Cal Poly Pomona making cuts
11 Comments Published by clay October 28th, 2007 in State and Local Politics.
I learned about the major cuts after talking to an I-Poly alumni.
Cal Poly
But dodging that bullet will require cuts in other places yet to be determined, university officials said.
“Someone is going to have to do without,” said Ed Barnes, Cal Poly’s vice president of administrative affairs and its chief financial officer.
The campus was in an uproar Thursday and Friday after faculty and students learned part-time instructors in the department would be let go and the proposed 177 classes for the winter quarter would be reduced to 79.
The department will be able to offer all its classes, but 20 to 25 part-timers who work quarter to quarter will not return because some remedial math courses will be available only through online programs, he said.
“There is a significant improvement,” Green said of earlier fears that more classes would be eliminated. He said courses were preserved after students, parents, faculty and others put pressure on the university’s administration.
“It’s regrettable we have to go through this,” he said. “Providing funding to campus instruction should be the first priority.”
Seriously? This is such a strange idea…cutting out nearly 100 classes despite the fact that many of them are already overcrowded. I know on the first day of the quarter, juniors and seniors practically run up to Cal-Poly to try and snag a spot in a busy class and are usually asked to leave anyway. So why cut all these classes? It seems that Cal-Poly’s priorities are out of line. A new addition to the library as well as so many other things are being built on campus, but what good will they be if 2/3 of the students can’t even attend college full time anymore because of a lack of funds? Where is all of Cal-Poly’s money going? Books are incredibly expensive, it costs around $8 just to eat a complete meal in the student union. So what happens to the money? Sometimes I think schools forget that they are just that- schools. Not corporations or canvases for advertisements, but institutes for learning and higher education. I think it’s time to begin prioritizing for this and any other school facing funding issues. Students come to Cal-Poly to learn. Why take that away from them?
There is some good news. Finally, the state legislature is talking about the high cost of books. I like the rent-a-textbook idea and more consistency among professors regarding what textbooks they use.
If a cut is necessary, I expected Cal Poly to raise tuition prices to make up the difference. I realize students wouldn’t like this, but at least the classes will be available.
With regard to the new buildings, Cal Poly gets the funding for this from a different source. I think the billboard in front of the new buildings tell you where the university is getting the money.
College is a big financial undertaking. It costs a lot to apply, attend and it is costly for the people running it. It is not unusual that Cal Poly is having funding problems.
Maybe the problem is not the funding as much as the money managment. Before the college decides to rebuild something it should take care of its more pressing needs.
Cal Poly is letting in more students than they can afford. I know this is a horrible thing to say but maybe they should lower their acceptance rate. This would help with the over crowded classrooms.
College is a very expensive and you should be aware of this before taking it on.
The idea of Cal Poly dropping 98 classes is absolutely absurd. As a student from the Young Scholars program, I can tell you that as it is it is very difficult to find a college class because we are last priority. If this does happen then there will be no more Young Scholar program to be offered by I-Poly because it wil make it IMPOSSIBLE to get into a class. I believe that instead of cutting classes they should raise the price of tuition by a couple thousand and instead add some more classes. Yes, students are going to hate the idea of paying a higher tuition but they will like the fact that the class they want to take will more likely be available to them.
Although I am a student under the Young Scholars program I know that I am nowhere near as important as the students who pay thousands of dollars to get an education at Cal Poly. I think it is ridiculous how much we have to pay for a parking permit, books, a meal, and its just going to get worse! I have no idea where all the money I and all the other Cal Poly students shell out. They are not paying the staff enough, they’re laying off tons of employees, and dropping almost a hundred classes. I think this has something to do with California and the CSU system for not creating enough schools for the growing number of students. They have only created one new school in around ten years. I definetely think they should not raise the cost of tuition. Maybe California needs to step in and create more schools.
I think it kind of sucks that all remedial classes will be done online. My sister is taking Remedial math, and it’s on Aleks, because there isn’t enough room (or something like that)…But, isn’t Cal Poly have one of the best Engineering programs?? and in order to be an engineer, shouldn’t you be fairly well in math? Oh well.
Yes, this would be one of my MAIN reasons for not attending Cal Poly, because since i go to I-poly, where the math program reeks completely, i’d need remedial math. and for what i want to do, i’ll need math. no way in hell i’m going to cal poly anymore. I think we need some better school here in California.more schools like Cal Poly…Good and cheap (with math courses, of course). I know a few people who aren’t going to college because the don’t have the money…if this were about scholarshps, they screwed up one year of highschool, and don’t have the GPA for a scholarship…so they give up. if anything, i think tuition should be lowered.
then again, i like the point Salazar makes. maybe tuition should be highered…it would be well worth it…i don’t know, that’s tough
The idea of dropping classes at Cal Poly is a really ridiculous ideas I would have to say. I am actually taking college classes up there and it is even hard for me to get into a class without the class already being full. I have experienced some situations up at Cal Poly where even there own students can’t even get into the class. Us I poly students also have difficultly getting into the class because we are known as there last priority students. Dropping down to only 98 classes per quarter is really going to affect not only the I poly students but it will affect the enrolled students at Cal Poly.
To even think about cutting out math classes at an ENGINEERING school is ridiculous. If the changes had remained, many students would have had an entire year added on to their graduating time. And from what my math professor told me, its not that there is some ominous budget problem from spending too much last year. He says that the real cause was the pay raise for faculty (5 years after it was guaranteed). When the math classes were going to be cut, so were the majority of part time professors. So basically they were paying faculty more, just to fire them. Since all the problems just lead to lack of money, I don’t understand why Cal-Poly just can’t stop accepting everyone. In my college classes half of the students are failing anyways, so I don’t know why they can’t be just a bit more selective, even if it is a public school. By the way, I-Poly students looking at math/science schools would have been very nearly screwed as well.
Well this is a subject well talked about lately. I actually got to discuss it in 2 out of 3 classes i have at Cal Poly. I believe that these cuts affect everybody even me, i mean for what i know the classes cut severly were remedial math and life science. This really affects me, being a student that takes classes at cal poly i was really looking at some science classes to take next quarter. Now i might want to reconsider that because i know that there are going to be a lot more students trying to get to those available classes as well, and ofcourse they have priority.
As it is it was really hard being able to get into math classes and this is why i resorted to Mt.Sac for math. There were also cal poly students taking classes there. Currently there are Cal Poly students in my Math class at Mt.Sac and they say that it’s easier to get into math classes here than at their own university. i beleive this to be quiet obsurd since Cal Poly is known to be ranked in the top 10 nation wide Engineering schools, and this is why i beleived that they would have a strong and opened field of math. Well last thing i heard was that there was a march against it, and that soem teachers got their job back. Hopefully thats true!
Cutting about 100 classes is just absurd! And especially when they are cutting math classes. It’s crazy because they are an engineering school and it just doesn’t make sense to cut of the math classes. I believe that Cal Poly should just make their requirements a little higher because like Annalise said half of the students that take classes fail. It’s weird but true. I-Poly students sometimes do so much better in the classes then cal poly students it’s kind of sad. Making the requirement a little stricter will make the classes much smaller because they are so crowded.