This section on the founding and early history of Cal Poly Pomona, our outstanding characteristics, and the major contributions of the new leadership of the university in the 1990s is intended as a common background for understanding the four themes (Chapters V — VIII).

When Founders’ Day was inaugurated in 1994, most of the students and workers had been unaware of the unusual, rather glamorous history of the university. The lovely old stables now housing Associated Students Inc. and Student Life were an unquestioned, if odd, part of the landscape. The mansion on Kellogg Hill was a relic suitable for parties, left us as an afterthought by one of California’s real estate tycoons of the mid-twentieth century. The Kellogg name all over the place reflected the importance of the Foundation we shared with other educational institutions, not a special relationship with a living family. The Voorhis name cropping up here and there was just another vocabulary item we didn’t know. We learned there was a lot more to it than name-dropping. Cal Poly Pomona’s history, in fact, is one of the most interesting features of the learning environment.

Will Keith Kellogg’s ranch opened to the public in 1926. Over 14,000 visitors came to see his Arabian horses perform in informal Sunday shows. By 1932, more than 200,000 people had visited the ranch in Pomona Valley, including celebrities and dignitaries such as Gary Cooper, Rudolph Valentino, Loretta Young, Will Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Clara Bow, Mary Pickford, Olivia de Havilland, and Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Three of Kellogg’s Arabians themselves achieved fame, King John as the model for Prince Charming’s stallion in Disney’s 1938 version of "Snow White", Jadaan as Valentino’s mount in "The Son of the Sheik", and Barakat as Tyrone Power’s horse in "Suez". Marlene Dietrich later rode King John in "The Scarlet Empress". Kellogg’s Arabians, bred from English, Arabian, Egyptian, Polish, and local stock, have continued to attract the public to the present day. Some three million people have attended the Sunday shows to date.

The horses’ popularity was nearly matched by that of the Spanish-style stables and extensive grounds of the ranch. Kellogg donated 200 acres to build a landing field, which was actually circled by Charles Lindbergh en route to the celebration of his historic flight to Paris. The field became W. K. Kellogg Airport, the largest privately owned airport in the country at the time. In 1932, he gave the entire ranch to the State of California, to be used for education, especially in agriculture, along with a $600,000 endowment for the W. K. Kellogg School of Animal Husbandry. Kellogg was 72 at the time. He had spent most of his adult life acquiring his fortune, but never forgotten his boyhood companion, Old Spot, the family horse. When his father had sold Spot, young Kellogg had vowed to own a ranch some day.

Political disputes interrupted the development of the ranch as an educational facility. The state turned the property over to the U.S. Army during World War II for use as a remount station and training ground for soldiers in horsemanship. After the war, it was taken over by the Department of Agriculture. The latter announced the discontinuation of the horse shows in 1948 and planned to auction or ship out the remaining horses. Cavalry was out of fashion. A national cry of protest went up. A local member of Congress, Richard M. Nixon of Yorba Linda, led activists to put pressure on the government to cancel the auction. The W. K. Kellogg Foundation was permitted to reacquire the ranch for the sum of one dollar.

California Polytechnic State University, based in San Luis Obispo, led by President Julian McPhee, saw the potential of the ranch as an educational site. McPhee proposed the addition of the ranch to the Voorhis Unit of Cal Poly College, located in San Dimas near by. Charles Voorhis, a California politician and philanthropist noted for his concern for providing education to the underprivileged, had established the unit as a school in 1928, which was later donated to the state. The Voorhis campus was used for agricultural instruction.

The campuses finally united on the ranch were known as the Kellogg Unit of Cal Poly. The old man’s vision was at last a reality. Construction of a new campus began in 1955 on the ranch site, and the first classes were held in 1956. Cal Poly Pomona’s first graduating class emerged in 1957 — consisting of 57 agriculture majors. The year 1961 saw the admission of the first women, a handful of home economics majors in the then-cutting edge model of agricultural extension work, i.e., the men to help the farmers in the field and the women to help their wives at home. Very little of this original curriculum or the (socially constructed) division of labor on which it was based survives, though the Cal Poly Women Faculty Association honors the experience of those women pioneers at its Annual Pioneers Banquet and in its Cal Poly Women’s History Archive. In 1966, Pomona became a separate state college, California State Polytechnic College, Kellogg-Voorhis, Pomona. Six years later, the campus entered the California State University system as its sixteenth university. Today, the university boasts the second largest physical campus in the system, and ninth in enrollment (both head count and FTES). (See Parkinson 1984 and Pflueger 1990 for fuller histories. The Division of University Advancement web site also contains background information on the university.)

This history forms part of the significant background for our current identity debate. Our polytechnic character certainly makes Cal Poly Pomona stand out among the regional comprehensive universities. The self-study research, attempting to address all the recommendations of the WASC visitors’ report of 1990 (please see the next chapter for the summary of their conclusions), has pointedly examined the status of our idea of our polytechnic selves. President Suzuki gave us one of the best definitions: (a) the learn-by-doing, applied, technical emphasis of our curriculum and pedagogy, (b) the on-going encounter between the (pre-)professional programs and the liberal arts and sciences, (c) development and utilization of ‘high’ technology in classes, with appropriate supporting facilities and programs (interview June 29, 1999). Many faculty voice this same approach or elements of it. That there may be faculty and staff who are relatively unconscious of their participation in a polytechnic university does not detract from the polytechnic nature of the mix. Discussions of the idea of polytechnic brought up the notion that technology should not be limited to information systems, multi-media, and automation. Technologies of the land and food, crafts and arts of all kinds, are equal to computing technology in human value, if not in marketability.

A few of the inter-disciplinary programs — Regenerative Studies, Inter-disciplinary General Education (IGE), Integrated Science General Education (ISGE) — are highly original and unique in the country in some of their features (please see Chapter VI "Teaching and Learning"). These particular programs were the brain children of three Cal Poly Pomona faculty, but it might be argued that the polytechnic setting itself was a fertile spawning ground for such hybrids of arts, sciences, and technical fields, hence that not only the genius of individuals accounts for their creation. The Geographic Information Systems project, which embraces a GIS Center, a certificate program, and at least three departments in three colleges, also has an inter-disciplinary flavor. Cal Poly Pomona is justifiably proud of having developed this kind of educational experience for undergraduates. However, we do not always know how to nurture and manage such programs, once having conceived and given birth to them. In a couple of cases, the originators themselves were unable to maintain their status vis-a-vis the project, so people say the vision was lost or at the least not yet achieved. Certainly, it would be a wonderful thing if a high proportion of the undergraduate population was exposed to the Regenerative Studies sequence, IGE, and/or ISGE, but at the present time, only a handful participate. The new Gender, Ethnic and Minority Studies (GEMS) major, though housed in a single department, is another inter-disciplinary program beginning to attract students into non-traditional majors. A number of graduate programs in existence or at the approval stage also boast this inter-disciplinary, polytechnic, applied quality, such as the Master’s in International Agriculture and Nutrition.

A significant, indeed inescapable, feature of Cal Poly Pomona is its membership in a huge system of universities, the California State University (CSU) system. The ‘90s have seen a growth of involvement on the part of the Chancellor’s Office and Board of Trustees in the affairs of the campuses, Pomona no more nor less than the other twenty-one (or —two, counting the Channel Islands facility). The Chancellor’s Office has shown considerable initiative in its provision of coordination services and resources for system-wide developments in assessment, teaching/learning study, faculty development, and service learning, but these useful services have been somewhat overshadowed by the dissension caused by the Cornerstones Plan (CSU Office of the Chancellor 1998), a proposal generated by the system office to serve as a kind of Strategic Plan, and the latest Accountability Process (CSU Office of the Chancellor 2000) (Appendices A1 and 2). The on-going tension between standardization of some curriculum and processes across campuses and specialization of some programs and operations has often been healthy and educationally progressive in our history. Cornerstones placed this tension on red alert status, as the campuses perceived in it the probability of a definitive resolution whose terms would be decided from the top. Executive Order 665 governing remediation — who was eligible, what other courses students could take, when they had to take the remedial courses, what constituted acceptable results, how to appeal, etc. — and Cal Poly Pomona’s refinement of the policy produced a mixed experience similar to that of Cornerstones, i.e., we know we need to take action in an area of institutional performance (quality assurance, remedial education), but we don’t like the source of the thrust (external authority) or the action steps themselves. Cal Poly Pomona faculty and administration have played a key role in the systemic response to these systemic issues. Our Response to Cornerstones (A1) forms the consensual base for the development of a more meaningful, truly applicable accountability protocol.

It has often been remarked by our respondents that the university undertakes a great number of initiatives — the ACE Project (see American Council on Education), the Keck Foundation Project, LandLab and the Spadra Landfill, (see LandLab Reports 1998, 1999) Internet-2, the SOAP Project (Student Learning Outcomes Assessment) (see Chapter VI, Theme Two), thirty or more institutional linkages with international partners (see Chapter VIII, Theme Four), a half-dozen off-campus programs, a major retention initiative spawned by a collaboration between student leaders and the administration (see Education Equity Retention Project charter paper), a new Writing Center, an advising initiative partnering Academic and Student Affairs, increasing use of Faculty Associates in managerial roles, and more. A cursory appraisal of documents from the preceding era indicates this is not a characteristic that has arisen de novo, though its scale and ambition are unprecedented (cf. LaBounty 1987, 1990). Like many things, this level of initiative and participation is a double-edged sword. The added effort and stress of the work involved is mitigated by the enhanced reputation enjoyed by the university.

The configuration of cultural centers on our campus is unparalleled in the CSU, and the associated resources and programs have been found in our self-study research to be of tremendous value to all. The university is learning how to go beyond merely accommodating a diverse body of students and others on the campus to nurturing and validating them after they are here, and even beyond that to re-vitalizing our educational program through the diverse perspectives. Of course, we have many top-ranked and cutting-edge major programs. We also have wonderful co-curricular and support programs. A handful of examples: Cal Poly Pomona has an award-winning Public Safety Department, a Student Health Center that is a frontline participant in national college student health issues, and a cutting-edge MediaVision facility that attracts creative attention from Hollywood and around the world, not to mention an Equine Research Unit and Arabian stables that would have convinced Mr. Kellogg to give us the university all over again. We also have among the highest rates of international activity of the CSUs and a gourmet student-run restaurant on campus. These have been gems we’ve hoarded but are beginning to draw upon and advertise a lot more. The Hugh O. LaBounty Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies, occupied by Saul Landau, lately of the Center for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., has been the source of a significant promulgation of Cal Poly Pomona’s name and information, through Mr. Landau’s radio and film work, his global and local outreach initiatives, and his re-invigoration of the Campus Forum lecture series, once again a high point on our local intellectual horizon. The Athletic Department has cultivated national class athletes and produced winning teams in a number of sports in recent years.

Across from the parking lot sometimes known as Siberia, yearling colts gambol in the sun. The rural feel of Cal Poly Pomona adds an element of serenity to community life, and it also reminds us of an important truth, i.e., that our present achievements are built upon the work of our ancestors. Sometimes we think we’ve come a long way from the days when education was a handful of boys sitting under a big tree with an old man, a healer or leader. Maybe the girls were elsewhere learning with a wise woman. Or the children were following their parents into the fields or forest to learn. We think we’ve advanced beyond the later days in our history when education was for the scions of the ruling houses. But we owe a debt of recognition to past teachers and leaders, and we should try to retain the beautiful and worthwhile traditions they established, for the future lies in the present decisions we make. The integrative, applied scholarship and pedagogy we exalt today, of which we rightfully are proud, derive directly from the long-time commitment of Cal Poly Pomona faculty and staff to caring, focused, expert teaching of both the hands-on and theoretical varieties. We are proud of this tradition, as well.