Curious about what led to the quagmire in Vietnam in the 1960’s? Well now you can find out at Moorpark College in a new class that addresses that specific issue.
The Vietnam War class has been taught in the past by Professor Dan Brown, but not for a few years, and comes at a time when many people are comparing the current political situation to what was going on in the 60’s.
“I think students will come out with a little better appreciation of how we got in that quagmire,” Brown said, referring to the situation we were in during the 1960’s.
New classes ranging from Hispanic American Literature at Oxnard to Yoga Fundamentals at Ventura and the Vietnam War class at Moorpark are being offered at all VCCCD campuses this semester as part of the district’s usual effort to offer something new each semester. Ventura and Oxnard College each have 14 new classes. Moorpark is offering an expanded journalism program, which incorporates the news from Oxnard, Ventura and Moorpark colleges into one newspaper. The Vietnam Class at Moorpark is a late start class starting today, September 14th.
Besides the Vietnam War class, Moorpark College is offering a new Intermediate Martial Arts class which is held Tuesday and Thursday night, a computer class called Advanced Networking Aspects of Multiplayer Gaming, also on Thursday, another computer class that teaches the fundamentals of Cisco that is held on Saturday afternoon, or Thursday night, and the extension to the journalism offerings following the closing of the journalism program at Oxnard and Ventura Colleges. There is a telecommunications aspect to the Monday-Wednesday Journalism class. Students talk to each other from each of the three campuses via live feed.
At Ventura College there is a new yoga class being offered, Yoga Fundamentals, which Public Information Officer, Alisa Moore says students were pretty excited about.
Introduction to Renaissance Art is a new night class at Ventura, 7:00-9:50 p.m. Taught by instructor Jo Rolfe. Ventura is also offering, for the first time, bilingual History classes, down at East campus.
At Oxnard College, some very colorful classes were added this semester, including Mexican Folklorico Dance. This teaches students basic Mexican dance skills.
Science by the sea is a three-unit science class held at the new Marine Education center at Channel Islands harbor.
At Moorpark College, the late start Vietnam War class is CSU and UC transferable and will be held Wednesday night from 6 p.m. to 9:50 p.m.
“The class should provide an accurate representation of the many facets of a very complex time in American history,” Brown said. Brown is a real Vietnam veteran and has a purple heart for being wounded with shrapnel in his leg. Concerning agent orange, the infamous chemical the United States used to defoliate plants so we could see in the jungles of Vietnam, Brown had some first hand experience: “I had to have been exposed. You could smell it. It smelled like formaldehyde.”
This isn’t the first time the class has been taught at Moorpark, but it is new this semester. It was last held in ’01. Professor Brown taught it back then, but vowed to not teach it again because, “No one was reading the text.”
This time it will be a joint effort between Professor Brown and Hugo Eckback, a Moorpark College film teacher, and other guests who will drop by the class. The class will be taught in conjunction with a number of movies.
