Summer classes set for OCC island

Orange Coast College has announced plans to hold eight classes this summer on Rabbit Island, even as the school’s foundation continues to entertain selling the British Columbian property.

Media relations director Jim Carnett said Tuesday that the island would host a number of science classes as well as others in geography, photography and kayaking. The courses may turn out to be the last ones OCC holds on the island, after a study team recommended last month that the school sell the property due to its high maintenance costs.

Carnett said that even as discussions continue regarding Rabbit Island’s future, the summer schedule was never in doubt.

“They’ve been working on these since last fall,” he said. “They’d always planned on having classes this summer no matter what the result of the report was.”

Biology instructor Kelli Elliott, who is slated to teach a class on the history of vertebrates, said the possibility of OCC losing Rabbit Island has increased the number of her students wanting to go there this summer. Her class, she noted, has a limit of about 20 participants.

“I have more students desperately interested than I have a place for, and I’m trying to encourage them to stay interested,” Elliott said.

Some of the instructors for this summer have never taught on Rabbit Island before. Geography teacher Kris Jones plans to lead an overland travel course to the island with stops at Lake Tahoe, Monterey, Mt. St. Helens and other locations along the way. Karen Baker, assigned to a marine ecology class, is also a newcomer.

OCC received Rabbit Island, which lies off the Canadian coast near Vancouver, as a gift in 2002 from yachtsman Henry Wheeler. The school has held summer courses on the island since then, but the OCC Foundation and others have cited the property as a drain on finances. The foundation is expected to vote in May on whether to sell the island.

Applications for summer classes will be accepted starting April 2, and May 14 is the first day to sign up. People interested in the classes can call the college’s admissions office at (714) 432-5772.