Thais Turn to Ventura Educator for Guidance : Learning: A visiting delegation will see the local community college system in action. Such a school is planned in their country, where the concept is new.

Educators in Thailand have almost everything they need to start the country’s first community college.

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They have the land, 1,000 acres near the Mekong River donated by nearby villagers. They have the money, in the form of grants from the Thai and U.S. governments. They even have the blessing of the area’s most famous monk.

Now all they need is a curriculum for the school, which they plan to formulate after visiting Ventura County’s community colleges this week.

Hoping to model their community college after those in California, 20 Thai delegates will watch the system in action this weekend and Monday, hosted by a group of American educators.

Ventura College instructor and state board member Yvonne Bodle, who is leading the effort, already has traveled to Thailand twice this year for seminars with Thai educators.

“It’s exciting to help another country establish the college system you’re so proud of,” Bodle said. The delegation--made up of Thai governors, educators, doctors and business leaders--will meet with college officials, tour local hospitals and the court system, and get a taste of life on the Ventura College campus. On Monday, the delegates will depart for colleges in Northern California. Bodle said they will study everything from class structure to admissions procedures to financial aid distribution.

“Open access, no or low tuition, that they can transfer to another college. That was a concept unknown to them.” Bodle said.

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Thai women have been particularly impressed that they can go back to school to improve their skills or start or switch careers later in life through community colleges, Bodle said. The average student at California’s community colleges is a 26-year-old female.

Bodle, a product of the community colleges, speaks with pride about the Thai project and the school system. After attending Ventura College, she went on to earn her bachelor of arts degree at San Jose State University, her master’s at Columbia University, and her doctorate at UC Santa Barbara.

A renowned educator, Bodle was invited in February to be one of five American community college representatives to meet with Thai educators about starting the college.

In August, she led another group of educators back to Thailand. There the American teachers instructed classes in hotel and restaurant management, business, communications and English as a second language. They also introduced 20 high school principals to the concept of community colleges, in the hope that they would encourage future students to attend.

The Thai college would emphasize majors that would allow graduates to pursue careers in Thailand’s growing tourism industry, in addition to offering English and basic transfer requirements.

The competition to get into major universities straight out of high school in Thailand is fierce. Of 6,500 students who graduated recently from schools where the college is planned, only 500 were admitted to college, leaving 6,000 students with no place to continue their education.

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“They studied our community college system and feel it’s the social movement that created the middle class,” Bodle said.

The college will be built between the towns of Nongkhai and Udonthani in the northeast corner of the country about 800 miles from Bangkok. Although it is officially titled the First Global Community College, locals are calling it the “near home college” because it will be about 90 miles closer to them than the nearest four-year university.

Groundbreaking for the new facility, which will serve about 12,000 students, is set for next month. Organizers hope to open two satellite campuses in the nearby towns next spring. They will operate as main learning centers until the college is completed and then will probably house English language programs after that.

Bodle said the effort also will lend an international flavor to Ventura County’s community colleges in the future.

Once the college is off the ground, she envisions exchange programs between Thailand and faculty members and students in Ventura County.

“When we were over there, a well-known Buddhist monk gave the college his blessing,” she said. “He said, ‘If it is possible, it is possible.’ It’s so simple, but so beautiful.”