significant features
of Cal Poly Pomona

challenges facing
higher education

characteristics of the
local environment

the student population

trends in enrollment

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. (more...)

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This section is particularly relevant to a reading of Chapters VI ("Teaching and Learning") and VIII ("New Directions"), the two themes most directly concerned with academic excellence, change in the educational program of the university, and educational effectiveness assessment. We have structured our self-study report around (a) the challenges in our internal and external environment, (b) the findings of the research we have conducted on the university, and (c) the recommendations we wish to make to the campus that address those challenges and findings. The challenges discussed in this section are considered to emanate from outside this particular university and to apply generally to all our themes as a broad, fluid sociocultural, political, and economic framework within which we must do our educational work. If the authors have a general ideological bias in our interpretation of the pertinent events, it is the rather conservative one favoring the sustenance of the institutional distinctiveness of university-level (and, in fact, all) education as opposed to the blurring of their difference from commercial institutions; further, we tend to value institutional diversity and freedom over standards-driven homogeneity and externally-defined productivity. We prize and advocate the aggressive democratization and opening up of higher education and cherish the process by which we question the tenets of thought we regard as fundamental — today — including those in which we anchor our professional lives. We recognize that there is a variety of opinion regarding these issues, including some that are diametrically opposed to our perspective stated above, and acknowledge regretfully that we do not have space here to conduct a review of the literature of all persuasions. Many specific challenges are also listed in Annex A11. (more...)

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Pomona, long the largest satellite city of Los Angeles, was an agricultural entrepot, then an industrial zone. Its dependency on both sources of revenue meant that changes in these modes of production displacing economic activity left it with one of the highest unemployment rates in the region. Today, our region exhibits a potent economic mix of biotechnology, media, financial sector, food science, information technology, light manufacturing, modern agriculture, aerospace, traditional industrial production, services, and environmental firms — many of them small businesses. The map on the following page shows the extent of poverty in our region. [Figure 2]

The University Career Center (Student Affairs) and the Center for Economic Education (College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences) have both carried f Agricultureg out studies of the local environment from the standpoint of future employment for students and contractual, consulting, and other collaborative work for the university. The Employers’ Survey that the Self-Study Committee, together with the Office of Institutional Research and Planning, has proposed will also contribute abundantly to our knowledge of the opportunity structure our graduates enter and of their performance within it. (See also Lothrop 1988.)

Research conducted for our recent ENLACE grant proposal (a program primarily for Hispanic Serving Institutions and school partners) profiles the stark effects of the recession on local communities: 10% unemployment, even higher under-employment and poverty in some cities (cf., e.g., Husing 1998, Adler, Cragin and Searls 1995). A dramatic change (for the worse) in the economic base of the region was produced by the movement or down-sizing of major engineering operations such as General Dynamics at the beginning of the decade. In 1997, California’s improving economy began to be reflected locally, though the manufacturing sector has never resumed its former prime status as employer. Cal Poly Pomona’s engineering programs were affected by this change. Another striking feature of the regional picture is its extremes: gross differences in income, access to services, crime rates, school performance as measured by students’ scores on state tests, education levels, and so forth, within and between communities. One study conducted by a Cal Poly Pomona faculty member of quality and availability of health services in the East San Gabriel Valley showed what a tremendous difference it makes whether a person lives in LaVerne or La Puente — neighbors with almost nothing in common (Wills 1997). This feature is also visible in the student body at the university; students from disadvantageous backgrounds learn together with the children of the moneyed elite.

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The human face of Cal Poly Pomona is beautifully variant. We are among the most diverse universities in the country, even the world, in terms of numbers of ethnic groups well-represented. This is our great strength. There are more international students than there are domestic students from out of state http://www.csupomona.edu/~irp. The Californians, mainly from the southern region, also have familial roots from all over the globe. The visual and aural impression we have of Cal Poly Pomona students is that they are a mix not to be found at any other large university in the country. This polyglot population clothed in everything from pious head coverings to gangsta garb come, over eighty percent of them, from the local area, but their living roots are still deep in every place on earth. Europeans and Americans of European descent comprise approximately one third of the student body. There are substantially more of them in some majors, strikingly less in others. The gender stratification of the student population also bears this asymmetry: though women and men are almost equal in overall numbers, they are out of balance as regards major, the men concentrated in such fields as engineering, the women in Liberal Studies, for instance.

This section addresses some of the characteristics of students not covered in enrollment data or standard surveys. Mostly, we have questions, not answers. The fluctuations in the demographic statistics over our ten-year review period will be presented in the next section, "Enrollment Trends". In this section, we merely introduce the students, from the vantage point of what we have learned about what goes on behind their faces and numbers. The changing cultural complexion of our students can be readily viewed in the following chart based on the annual census, going back nearly ten years. We focus on ethnic diversity, though heterogeneity of religion, social class, sexuality, disability, or other sociological features might exhibit a similar growth pattern. The chart on the next page illustrates the growth of diversity at Cal Poly Pomona in the recent period. [Figure 3]

The Division of Student Affairs, Institutional Research and Planning, and several faculty have conducted student-based research, above and beyond the census data routinely collected and sent to Analytical Studies at the Chancellor’s Office (Pavelchek 1998). Conversations with faculty conducted systematically by Dr. Sharon Hilles as part of an ethnographic report carried out for the Faculty Center for Professional Development are also a rich source of data (her research file is available in the Team Room). Her information confirms the common sense that it is one thing to have acquired the features of a diverse student population, quite another to fit them into a comprehensible picture and develop them into a happy, dynamic, just learning community (Pascarella and Terenzini 1991; Mio 2000). Faculty comments went beyond the adjustment difficulties surrounding diversity to address their perception of a "new" disengagement and poor scholarship, which some connect to the presence of formerly under-represented groups in large numbers on campus. Close examination of student performance figures (see Chapter VI) reveals that these trends are not the province of minority students alone. The famous student disengagement, for instance, does not arise sui generis (Hansen 1998). It is a widespread cultural phenomenon, as is continued cultural stereotyping in the face of the reality of true variation within groups. Some authors attribute these behaviors to high levels of exposure to media influences among young people (cf., e.g., Cortes 2000).

Counseling and Psychological Services and Student Health Services have described to us a student body that has a certain character distinguishing it in some ways from students at other campuses. Stress is a serious health threat to our students. Flu and colds (susceptibility to which may be stress-related) are listed as the number one health threat, but stress itself comes in second place, according to recent statistics (Student Health Services 2000). We have been told that depression, anxiety, and suicidal feelings are high among our students, though comparative data for populations similar to ours is not easy to come by (Banks and Banks 1995). On the other hand, Cal Poly Pomona students do not display high rates of alcohol and drug abuse (quite the contrary) or sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. Our typically non-resident local student is likely to have a job off-campus (frequently full-time) and to live at home, where she (especially) has additional responsibilities. There is a strong likelihood that our student is the first in the family to attend college.

The university was recently awarded a grant by the Chancellor’s Office to study enrollment in summer quarter, with the aim of increasing it in the near future, so as to begin accommodating the predicted Tidal Wave II of students. At present, total enrollment is close to its previous high of 21,838 in 1990-91, after a period in the mid-90s of target shortfalls and lower admissions and matriculation rates than the university was accustomed to. Some of this story is told in the following chart. [Figure 4]

The downsizing in 1992-93 was planned to cope with the recession-related budget cut. However, subsequent dips were not desired and had serious consequences for a few programs’ budget requests. The university responded to the enrollment emergency by (1) beginning work on an enrollment plan (discussed in detail in Chapter VII, Theme Three), (2) reorganizing the outreach and recruitment effort at the university level, (3) handling some aspects of admissions at the College level, and (4) improving the data base on prospects (Pavelchek and Street 1997). Policy changes at the system and campus level have affected enrollment, as have environmental conditions such as traffic congestion, air pollution, crime, local housing availability, and other factors beyond our control. The relationship between local economic fortunes and the vagaries of enrollment is close, but requires further study (see Annex D8). The earlier need to identify and attract students from non-dominant ethnic groups so as to redress the non-representativeness of the campus population has recently been modulated to include a special outreach to highly qualified prospects, although Cal Poly Pomona has mean student qualifications that are typically higher than at other CSUs. The university has also focused more attention on the satisfaction and retention of students already in attendance.

Institutional Research and Planning now reports an increased first-time freshman application, admission and enrollment rate over previous years and relative to the rate of transfer student enrollment, which had fallen off somewhat. Historically, Cal Poly Pomona has had lower transfer and graduate student enrollments than other CSUs. The average age of students is about 24 years, making Cal Poly Pomona the second-youngest campus in the system, and the gender ratio is higher male-to-female than at the other CSUs. Differential retention rates (e.g., College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences’ appears to be excellent) remain to be thoroughly studied, and the overall time to graduation is still higher than most students would like; however, the university persistence rate is respectable, compared to the other CSU campuses. Thus, we know that when enrollment drops respective either to our own past record or our sister institutions, it is not because it is too difficult to complete the undergraduate program in a reasonable period of time. In fact, students cite as their number one problem with Cal Poly Pomona, not instructor or curriculum quality, not course scheduling, but availability of parking.