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California Polytechnic State University

California Polytechnic State University:Image:Calpoly seal.gif
Motto Discere Faciendo
(Latin: "Learn by Doing")
Established March 8 1901
Type Public
Endowment US$ 140.1 million[1]
President Warren J. Baker
Faculty 1,182
Students 18,475
Undergraduates 17,488
Postgraduates 987
Location San Luis Obispo, California
Campus Urban, 9,678 acres
(39 km²)
Colors Green and gold
Mascot Mustang
Affiliations California Polytechnic State University:CSU
Website CalPoly
This article is about the university in San Luis Obispo, California. For Cal Poly Pomona, see California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

California Polytechnic State University, commonly called Cal Poly, is a public university located adjacent to San Luis Obispo, California. Cal Poly is part of the 23-campus California State University system. The University offers a full spectrum of degrees, but it is best known for its engineering, agricultural, architectural, business and printing programs.


Contents

History

California Polytechnic State University:Cal Poly Performing Arts Center
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Cal Poly Performing Arts Center
California Polytechnic State University:Cal Poly's Orfalea College of Business
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Cal Poly's Orfalea College of Business
California Polytechnic State University:The Cotchett Education Building
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The Cotchett Education Building

Overview

Cal Poly was established in 1901 when Governor Henry T. Gage signed the California Polytechnic School Bill. The California Polytechnic School was built adjacent to San Luis Obispo and held its first classes on September 30, 1903, offering secondary (high school) courses of study. The first incoming class was 20 students. The school continued to grow steadily, except during a period from the mid 1910s to the early 1920s when World War I led to drops in enrollment and drastic budget cuts forced fewer class offerings.

In 1924, Cal Poly was placed under the control of the California State Board of Education. In 1933, the Board of Education changed Cal Poly into a two year technical and vocational school. The institution began to offer Bachelor of Arts degrees in 1940, and was renamed the California State Polytechnic College in 1947 to better reflect its higher education offerings. In 1960, control of Cal Poly and all other state colleges was transferred from the State Board of Education to an independent Board of Trustees, which later became the California State University system.

The college was authorized to offer Master of Science degrees in 1967. From 1967 to 1970, the school’s curriculum was reorganized into different units (such as the School of Science and Math, the School of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the School of Architecture, which was created in 1968). Cal Poly's FM radio station, KCPR, also began as a senior project in 1968. The state legislature changed the school’s official name again in 1971 to California Polytechnic State University. Since the 1970s, the University has seen steady enrollment growth and the construction of many significant buildings on campus. Cal Poly celebrated its centennial in 2001, and kicked off a $225 million fundraising campaign, the largest fund raising effort ever undertaken in CSU history. The Centennial Campaign raised over $264 million dollars from over 81,000 donors, more than tripling the university’s endowment from $43 million to $140 million. Cal Poly’s endowment is in the top 10% of higher education endowments nationwide.

Relationship with Cal Poly Pomona

Cal Poly Pomona began as a satellite campus of Cal Poly in 1938 when a completely equipped school and farm were donated by Charles Voorhis of Pasadena, California and his son Jerry Voorhis. The satellite campus was initially called the Voorhis Unit. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation then donated a 812 acre (3.3 km²) horse ranch in Pomona, California to Cal Poly in 1949. Located about one mile from the Voorhis campus, the two became known as the Kellogg-Voorhis unit. The Kellogg-Voorhis unit broke off in 1966, becoming the fully independent Cal Poly Pomona University. Since 1949, the San Luis Obispo and Pomona universities have cooperated on creating a float for the Rose Parade. The float program is one of the longest consecutive running self-built entries in the parade, as well as the only "self built" floats designed and constructed entirely by students year-round on both campuses.

Football team plane crash

On October 29, 1960 a chartered plane carrying the Cal Poly football team, hours after from a loss to Bowling Green State University, crashed on takeoff at the Toledo, Ohio airport. Eighteen of the forty-eight people on board were killed, including sixteen players, the team’s student manager, and a Cal Poly football booster. Cal Poly alumnus John Madden’s fear of flying is commonly attributed to the crash. Madden, who played football for Cal Poly from 1957-58 and was coaching at the nearby Allan Hancock Junior College at the time of the crash, knew many former teammates aboard the plane. Among the survivors were quarterback Ted Tollner, who went on to become head football coach of the University of Southern California and San Diego State University.

On Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 1961, LA County Supervisor Warren Dorn and Bob Hope provided a "Mercy Bowl" in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum between Fresno State and Bowling Green State to raise a memorial fund for the survivors and bereaved families. The event raised about $200,000. As of 2006, memorial plaques for the crash can be found on campus at Mott Gym and the Mustang horse statue. A permanent memorial plaza will open with the new Alex G. Spanos Stadium, currenly under construction. The memorial will have 18 copper pillars, one for each of the team members who died in the crash. Each copper pillar will rise the height of the player honored, and will be topped with a plaque about that player's life.

Fight Song

Ride High, You Mustangs

Ride High You Mustangs,

Kick the frost out, burn the breese,

Ride High You Mustangs,

The bow wows we'll knock to their knees

Hi Ki Yi

Ride High You Mustangs

Chin the moon and do it right

Ride High and cut a rusty

Fight! Fight! Fight!

- by Harold P. Davidson

Endowment

California Polytechnic State University:Cal Poly's endowment by year.
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Cal Poly's endowment by year.

Cal Poly’s endowment more than tripled during its Centennial Campaign from US$43.1 million to US$140.1 million. It is now the largest in the CSU system, representing one-fifth of all endowed funds in the 23-campus system. Growth is attributed to gifts and prudent stewardship.

Cal Poly’s endowment is in the top 10% of higher education endowments nationwide based on market value. [1]

Academics

Programs and degrees

California Polytechnic State University:The Agricultural Sciences Building
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The Agricultural Sciences Building
California Polytechnic State University:Outside the Architecture Building
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Outside the Architecture Building
California Polytechnic State University:The main atrium of the Architecture Building.
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The main atrium of the Architecture Building.
California Polytechnic State University:The Engineering West Building.
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The Engineering West Building.

The university currently offers BA, BS, BArch, BLA, BFA, and Masters Degrees in seven colleges:

Ranking

According to U.S. News & World Report, Cal Poly is ranked the top public university in the Western United States, for schools whose highest degree is a master's. Among the highest-regarded engineering schools, it is number 2 and 3 for schools whose highest degree is a bachelor's or master's in the nation for its computer and industrial & manufacturing engineering programs respectively.

In a 2002 poll conducted by the leading architecture and engineering journal DesignIntelligence, Cal Poly was voted the number 2 architecture school in the nation.

Admissions

31,103 students applied to Cal Poly for the 2006 Fall Semester, and 11,726 were accepted (37%). Of those accepted, 3,836 (38%) enrolled.

Students are required to choose a major when they apply for admission and each candidate is judged against others applying to that major. Because of this, there are differences in the percentage of students admitted to different majors. The architecture science majors and some liberal arts majors are particularly difficult to get into. To prevent students from applying for an easy to get into major and then transferring to another, the transfer process has been made extremely difficult.

The average GPA of freshmen admitted was 3.81. The average combined SAT score was 1245. In Fall 2006, 57% men and 43% women were enrolled in Cal Poly. Liberal arts majors are dominated by women, while engineering, physics and architecture students are mostly male. It is not unusual for upper division classes in these majors to have few or no members of the opposite sex.

Female admissions

Cal Poly opened as a coeducational school, and it had 40 men and 12 women in its incoming class of 1904. However, in 1930, females were barred from the entire school.[2] Female students were again admitted in 1956 (27 years later). The University remains coeducational today.

Tuition

As of August 2006, tuition for the average student was US$1,450 per quarter[3]. Tuition has increased rapidly in the last several years. In 1997, tuition was about US$700[citation needed]. In 1981, the tuition was about US$300. Some of the increases were to make up for the budget cuts by the State of California. Some tuition increases were made in order to hire additional faculty and improve campus facilities.

Alma Mater

All Hail, Green & Gold

All Hail, Green and Gold,

May your praises e'er be told

Of friendship, and of courage

And of stalwart sons of old!

All Hail, Green and Gold,

In your name we shall prevail,

So to California Polytechnic,

Hail! Hail! Hail!

- by Harold P. Davidson

Campus

California Polytechnic State University:The Dexter Lawn
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The Dexter Lawn

Cal Poly owns more land than any other California university, with the exception of UC Berkeley. There are 9,678 acres (39 km²) in total. The lands are used for student education, mainly agriculture. The lands include the main campus, two nearby agricultural lands and two properties in Santa Cruz county.

Parking

Parking on campus is a perennial problem, eliciting strong emotions in students and nearby residents. Since the cost of housing is inversely proportionate to the distance from campus, many students choose to live away from campus, where housing is cheaper and commuting by car may be the only viable option. To address the problem, the university built a multi-level parking structure and plans to build more, though it will be several years before they are complete.

In its facilities Master Plan[4], the university admits that while more parking spots will be added, the actual ratio of parking to students will decrease since enrollment is expected to increase sharply. To resolve the disparity, the Master Plan calls on the university to reduce the demand for individual vehicle parking. As part of that plan, the university has constructed additional dorms and has tried to make campus life more enjoyable. However, many students would prefer not to live on campus for a variety of reasons, including the campus-wide ban on alcohol and mandatory meal plan. Recently, the school launched a public information campaign called "Options", which seeks to educate students on commuting alternatives, though it is not clear that the campaign has had any effect.

Compounding the problem in recent years was the closure of a large and frequently used parking lot to make room for new engineering buildings. As a result, several outlying fields have been converted to parking lots, forcing students to park far from the campus core. In its most recent survey of available parking spaces on campus, the Cal Poly University Police reported 2,615 general purpose parking spaces, 1,635 dorm resident spaces, and 6,621 total spaces[5].

Commuting Alternatives

California Polytechnic State University:The southern end of Cal Poly as seen from the Cal Poly "P"
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The southern end of Cal Poly as seen from the Cal Poly "P"
California Polytechnic State University:The Recreation Center
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The Recreation Center

Bicycle racks are available throughout the campus, though bicycles are not as common as at other universities. The off-campus student population is mostly centered in areas either close enough to walk or areas judged to be too far to ride a bicycle. Additionally, the city's SLO Transit bus system provides service to and from campus. Since the buses are partially subsidized by student tuition, Cal Poly students can ride for free. Bus service is also available in a wider area through the CCAT system, though fares are not free to Cal Poly students and the schedule is less convenient. For example, service to the nearby satellite town of Los Osos, popular among students and faculty, leaves for Cal Poly only once at 7 AM and doesn't return again until 6 PM.

Residence Halls

There are five groups of residential halls on the Cal Poly campus. The five North Mountain halls (Diablo, Shasta, Palomar, Lassen, and Whitney) are the oldest on campus and were constructed during the 1950s. The Sierra Madre and Yosemite halls were finished by 1968. The six Red Bricks (Muir, Sequoia, Trinity, Santa Lucia, Tenaya, and Fremont) were built in the 1960s. The newest dormitories are in Cerro Vista (Morro, Cabrillo, Hollister, Romauldo, Islay, and Bishop), and they were completed in 2004. Construction on a new dormitory, Poly Canyon Village, began in 2006.

Each of the residence halls represent a different community on campus. The North Mountain Halls are Living-Learning Program halls for engineering students, and are mostly occupied by third-year transfers. The six Red Bricks are also LLPs for the different colleges of Cal Poly (Muir: Science and Mathematics, Sequoia: Architecture and Environmental Design, Trinity: Liberal Arts, Santa Lucia: Engineering, Tenaya: Business, and Fremont: Agriculture). Sierra Madre and Yosemite Halls are the First-Year Connection halls and focus on freshman-oriented transition programs into a college environment. Cerro Vista is the "Sophomore Success" program and helps students transition into living independently (e.g. cooking, apartment-style living).

Cal Poly Corporation

The Cal Poly Corporation is a separate non-profit 501(c) corporation operating in concert with the University. Its primary role is to furnish all non-academic services on the campus, including cafeteria/dining, retail services (bookstores, clothing, etc.), publishing, and other programs on the Cal Poly Campus. This arrangement is relatively common at many CSU’s and UC’s.

The Corporation was founded in 1941 as the Cal Poly Foundation, and did not change its name until February 1, 2006. Despite the name change, it is still known to most on the Cal Poly campus as "the Foundation". In recent history the Corporation has not enjoyed a very popular reputation on campus. Most regard the Corporation's products and services sub-par and overpriced when compared to what is readily available outside the campus. This is mainly attributed to the fact that the Corporation has a chartered monopoly on nearly all services on the campus and thus does not face any substantial competitive pressures. The Corporation has severely limited the presence of outside fast food chains and other retailers when compared to other CSU and UC campuses, limiting diversity. Student input into the Corporation's leadership is very limited and many feel that it has grown detached from the needs of the student body it services.

Corporation Operations

Notable alumni

[6]

This section does not cite its references or sources.
You can help Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations.This article has been tagged since October 2006.

Athletics

Businesses Started by Cal Poly alumna

Notes and References

  1. ^ As of 2004. Giving to Cal Poly. California Polytechnic State University (2004).
  2. ^ Cal Poly Alumni Association - Cal Poly History
  3. ^ Cal Poly Student Accounts, Fee Payment Policy
  4. ^ Cal Poly Campus Master Plan Cal Poly Facilities Planning and Capital Projects, March 21, 2001
  5. ^ Parking Lot Survey Cal Poly University Policy Department, January 20, 2006
  6. ^ <a href="http://www.calpoly.edu/simplythebest/simplythebest.html#_alumni">Cal Poly Alumni Shine</a>
  7. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Wilson-Creation-Xerox-Charles-Ellis/dp/0471998354/sr=8-1/qid=1165203405/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1_s9_rk/102-4077860-1530542?ie=UTF8&s=books&s9r=8a5801be0e08f94c010e0aaa29bd0016


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