Talk:California Polytechnic State University

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Contents 1 Old 2004 discussions 1.1 Foundation Edits 2 coed/all-male/coed? 2.1 SLOWeather link 3 Polytechnic Universities 4 Renaming to be less ambiguous 5 Notable alumni 6 "Highly selective"

[edit] Old 2004 discussions

not sure why this was moved; if you move, please click on "what links here" and fix all the double redirects. But isn't "Cal Poly" the conventional term? --Jiang 02:29, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I don't believe this is the right way to go, taking the locations off the names of both Cal Polys isn't really very logical as the cities are part of the offical university names...Punani 08:20, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How about Cal Poly, Pomona and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo instead of having to spell out the whole thing? --Jiang 18:41, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've moved the articles to Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on the basis of wikipedia:naming conventions (common names). The Cal Poly Pomona website doesn't use a comma. Should we? --Jiang 01:18, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I guess you are right in saying that this is the more common name even if it is not the proper name of the university. With this in mind, I think that Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly would be the most common names. SLO's page refers to it both as this name and as its proper name California Polytechnic State University. This is because they were the Original Cal Poly. Pomona's page refers to it as either the proper name California State Polytechnic University Or as Cal Poly Pomona (no comma). It would be nice if we could keep Cal Poly as a disambig page to help clear all this up, but I understand if we make this the SLO page. Cavebear42 17:21, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

IMO, the article's title should be simply Cal Poly, with link to Cal Poly Pomona at the top. Traditionally, the name Cal Poly unambiguously refers to the university in San Luis Obispo. By having the disambiguation page, you're actually creating an artificial ambiguity where there wasn't one to begin with. Anþony 02:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm removing carrot top as an alumni. He most defintely attended Florida Atlantic University.

I added the history section, but it will probably need some polishing, reorganizing, and editing. Looking at other college Wikis, the CPSLO history I put together is very date oriented, while the others are more generalized (and enyclopedia-like?). The three sub sections were akward and hard to integrate so I just left them out as subsections, but the organization seems improper. Looking at it now, the linking needs review too... I overlinked on the dates (linked every year). The rest of the article needs some work too. The parking section is pretty biased. Notable alumni could be expanded a bit from [1]. The page could use an athletics section too. Tyro 05:32, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the Parking section is very biased. the Campus section in general needs to be expanded. I will start taking some pics of the campus this week to post on the page. --Samxli 09:14, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Is it just me or is the Admissions section POV, or at least poorly worded? Examples: "The agricultural majors are the easiest [to get into]" "As with everything else, the number of men and women is skewed by major" "It is not unusual for classes in these majors to have few or no members of the opposite sex." -- While these things are true (as a student I agree with these *assessments*), they don't seem fit for encyclopaedic information. It might be worth noting the overall demographics by major compared with the rest of the nation if they merit discussion here at all, or at least by specifying at what rate the amount of women in engineering (for example) is seen to be increasing. Adam^Rock 17:47, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Foundation Edits

I edited the Foundation Section. It appears someone dumped some text copy of their Mission Statement / Corporate Objectives from one of their annual reports or website that equaled about 25% of the total text in this article. As this is non-credited material that is more along the lines of corporate promotion than anything of factual value I pulled it. As a Cal Poly Alumni I can report first hand that at least from the late 80's onward the Foundation has never been very popular primarily due its monopoly on services on the campus among other reasons so I added that in the discussion. Joeconsumer 10/01/05

The programs and degrees section could use some work. Some items in that list are Majors that don't have their own departments (Software Engineering is a Degree offered by the Computer Science Department), or share departments (Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering are both offered by the Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department). Others are Departments which offer multiple Degrees (The Theatre and Dance Department offers a Major (and minor) in Theatre Arts and a Minor in Dance), or offer only Minors (Such as the Ethnic Studies and Womens Studies Departments). --Arscott 06:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

University Graphic Systems (UGS) is also part of the foundation i do believe

[edit] coed/all-male/coed?

Why were women banned from the school from 1929-1956? (Alphaboi867 05:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC))

The reason sited is that in 1929 the budget was cut so they saved money by banning women.

[edit] SLOWeather link

I believe this constitutes link spam. The site isn't referenced anywhere in the article and has no direct relation to the university. Anþony 02:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polytechnic Universities

I'm removing this line as just off the top of my head, I can think of more than six; Cal Poly SLO, Cal Poly Pomona, MIT, CalTech, Georgia Tech, Florida Tech, Texas Tech, RIT, etc. --WHSTalk 05:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

As a student at M.I.T., I can assure you that an "Institute of Technology" is not the same thing as a "Polytechnic" university.

[edit] Renaming to be less ambiguous

The first line is "California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (or Cal Poly for short), not to be confused with Cal Poly Pomona". So, renaming article to match and also the part about being confused will not be needed if you mention where this is. --MarsRover 00:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

There are not two "California Polytechnic State University" campuses at all. One school--San Luis Obispo--is called "California Polytechnic State University", and the other--Pomona--is called "California State Polytechnic University". Notice the difference? The city names are not in the official names of either university. In fact, when both campuses were granted CSU status, their names were set up as they are today to prevent confusion among the campuses. Thus, this move is inappropriate. --Anonymous User: 67.169.80.113

Good point with the reversed order of the words. If you have references of the founders setting it up that was to avoid confusion might be good for the article.

But I am sure you have noticed there still is confusion. Two campuses in the CSU system with same common name "Cal Poly" with about the same number of students. That why people keep puttin "SLO" or "San Luis Obispo" after "Cal Poly". Since neither campus has the city in the official name and they are basically sister schools lets be consistant and put the city after both. At first glance I though someone setup a master article about both schools. --MarsRover 04:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Lets keep the articles titled to reflect the actual school names. I edited the begining of this article in an attempt to preserve the real name while providing clarification about which university was in question. I used the style from [[2]]. If you take a look at the ways people arrive at each article, there is not much risk for being directed wrongly. Searching for Cal Poly brings up a disambig page. Searching by location with 'Cal Poly San Luis Obispo' or 'Cal Poly Pomona' will bring the specific page.  !Tyro 06:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, I found this on naming conventions: http://www.calpoly.edu/warc/universityid/univnameuse.html and http://www.csupomona.edu/~visitors/tour/heritage/ (which says "When University status was granted in 1972, Cal Poly College, Pomona became California State Polytechnic University, Pomona."). Therefore, both this article and the Cal Poly Pomona articles have correct titles that match their official names. Tyro 07:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

That's fine with me. Where is wierd is from the category view where you just have the university name. I liked the mirroring disambiguity header at the top of both articles. You can bounce back and forth to get your bearings. They are related campuses so it has some utility. Although it already been removed from Cal Poly Pomona article. Que sera sera. --MarsRover

I'll reply to MarsRover here instead of my talk page. The reasoning for me removing the other uses template on California State Polytechnic University, Pomona is because it clearly states Pomona in the article's title. There is no question of ambiguity in my opinion on that article. However, on this article, the otheruses template makes a little more sense as the article title (rightly, as that is the school's name) makes no mention of either SLO or Pomona and so there is a higher chance of confusion for the reader. If there is a question of ambiquity on the Pomona page, feel free to reinsert the template, but I just didn't feel that it was needed. Happy editing. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 08:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Contrary to what was said above, the official name of Cal Poly Pomona is exactly California State Polytechnic University, Pomona including the comma and Pomona. The official name of Cal Poly is exactly California Polytechnic State University, with no reference to the city in which it resides. Cal Poly Pomona's identity guidelines note that the name of the university should always include Pomona and should never be abbreviated as Cal Poly without Pomona. On the other hand, Cal Poly's identity guidelines go to great lengths to divorce the name of the university from San Luis Obispo. The guidelines suggest that if necessary, the university may be referred to as "Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo" or "California Polytechnic State Unviersity in San Luis Obispo," but states explicitly that "these forms are not to be used in titles, mastheads, or key identifiers." -Anþony 08:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I closed the requested moves request as no consensus. If anyone doesn't agree, you can always relist the request here. --Woohookitty^(meow) 09:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notable alumni

A couple entries in the Notable alumni section are questionable:

Eric Breverman, Rock and roll music phenom.
Nicholas Wilby, Developer/Tester of recently deployed male birth control pill, "Spermbgon"

I'm going to delete them, but I just wanted to make a note here just in case. Perfect13thStep 18:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

People constantly add bogus or non-notable names to the alumni list it seems. Good job, I say :) Tyro 07:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Highly selective"

I removed the sentence

Cal Poly's admissions process is highly selective.

and instead, moved a sentence from the following paragraph up to replace it:

In Fall 2006, 31,103 students applied to Cal Poly, and 11,726 were accepted (37%). Of those accepted, 3,836 (38%) enrolled.

The sentence "Cal Poly's admissions process is highly selective" is a good example of a peacock term. It doesn't actually mean anything in particular, because there's no agreed-upon definition of "highly selective." It's just a way of paying Cal Poly a compliment. As such, it is (slightly) non-neutral and a (mild) example of academic boosterism.

Instead, I replaced it with the actual percentages. The reader can judge how selective 37% is.

As the guideline on avoiding peacock terms says,

"Let the facts speak for themselves. If the ice hockey player, canton, or species of beetle is worth the reader's time, it will come out in the facts. Insisting on its importance clutters the writing and adds nothing." Dpbsmith (talk) 23:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

P. S. I continue to be absolutely baffled as to why a college's "selectivity" is considered a positive factor, or anything anybody should care about. It sounds like Groucho Marx's comment, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member." Dpbsmith (talk) 00:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[3] has continued to insert "highly selective" into the article, so I have informed him/her about the three revert rule. Further reverting after this can be reported on the 3RR violations page. Tyro 08:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)