Paul Pagson

Office: EOPS Center Building
Phone: (805) 378-1464
Email: PPagson@vcccd.edu

My name is Paul K. Pagson. I am the Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS) coordinator. I oversee the operations of the EOPS program, which provides numerous support services for low income students. Some may think that I am an old man, probably because I have been working here at Moorpark College since 1970 and in EOPS since 1975. But to me it just seems like a few years ago that I started college and not so many years ago that I started working here at Moorpark College. The years have flown by and all of them have been so wonderful and rewarding. What an adventure and what a joy it has been to experience.

When I first started here at Moorpark College, I started as an instructor. I taught Political Science 7 (minority group relations); Law Enforcement 7 (a course that was part of the Ventura County Police Academy), and a course entitled Social Science 1 (the first team taught class at the college). Later, I started teaching Sociology 2 (social problems) and I still teach Sociology, but not here at Moorpark College, but at Ventura College on Monday nights. Soon after three or four years of teaching, I started using my counseling training and became a counselor, working for the counseling department and later for the EOPS program. From working in EOPS as a counselor, I one day was promoted EOPS coordinator.

Before I started working at Moorpark College, I attended Loyola University of Los Angeles (now referred to as Loyola Marymount University), where I majored in Sociology, and received my BA degree. I then attended Mount Saint Mary’s College, where I earned my Masters Degree in Education with emphasis in counseling and cultural factors. I so enjoyed learning and attending Loyola University and Mount Saint Mary’s College.

Both my college and my master’s programs offered me the advantages of a lifetime. Everything was so exciting, so challenging, and so fulfilling. College life so uplifted me and it was one of the happiest times of my life. It was such a positive time in my life that I was so delighted that at Moorpark College I was given the opportunity to give to others the same kind of positive college experiences that builds memories that students will always treasure. I feel that I have been in college all my life. I loved it so much, that I have continually been connected to it. For some it is hard to leave Moorpark College.

Just imagine working somewhere where you can make a major difference in someone’s life. Where when students first meet you, you are surrounded by staff and by so many fantastic resources all designed to provide students with college programs and career choices that empowers each and every one of them to find themselves, their path to success and a way for their dreams to unfold in front of their eyes.

Now just imagine working somewhere where every year you are rewarded for all the hard work that you do. Where students and their parents are gleaming with joy and happiness at the excitement that graduation day has finally arrived and that their dreams are all about to come true. Where when your students reflect on the times that they spend with you, their instructors, their counselors and the staff at Moorpark College they only remember that good times and the success that hard work produces. Where time after time, students recall their experiences in EOPS, where they recall their teachers and their friends helping them to get it together. Where, when they think about all the things that the college and the EOPS program has done for them, they can hardly believe it.

Moorpark College and the EOPS program is where it’s at for many of our students. I have truly enjoyed working here and I hope one day that you will be able to experience what I have experienced.