Contrary to critics’ beliefs, Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong has still not made a decision on the semester debate, Semester Review Task Force chair Rachel Fernflores said Wednesday.
Fernflores spoke to a relatively small crowd at the first of four open forums in the Julian A. McPhee University Union about what the task force will do fall quarter before making a recommendation to Armstrong in early December. She outlined the purpose of the 23-member committee, introduced some of its members and fielded questions from those in attendance at the meeting.
“The president has told me he hasn’t made a decision,” Fernflores said. “He’s told me he doesn’t want to lie to people and say he doesn’t have a view. I can’t do this if I believe he’s lying to me.”
Students, alumni, parents and professors were all in attendance, though only four students came to the forum.
Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) President Katie Morrow said she was not shocked by the low number of students present. Morrow said she understands asking students to come to a forum during the day is not effective.
Instead, Morrow plans to begin an “on-the-ground outreach campaign.” Working with the three ASI representatives on the task force, she said the outreach campaign will bring information to students and solicit their opinions.
“We need to find more creative ways to outreach to (the students),” she said.
But Morrow and Fernflores agree outreach will not include a student vote. There is dispute among those on the task force over whether or not a vote would prove useful to the president when he makes his decision, but Fernflores said there is other information she would rather see asked in a campus-wide survey.
“I want to know how this university can get to the next step, and that’s what I want to know,” Fernflores said. “With quarters, can we make a big change like this?”
A vote with students might not be useful, Morrow said, because more constructive questions can be asked other than whether or not Cal Poly should convert. She said every student on campus has a voice that should be heard, though she personally has not decided whether conversion is right for Cal Poly.
“I consider myself a very informed student,” Morrow said. “But I even don’t fully know what it would fully mean for us to convert to semesters. So I don’t even feel comfortable saying yes or no.”
Sean McMinn contributed to this report.
A simple axiom of life that President Armstrong would do well to consider is “when it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it.”
In the most recent US News rankings, Cal Poly moved to #6 nationally for universities not offering Ph.Ds. What’s more, many of the university’s engineering programs were ranked between #1 and #3 nationally.
This data, along with much, much more, confirms Cal Poly’s quarter approach is working and working VERY well. Further, 80% of UCs , schools producing graduates with whom Cal Poly’s grad compete for jobs, are on the quarter system thus validating the preference and superior product the quarter system yields.
Armstrong needs to seriously ask himself if moving to the semester system will significantly improve Cal Poly or is he just doing it to comply as he’s stated in the past, with the wishes of outgoing CSU Chancellor, Charles Reed.
If it’s the latter, which it absolutely is, there’s no reason to make the change.
Reed is a lame duck and will be gone soon enough. The quarter approach worked well before Reed arrived and will continue to work very well once he and his agenda to dumb down Cal Poly are gone.
I agree that switching to a semester system is not what is best for Cal Poly, especially considering how much it will cost, and how many professors and classes would leave.
However, considering your whole argument is an appeal to tradition and how Armstrong just wants to satisfy the Chancellor, I would suggest that you ask yourself that, even though it will cost a lot of money to semesters, won’t Cal Poly in the end save more money once the semester system is implemented?
Again, I agree with your viewpoint, but not how you formed your argument. Do some more research. Learn by doing.
You might want to be more honest when you describe that ranking. Poly is 6th only in “regional universities” in the “western part of the country”. To quote the magazine, “Regional Universities offer a broad scope of undergraduate degrees and some master’s degree programs but few, if any, doctoral programs.” That category is separate from schools offering only undergraduate degrees, and both of those categories are separate from a third type of undergrad-focused place, liberal arts schools.
Semester task force has failed to draw students, color me surprised, Dua? because students are busy studying; now if these same students were on the Semester calendar they would have so much slack time they might show up for lack of a better idea to burn time, well maybe.
President Armstrong is strong arming Cal Poly – SLO into the semester vortex and then its going to be swift ride to the bottom of every university ranking.
And I might add, I’m sure that the majority of students and alumni would vote to keep quarters.