to the public on weekends, was celebrating the birthday of “Ira” their 3year old male lion so this Saturday my mother and I took a trip to check out the program and the campus.

The campus is large spacious and multi leveled taking advantage of its foothill footprint.  One whole ridge of the campus contains the zoo program with modern teaching classrooms and offices backed up by a network of chain link fences and enclosures which house a wide variety of animals.  The zoo was originally a private venture located in the area, which served the film industry’s needs for exotic and trained animals.  The whole thing was donated to the community college, which not only continues to house the various animals, but also incorporates a formal two-year training program for students interested in entering the business of Exotic animal training or Zoo care.    Like the CCSF nursing program the animal training program uses a lottery system after the first come first served places are filled, and on Saturday it was nice to see almost as many students and caretakers as there were animals in the zoo.  It takes a lot of care to keep so many creatures and it was clear that the animals are well cared for and a lot of attention is paid to their well being and enrichment.  

The students in addition to conducting demos and answering questions were in charge of putting on shows and live animal demonstrations.  They take classes in animal nutrition, anatomy and physiology and of course various levels of animal care courses.  The curriculum covers multiple animal types (reptiles, avian, primates etc.) and is coupled with hands on experience.  A nice young student explained to me that each student must train his or her own rat as part of the graded training practical.  Like many specialty industries it’s who you know and the formal program, while culminating in a certificate or AA degree, is also an excellent opportunity to make contacts with influential people in a specialty industry.   

The variety of animals being housed in a relatively small wing of the campus was impressive.  Gibbons, egrets, lions, sheep, hawks, reptiles, parrots, monkeys, crows, a kookaburra, baboons and more all co-existing, with lots of human contact.  The community in community college is not restricted to humans and visit expanded my perspective having experienced what a chore it is to simply care for a collection of dead animal specimens in the CCSF biology Dept.  I can only marvel at the work and money it must take to keep this small zoo functional.

After leaving the zoo we toured around the campus a bit.  Of note was the lack of a single campus map.  The parking lots were indexed by buildings and I’m sure students familiar with the campus find their way, but not having a clear system of way finding make a campus less friendly to new students and guests.   At a few of the other campuses I have visited, as soon as hit the site I am looking for a specific location and a central map is usually the best tool for that purpose.  Moorpark like CCSF names its buildings but is not clear on function.  Statler or Conlon hall gives no clue that culinary programs or admissions are housed there respectively.  This is why the campus maps are so important and something a few faculty and department chairs have been griping about as we struggle with enrollment and attempt to draw new students into our program.  

At CCSF It has felt as if these issues did not matter to those in charge of the college.  Which is understandable given our sole focus on Accreditation, accreditation, accreditation!!     But these things are connected, as are all our issues….  

I was very disappointed to learn from the student newspaper that Moorpark College has also been cutting classes while at the same time their board has just decided to increase the salary scale of their incoming president to a range of $277,000-$310,00 per year (a raise of $40,000-$75,000).  The salary scale was increased for upper administrative positions as well.  The sad state of reality is the only way to make these numbers fit (lower student enrollment with increasing admin and overhead costs) is to “manage” students into larger classes.  This is exactly what we have been told to do at CCSF.   I just can’t see 50-100 students standing around Ira the lion and truly getting the benefit of having learned how to professionally take on the responsibility of caring for him.