Moorpark College Building $5-Million Science Center

By DAVID R. BAKER

May 17, 1997 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

MOORPARK — In 1965, when the Moorpark College campus was still just an architect’s sketch, community college district officials ditched the idea of building two science centers at the new school.

They had originally planned for two buildings--where science, math and engineering would be taught--but decided they couldn’t afford both. Besides, how many students would ever come to the ranch-land boonies of eastern Ventura County to study science?

That decision was overturned Friday when, with a quick toss of a shovel, Moorpark College officials broke ground for a new $5.1-million math and science center.

The building, which is expected to open in early 1999, mirrors changes in the school and communities it serves. Since the college opened 30 years ago, the east county’s former farming towns have swelled into suburban cities, their growth fueled by high-tech and biotech firms.

Wanting in on the boom, students have demanded additional science classes--especially in health subjects--and the school has responded, developing new programs as the need arose.

The new, two-story building will bring most of those programs under one roof and provide a home for upcoming science-oriented specialties, like a biotechnology program being developed with the help of Baxter Pharmaceuticals in Thousand Oaks.

Philip Westin, chancellor of the Ventura County Community College District, said the school’s math and science students have long needed extra space.

“They’ve been running into each other,” he said. “The enrollment has been really strong in this area.”

Floyd Martin, dean of the school’s math, science and engineering departments, said the school’s science program has taken on increasing importance over the years. To see the change, he said, look at the programs that have fallen by the wayside while science-oriented courses thrived.

“Originally, this campus had an agriculture program, a horse-husbandry program,” said Martin, who started teaching at the school during its first year. “Those programs went away.”

The interest in science, he said, reflects California’s economic dependence on the computer, aerospace and biotechnology industries. And with so many Ventura County residents employed in or connected to those fields, it’s natural for their children to seek similar careers.

“There’s been a lot of engineering professionals around here who saw their sons and daughters going into it,” Martin said.

The new 27,000-square-foot building, which will fit next to the current science building north of the main quad, will give the math, science, engineering and computer science departments a consolidated state-of-the-art facility. All faculty and student workstations will be wired into a central network, giving everyone access to a multimedia library during classes.

“Students in the very near future will be walking around with their laptops, like I walked around with my slide rule, and they’ll sit down, plug into the network and go,” Martin said.

The building will also have room for 30 offices, allowing professors now scattered around campus to work near one another.

Math professor Ben Rode welcomed the change. He teaches in a portable classroom next to the school’s technology building.

“We might finally have a permanent home,” he said. “That’s very exciting.”