SANTA PAULA : College Lures Eastern Europeans

Vytautas Adomaitis, 20, heard about Thomas Aquinas College from Ministry of Education officials in his native Lithuania.

Plamen Monovski, 22, who is from Bulgaria, learned about the school from a Petersen’s Guide to Colleges.

Adomaitis and Monovski are two of nine students from former Communist bloc countries attending the tiny college this year. Together, the four students from Lithuania, four from Bulgaria and one from Poland represent about 5% of the school’s enrollment of 203 students.

Thomas Aquinas College is not only small, it is relatively new. It was founded 20 years ago in the isolated, mostly barren hills north of Santa Paula. Nevertheless, it has become well-known in certain circles of Eastern Europe, partly through the personal efforts of the college’s librarian, who is a native of Lithuania, said John Holocek, a spokesman for the school.

Monovski and Adomaitis said they had always heard that American colleges were the best in the world, so they took advantage of the fall of the Iron Curtain to transfer from universities in their own countries.

Both young men said they chose Thomas Aquinas College because of its generous financial aid program and Great Books curriculum, where all students take the same courses on the primary texts of Western Civilization.

But the similarities between the two apparently stop there.

Monovski, who is dark-haired and olive-skinned, said he plans to become a priest or lay worker for the Eastern Orthodox Church. Although he is not Roman Catholic and does not attend the regular masses at the school, he believes that the college’s religious orientation is compatible with its dedication to free intellectual inquiry.

“The religious belief helps you believe there is an answer even if you don’t get it now,” he said. Monovski, who speaks English, Russian and Bulgarian, has been at the college since 1991. Adomaitis disagreed with his friend in the spirit of intellectual discourse fostered at the college.

“I would not be too eager to accept religion as a safeguard against skepticism,” said the tall, slender young man, who speaks English, French, Russian and Lithuanian.

Adomaitis, who said he hopes to become a teacher, came to Thomas Aquinas this fall. He said he appreciates the course work, but feels trapped at the campus without a car, and misses the cafe life in the city of Vilnius.

“They have a more rigorous atmosphere here,” he said about the college’s rules against drinking and partying. “They don’t just let themselves go.”