Black students experienced culture shock at Cal Poly 30 years ago. Has that changed?
I am a Cal Poly graduate.
Attending the San Luis Obispo university was a wonderful learning experience and a homecoming for me after five years living on the East Coast.
Post-secondary education opens doors to bigger paychecks, whether it is at a college, trade school or apprenticeship.
An often-cited statistic states a bachelor’s degree recipient will earn $1 million more on average over a lifetime than someone with a high school diploma. Your mileage may vary.
Cal Poly regularly shows up in “best of” lists of public universities, with far more applicants than slots for students. In 2019, less than one third of 65,155 applications were accepted for enrollment.
Not everyone can get in, and some communities are under-represented in the student body. Feeling like an outsider can make for a difficult learning experience.
Black people currently constitute 0.84% of the student population at Cal Poly, but were 6.5% of California’s population in 2019.
Higher education might feel defensive about this fact, but Cal Poly is a taxpayer-funded institution that prides itself on asking tough questions. It should be able find smart solutions.
The racial disparities in the California State University system is a reflection of the shortcomings of society. The CSU system has been aware of the problem since 1974 when the state legislature ordered outreach to minority communities.
In fact, though enrollment has grown to 21,037 at Cal Poly, the percentage of Black students on campus is almost half what it was more than 30 years ago.
Since then, Cal Poly has added an ethnic studies minor to its catalog. And the CSU system is moving toward making an ethnic studies class a graduation requirement — although it’s not without controversy.
Gregg Schroeder wrote this Telegram-Tribune story on Jan. 18, 1988. It’s excerpted for length here.
Culture shock at Poly
When Sandra Towner came to Cal Poly five years ago to study finance, she got a hefty dose of culture shock.
The 28-year-old Black student, who attended Los Angeles and Salinas schools, wasn’t prepared for the lack of inter-racial mixing she found at predominantly white Cal Poly.
“When I first came here it was very difficult for me — which was very shocking to me because I grew up in a mixed community “ Towner said.
As one of the organizers of a campus march last week commemorating Martin Luther King Jr., Towner reflected on how far Cal Poly is from realizing the slain civil rights leader’s dream.
Many white students, she said, don’t know how to talk with Black students because they’ve never had to before; some are downright prejudiced.
Monet Parham, an 18-year-old biology student from Maryland, said blatant racism doesn’t seem to be a big problem at Cal Poly.
Nevertheless, she said she felt isolated when she came to the university in the fall quarter because there are so few Black students on campus — 226 of the roughly 16,000 students are Black, about 1.4 percent of the student population. Nationwide Blacks make up roughly 12% of the population.
Many white students simply don’t understand the pressures of being a minority, and therefore aren’t much help to frustrated Blacks.
“It’s difficult to make others understand we’re the same” as they are, Parham said.
Getting the cold shoulder isn’t an unusual experience for minorities at Cal Poly, some say.
Willi Coleman, assistant director of Student Life and Activities, said she is concerned that despite decades of public awareness about civil rights, Cal Poly hasn’t gotten very far in practicing equality.. Students don’t mix readily, she said, and there are no ethnic or women’s studies programs.
“I think Cal Poly is in trouble,” Coleman said. She is the advisor to the Afro-American Student Union. “It doesn’t know what to do with its non white citizens.”
For many white students, Coleman said, their only exposure to non-whites before coming to Cal Poly is through television.
Once at Cal Poly, white students often don’t bother to interact with non-whites, she said, because inter-racial understanding isn’t on their list of required classes.
“Cross-race (interaction) is part of their education,” she said. “It’s not a frill.”
Many students feel Blacks and Hispanics “must be as white as possible” to fit in, she said, and some whites are “really annoyed by the presence of students of color.”
That attitude is hard on non-whites.
“It really is uncomfortable for minorities at Cal Poly,” she said.
And it’s not getting any better.
If you were to ask a Cal Poly student what (Martin Luther King Jr.) stood for,” Towner said, “(He) wouldn’t know.”
The emotional discomfort takes a toll on Black students, she said, causing their studies to suffer. And the university loses students as Blacks decide to transfer to institutions more conducive to their education.
But Coleman said it’s not entirely the fault of the white students. Inter-racial understanding is in the hands of the administration.
“You can’t blame the students,” she said. “They come with blank slates and wer’re not giving them much to fill it in.”
Special programs such as Black History Month and the recent Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative march need to be taken seriously, she said. And financial support is necessary to set up curricula on ethnic and women’s studies.
“They must put their money where their mouth is.”
“If we do anything new, it comes out what we already have,” Glenn Irvin said. Other programs would have to give up something.
Also because of the freeze on the number of students at Cal Poly, the university can’t attract more students to help pay for additional programs.
At Cal Poly, students such as Towner and Parham still have to deal with prejudice every day. For Towner, remembering that — globally — she’s not a minority, helps her keep perspective. And, she said she tries to block out the racism.
“I won’t let that hinder me” in attaining career goals.
But Coleman said Cal Poly has a long way to go.
