College to Showcase New Honors Classes

Moorpark College, which plans to begin an honors program in the spring, will host an open house today and Tuesday to showcase its new classes, as well as its expanded Learning Community Institutes and a “Strategies for Success” course.

While the honors program will be a way to reward the best students, the other two programs have been designed to help improve the work habits and retention rates of the college’s 5,000 freshman, officials said.

“The honors program is a way to encourage really strong students to get the most out of college,” said Victoria Bortolussi, dean of institutional advancement. “The ‘Strategies for Success’ is targeted to help students in their study habits, and the learning communities are designed to help in the retention area, to help students focus on a goal.”

In addition to study habits, the three-unit, strategies course addresses time management and research methods, Bortolussi said.

The honors program will start with one English class, “Approaches to Literary Studies,” said Grethe Wygant, the college’s honors coordinator. Starting in fall 2000, honors philosophy, mathematics, history and Spanish classes will also be offered, she said.

Although any student can sign up for the honors classes, to graduate from the honors program, students must fill out an application, complete 15 units of honors courses and participate in extracurricular activities, Wygant said.

“One of the benefits of having an honors program for the students is that they would be in a better position to do well in a four-year school,” she added.