Native Son Returns to Help Launch School

Frank Barajas grew up less than 10 miles--but a world apart--from Ventura County’s emerging Cal State campus.

There was little talk of four-year degrees in his south Oxnard neighborhood, little awareness of long-promised plans to create the county’s first public university.

In fact, he only learned of the Channel Islands campus two years ago--long after he went away to college and became a community college instructor--as he was driving back to Oxnard to research his dissertation and saw a freeway sign pointing the way there.

Now Barajas is one of the founding faculty members at the college under development near Camarillo, responsible for shaping curriculum and reaching out to students in neighborhoods such as the one he came from, those who too often hit a dead end in pursuit of higher learning.

“I feel a tremendous amount of responsibility,” said the 37-year-old Barajas, an All-American wrestler at Oxnard High and Moorpark College before heading to Fresno State, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history.

He earned his doctorate in May from Claremont Graduate University with a thesis on the political and socioeconomic development of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in Oxnard.

“Because I am a native son, I know that part of my job is performing outreach,” he said. “I’m there not just to be a teacher, but to be an ambassador for the university.”

Cal State officials said they could not have picked a better person.

Chosen from a pool of 2,300 applicants, Barajas and a nucleus of 12 other professors will help craft course work, formulate academic policy and recruit an additional 25 full-time professors--all in time for the university to open in fall 2002.

Barajas and about half the others started work last week. The rest will trickle onto campus over the summer. Their salaries range between $71,000 and $92,000.

Although Barajas, formerly an instructor at Cypress Community College, has less experience than his new colleagues and has never taught at university level, Channel Islands President Richard Rush said he was looking to tap a broad range of experience for his founding faculty.

That he was born and raised in Oxnard was a bonus, Rush said, as was the fact that he is a Latino in a county that is becoming increasingly Latino. But neither were deciding factors, Rush said.

“When I talked to him, he was committed to the vision of Channel Islands and he was interested in working with the community,” Rush said. “All of these elements brought me to the point where I wanted him to be part of the team.”

While many of the founding faculty members have ties to the area, none has deeper roots than Barajas.

He was born at the old St. John’s hospital near downtown Oxnard. His mother ran a clothing boutique downtown before she retired. His father worked as an electronics assembler for an aerospace company before it went bust and he took over a downtown Laundromat, where he can still be found today.

Both preached the importance of education to their children. And both couldn’t be prouder.

“He was always a No. 1 student; come rain or shine he never missed school,” said his mother, Ramona. “We had heard there was going to be a university in Camarillo, but we never dreamed that our son would be one of the first professors there.”

Oxnard Planning Commissioner Edward Castillo, a classmate of Barajas at Oxnard High and college roommate at Fresno State, said he remembers his friend as quiet, even shy, but extremely athletic. As a wrestler and football player at Oxnard High, Barajas received a lifetime achievement award when he graduated in 1983.

“Everyone is so proud of the guy,” said Castillo, who was senior class president.

“We all like to say we have a responsibility to give back to the community, but Frank is making that commitment.

That sentiment extends to Moorpark College, where Athletic Director John Keever said he is not surprised by Barajas’ success. When he was wrestling coach years ago, Keever recruited Barajas to the east Ventura County community college.

“He applied the same dedication he had in the wrestling room to his schoolwork,” Keever said. “He was really a memorable student athlete here, one of the all-timers.

He even dropped in last month to talk to youngsters at the university’s first-ever summer college program, an effort to jump-start college careers of area high school students, many the sons and daughters of immigrants.

“I let them know where I was from and that my background was similar to theirs,” Barajas said. “Hopefully they will get the idea that they also can excel.”