Is racism a problem at Cal Poly? President Armstrong talks campus issues in interview
As positive COVID-19 cases continue to rise at Cal Poly, the San Luis Obispo university is nailing down plans for its upcoming fall term.
President Jeffrey Armstrong is at the head of a massive effort that must balance safety and physical health with the importance and benefits of in-person learning.
But the coronavirus pandemic isn’t his only concern. The 21,000-student university has seen racist incidents involving Greek life that led to protests and national outrage, and the botched hiring of a former Michigan State University official whose connection to one of the worst collegiate sexual abuse scandals in U.S. history has been hotly debated.
In addition, Armstrong must balance significant budget constraints connected to COVID-19 while wrapping up a massive, multi-year fundraising campaign.
The Tribune recently sat down with Armstrong via a video conference to discuss how he and his administration are dealing with Cal Poly’s past and looking toward its future. Questions were provided to Armstrong ahead of the interview per a request from a media relations official from the university.
Cal Poly’s plans for reopening amid COVID-19
Right now, Cal Poly is still in planning mode for its upcoming fall term, Armstrong said, largely because of a lack of guidance from both the state and the California State University system. But the university has a preliminary plan in place for now.
“Our plan is to have a small percentage of our classes in person to allow for our learn by doing: our labs and projects,” Armstrong said. “And that is slated to be about 15% or less of the sections offered, and the rest of the courses would be offered either synchronously or asynchronously — online, virtual, however the faculty member chose to do it.”
On Friday the California Department of Public Health released health and safety guidelines for public colleges and universities to open campuses in the fall. That guidance, outlined in a 34-page document, goes over certain restrictions for schools in “watch-list” counties such as restricting indoor lectures, requiring mask wearing on campus, implementing social distancing and prioritizing single-room occupancy for housing.
Armstrong said the university will be prepared to implement a strict hygiene protocol that will keep students and employees as safe as possible.
“I cringe a little bit when people say we’re going to bring people safely back,” Armstrong said. “Because you know, 100% safe is hard to get. So we’re really about minimizing risk.”
One of the largest uncertainties for the university’s fall term is housing. Armstrong said Cal Poly sent its housing plan to CSU officials in June to be approved, and they have not heard back yet.
“We have not received approval on our housing plan as to whether we will have singles only or some doubles or large doubles,” Armstrong said. “We just don’t know. So, it’s still up in the air.”
If fewer students can live on campus, then more students will be forced to find housing around San Luis Obispo County, Armstrong said, which poses another health concern because of the university’s lack of control once the students are off campus.
Students in a university-affiliated Greek fraternity or sorority — which makes up about 20% of the student population — may be especially vulnerable to a coronavirus outbreak because of the tendency for large numbers of students to gather in one place for parties and events.
“Our fraternity and sorority staff are working directly with individual organizations to share resources, training, other information,” Armstrong said. “In addition, there will be no Greek life parties or events authorized while state orders are in place. So where our county now is in (terms of) caseload, we will not approve a single party or event. Zero.”
Cal Poly will start classes a few days earlier that previously planned — Sept. 14, instead of Sept. 17 — so that all in-person classes can wrap up before the Thanksgiving break begins on Nov. 21, Armstrong said. After the holiday break, classes and finals will be completely virtual, he said.
Armstrong ensured that the university is working closely with county Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein to reopen campus safely.
“The good news is we’re more than a month away from classes starting, and so I believe the case load in our county can only go down from here,” Armstrong said.
The university has launched a new website, “Roadmap to Fall 2020,” to help provide resources for parents, students and staff as the fall term approaches.
SLO university has budget concerns, fundraising campaign
Cal Poly has incurred massive costs and budget cuts due to the coronavirus pandemic, Armstrong said.
The university has spent a total of about $27 million to train faculty how to teach their courses online; refund housing costs and meal plans; and get students and faculty the technology they needed to complete spring and summer classes. Its operating budget is reduced by about $21 mission, or, 6%.
It is highly unlikely that those funds will ever be restored, even if the economy recovers, according to Matt Lazier, the university’s director of media relations.
“Then the indirect impact hits from the state’s economic woes, where we’ve now experienced the largest single-quarter shrinkage of the economy in the history of the United States,” Armstrong said. “So we’re in for two to three years of difficult funding from the state.”
Approximately 40% of Cal Poly’s budget comes from the state, while the remaining funding comes from student tuition and fees, Armstrong said. Because of this funding model, the university does not expect any tuition reductions for students.
“Tuition and mandatory fee decisions are made by the CSU and we do not expect any changes to tuition and mandatory fees,” Armstrong said.
News of budget cuts comes shortly after the university wrapped up its largest fundraising campaign ever — bringing in about $832 million from thousands of donors, a new fundraising record for a CSU school.
Although about $145 million went to scholarships for students, the bulk of those campaign dollars will go to new buildings and campus facilities.
“The donations allow our learn by doing to thrive,” Armstrong said. “It’s a very, very important part of Cal Poly. But it’s a very small part of our operating budget. Very, very, very small.”
Systemic racism and diversity efforts
Systemic racism is far reaching and touches every part of society, including Cal Poly, Armstrong said.
“It has negatively impacted people of color and our culture and society in ways a lot of people don’t fully understand,” he said. “Our campus is not immune to that. While I don’t believe our campus community is overtly and actively racist, we have had issues in the past.”
The issues he is referring to include a 2018 incident involving members of the Cal Poly chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha in which white students dressed up as gang members, including one in blackface.
Armstrong said the university’s demographics exacerbate the problem — about 54% of the 2019 student body was white, 17% Hispanic or Latino, 13% Asian American and 0.84% Black, according to university statistics.
“I find this to be tragic and unacceptable; we love every student, every individual is important to us,” Armstrong said. “We have been working to increase the diversity of Cal Poly and we’ve made significant progress in some areas, and we need more do we need to do more.”
University statistics show there has been a small increase in under-represented minority populations on campus: from 20.5% in 2018 to 21.1% in 2019, a 0.6% increase. The university has made progress, however, in increasing the number of women on campus by 2.6% to 48.4% of the student body in 2019, according to university statistics.
The recent heightened awareness of racism in the United States among white people has been the “silver lining,” Armstrong said, but added that the university still has a long ways to go.
Greek life issues
For Armstrong, upholding the university’s rules and regulations is important in deciding what to do in challenging situations, he said.
“When people bring up blackface, many people said I should have expelled the student,” Armstrong said. “But it was handled through process, it was deemed to be free speech.”
“I think we’ve been very consistent in how we’ve applied our rules and regulations,” he added. “And people just simply sometimes don’t like the outcome. And I understand that it’s very frustrating, but we cannot censor content.”
Changing the culture of Cal Poly’s Greek organizations has not been an easy one, Armstrong admitted, but they have “made significant and positive progress with student behavior over time,” he said.
Armstrong said Cal Poly has revamped its educational programs on hazing, resulting in an increase in reporting of hazing incidents. However, he said that because Greek organizations and students in general engage in “high risk behavior,” especially involving drinking, they have been continually working to improve orientation programs to mitigate and better educate students to prevent issues from arising.
Hiring of diversity vice president
For a brief time period, Armstrong had hired Paulette Granberry Russell as the university’s new vice president of diversity and inclusion. But after people realized that Granberry Russell oversaw the Title IX office at Michigan State University during the notorious Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, public outcry called for her resignation.
Students protested Granberry Russell’s hiring on campus, while faculty and staff members spoke out about not being notified about what Armstrong called an “emergency hire.”
Armstrong said he’d rather not focus on what happened in the past, but rather on the future.
“One can always look back and say, well, I should have done that differently,” he said. “But I didn’t anticipate the magnitude of the pushback, I thought there would be push back. But again, I’d rather focus on moving forward.”
From here on out, the university will only sparingly use its “emergency hire” process to find new staff members, Armstrong said.
Now staff members and students are part of a hiring committee looking for the next best candidate for vice president of diversity and inclusion while the former chair of the university’s ethnic studies department, Denise Isom, sits as the interim of the position.
“This one was just the perfect storm,” Armstrong said. “I put a letter out. I did not condemn people for opposing me. I simply said some people really took and pushed the information beyond the breaking point.”
New ethnic studies requirements
The CSU Board of Trustees recently released a new requirement mandating that students must take an ethnic studies or social justice course in order to graduate from one of their public institutions, including Cal Poly.
Meanwhile, a new bill making its way to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk narrows down the mandate. Assembly Bill 1460 would also require students to take an ethnic studies course but would limit its scope to Native American, African American, Asian American and Latino studies.
The differences in the two have created a clear split between those who support the CSU’s action, and those who support the legislature’s.
Armstrong said he firmly stands behind the CSU’s version of the requirement.
“I personally believe we shouldn’t have the legislature determining what you’re going to be taking in a class,” he said.
However, he added that it is a decision that must be left to the faculty, and not the administration.
Faculty in Cal Poly’s Ethnic Studies Department side with the legislature’s version of the requirement. The interim chair of the department, Jenell Navarro, told The Tribune in July that the requirement is “hollowed-out diversity.”
“The chancellor’s initiative, it really ignores the majority of ethnic studies experts,” Navarro said. “What they have put together would actually allow students to acquire an ethnic studies requirement without ever taking an ethnic studies class.”
Armstrong said he does not question the importance of students taking ethnic studies classes, but he’s concerned about the interference from the legislature.
