A Letter To Our School Newspaper:

Dear Reader,

As you walk from class to class among the painted hills and deep blue sky with its seemingly rolling clouds, you think life is alright, for the most part, well most of you do. However there are a few that can paint a different picture of life – at Cal Poly – then those rest of us that walk around these hallowed halls from day to day, for in this University there lies quite audible issues that seem to never leave the backrooms of Labs, professors offices, and those hushed hallway conversations. I will speak as coming from the College of Engineering (CENG), though I am sure the issues I present are quite well adapted to many other, if not all the colleges here at Cal Poly.

These issues became knowledge at a recent table top conversation (ironically in a research lab), of course among student solely, over several issues facing the Department, the College of Engineering, and the University, and by several I mean to say more then I can mention in this letter, issues that seem to cause outrage in the minds of the students that know of them. Within those knowledgeable few, headaches are caused by the very notion that these acts are allowed to fester as they do through out CENG and its many Departments, as well as through out the University level.

I find it hard to start with just one topic as they all may cause the brain to explode by there shear audacity, but I will attempt it nonetheless. For one I will start with Department Chair’s. These people who occupy the chair position are in themselves good people, but as one student put it “being appointed the Department Chair is a sign of punishment more then anything, by the CENG Administration,” because those appointed chairs never elected to “want” the position in the first place. Why? How could the CENG administration, or whoever it may be that appoints these chairs, hand out positions to unwilling people? Do they not know that an unwilling Department Chair will invariably and most likely subconsciously transfer their unwillingness to the students? Did they never take Psychology? If you, reading this now, ask: how does being department chair and that serving as a form of punishment (it definitely is not a promotion if that’s what your thinking), negatively effect upon the student? I will point you to this; it’s much like a pilot flying a plane that he doesn’t want to fly. The pilot has more chances of making a mistake if he or she is not 100% involved and “into” what they are doing, and if any of you out there can point me to one person who has had success at doing something they never wanted to do in the first place then I will give you a cookie. All in all the practice of appointing department chairs is corrupt, and if that sits well in your mind then by all means put down this article and play duck-duck-goose, but for the rest of you who want to hear what else our great college and University does then please do keep reading.

The Mechanical Engineering Student Fee Committee (SFC) is a body of students and professors that hands out money to students who request money for projects and other items that directly benefit the Department and in this case the Mechanical Engineering department. The student fees, which were voted on and passed by the students, are collected by the college, and forwarded to their respective department from which the student who paid the fees came from. Now while the idea seems quite noble and just, and it is, it has a problem. The pot of money that the SFC draws out of, and hands to students requesting such money, is quite large in the Mechanical Engineering major (it makes up the entire budget of the Aerospace Department for comparison). Most of the time by the end of the year the money is not all used up. And wait for it, here is the kicker. The money not used up is never accounted for EVER again. That’s right, if the SFC doesn’t hand out all its money, the money simply vanishes, that being the term from a student’s perspective. Vanishing is the only term that we can think of because by all accounts nobody has told us the students any different. So, by next fall term the SFC starts with a fresh new pot and all the money from last year that was not used, doesn’t EVER get used. It is, however the belief that the money not used from the SFC is transferred to The Cal Poly Foundation, and we are not talking penny’s here, were talking hundreds maybe even thousands of dollars go to waste, or do they? You see no one really knows. My question for you all to think about is, do we pay fees to have some of it, rather thousands dollars worth, never actually go to benefiting the major we undertake? That’s not what the students voted for, and if it was they were duped, big time.

At the University level, The Cal Poly Foundation is a problem. Yes President Baker you collected a boat load of money with the Foundations help (wouldn’t be surprised if you actually bought a boat too), but all in all where the hell does the money go, especially our student fee dollars? Who audits the Foundation? Who do they answer too? Why are they a private entity? And why is our student fees transferred to a private entity? Yes President Baker not all of us have absolutely no clue about this little operation here. Now keep in mind I am not stating that somebody is profiting here, I am simply saying where does all the money go, and now were definitely talking about thousands of dollars. I would write more about The Foundation but frankly (or sally) I and many, many students know more about the government’s finances then we do our own university’s.

Finally is there any justification on Earth worth its weight in diamonds that President Baker needs 10, overly paid I am sure, Vice Presidents? Any justification at all? Ok maybe here is one, the President doesn’t do anything. Sure he raised millions of dollars that will be added to our unaccounted for SFC dollars and in the end we probably will have more Professors…yippee just what I wanted more teachers….right? Because that means more learning? Right? Doesn’t it! – Sarcasm for the less literate.

In any case we found more “issues” (i.e. headache giving nonsense), but alas we are mere students who pay exuberant amounts to go to an institution of Higher Education. Still have yet to find the higher part but I hear it lurks somewhere…

Somebody needed to know even if it is the sole person who reads this email or to those who read it on my site (http://presidentoor.blogspot.com ftw!).

Good luck out there everybody.