A San Marcos philosophy professor and several supporters are hoping to open a non-denominational liberal arts college in the upscale San Elijo Hills community in fall 2010, in the hopes of filling a void in San Diego County. If San Elijo College succeeds, it will join a growing list of facilities that have helped turn San Marcos into a major education center.
San Elijo College founder Tim Mosteller said last week that the campus will be a classical liberal arts institution modeled after so-called "great books" schools in other parts of the country.
Examples include Gutenberg College in Eugene, Ore.; St. John's College in Indianapolis, Ind., and Santa Fe, N.M.; and New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho.
"In North County, especially, there aren't any really traditional sort of liberal arts colleges,"
The school cannot start the multiyear process of seeking accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges until after it has opened.However, the college has registered with the state as a nonprofit corporation and recently received its nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service. Student are presently being recruited.
"We need at least 12 students, with a maximum of 35," he said, referring to the fall 2010 session. "We hope to end up with about 150 total (in five or six years)."
No textbooks 
A San Elijo Hills resident, the 39-year-old Mosteller has bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in philosophy.
He is a full-time faculty member at California Baptist University, a private Christian university in Riverside, and teaches part-time at Cal State San Marcos and the Vista extension campus for Biola University, a private Christian university in La Mirada.
Mosteller said he selected San Elijo Hills as a home for the college because he and his family live in and love the 3,400-home community, and because the college can be incorporated nicely into the area.
The college's six-member Board of Trustees has talked with the owners of the San Elijo Hills town center and a local church about leasing administrative office and classroom space in those buildings, he said.
San Elijo College's catalog states that students will spend four years pursuing a rigorous, liberal arts course of study centered around the great works of Western civilization.
The planned curriculum includes English grammar, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, geometry, astronomy and music. Students also will be required to study Latin and Spanish.
Rather than textbooks, Mosteller said, students will read books and other materials written by people commonly recognized as Western civilization's "great thinkers." Examples include Shakespeare, Aristotle, Plato, Chaucer, Dante, Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov.
"For instance, biology ---- they would read the original experiments and the original books by the great biologists like Darwin," Mosteller said. "And instead of taking a class in, say, American History, students would go back and read the original writings of the people who were writing at the time of the American Revolution."
Life lessons
City officials began touting San Marcos as an "education hub" after CSUSM opened in 1989. The university joined Palomar Community College, which founded its Mission Road campus in 1946.
High Tech High School, the University of Phoenix, Coleman University, the University of St. Augustine and the North County Regional Education Center now call San Marcos home, as well.
Mosteller said he met with the founders of private liberal arts colleges across the country before developing a business plan for San Elijo College.
"Between all of them, I was able to get a clear path in my mind about how to go about starting a school," he said.
The Nicene Creed ---- a basic statement of beliefs used by many Christian denominations ---- is prominently displayed on San Elijo College's Web site.
Mosteller said the board incorporated the creed to give the college a philosophical breadth without tying it to a particular church.
Christian scriptures, well-known theologians' works and other religions' texts will be on students' reading lists, he said, but students will not be required to adhere to a particular religion or belief system.
San Elijo College's tuition will be $8,000 a year. Mosteller said graduates will leave with bachelor's degrees in liberal arts and the ability to apply critical thinking skills to all aspects of their lives.
Buyers in the San Marcos real estate market are facing a market that is quite different than at the beginning of the year.
Marketwalk is a series of 12 townhomes in the heart of the San Elijo Hills downtown area, around the corner from the Albertsons' Grocery Store (with Savon Pharmacy). These homes with 4 floor plans (in Italian, Colonial or Loft styles and finishes), are built above the retail establishments on the first floor along the main street with views of the park to the west.
