NORTHRIDGE : Baltic Educators Tour Area Colleges

Seeking to rebuild their nations’ educational systems from scratch, a group of professors from the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia Tuesday sized up Cal State Northridge as a possible model for colleges at home.

The eight-member delegation, sponsored by the U. S. Information Agency, puzzled over the concept of lowfat milk at a CSUN food lab, marveled at the school’s new library and sampled sushi at a nearby restaurant.

Despite recent financial troubles at CSUN that have brought unprecedented tuition increases and layoffs, the professors seemed impressed by their campus tour. But while some talked enthusiastically about new ideas for education they’d picked up--such as private universities--what they longed most to emulate was the material assets of California colleges. And that, most said, remains beyond their reach.

One visitor, Jaanus Kiili, president of the Natural Sciences Department at Tallinn Pedagogical University in Estonia, took a shine to the computerized reference system in CSUN’s Oviatt Library.

The system allows books to be retrieved simply and quickly, he said, but added that its price in Estonia would be astronomical.

“It is very good. But how to get it? I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head.

The professors, two from Estonia, three from Latvia and three from Lithuania, are on a three-week workshop and tour of Southern California colleges sponsored by the agency at a cost of about $3,000 per visitor, and hosted by Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

The group, made up of music, agriculture, biology and education specialists nominated from their universities at home, also visited the campuses of Thomas Aquinas College, Pepperdine University and the California Institute of Technology. They will visit several more colleges before leaving July 24.

Leonard Smith, history professor at Cal Lutheran and founder of the workshop, said the reason the group came to Southern California is because “there is no place in the world where they can see more diversity of schools than here.”

Following their independence from the Soviet Union, the Baltic states have been working to steer their education system away from the Soviet model, he said.