Category: Cal Poly

Cal Poly and their foibles

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Faculty Questioning Cal Poly’s Saudi Connection

Cal Poly's Warren Baker & his Saudi Connection
It is rumored… and don’t we all love rumors… that Cal Poly’s Saudi Connection is being questioned by virtually all of the past chairs of the Faculty Academic Senate of Cal Poly. It seems like they want to formally show their disapproval. Obviously, the administration is desperately trying to invoke various parliamentary procedures and sycophants to try to silence the measure.

Time will tell if the controversial Dean of Engineering Mohammad Noori or President Warren Baker are successful in silencing their critics.

In the meantime, steve.chawkins@latimes.com of the Los Angeles Times has blown the ‘regional cover’ off the story with an article in today’s paper! An important part of the article was in it’s final summary statement:

“Look at South Africa,” he said. “The University of California divested from South Africa, along with the rest of the world, and apartheid came to an end.”

Cal Poly says that ‘we’re’ (those who think discrimination is not nice) trying to embarrass the Cal Poly administration… we’ll — my advice to Warren Baker — is to stop doing stupid and embarrassing things.

My other Cal Poly & Saudi Arabia Blogs:

Cal Poly & Saudi Arabia Part Deux

Cal Poly… training tomorrow’s terrorists?

Roger Freberg

we all have the power to stand up to wrong and it starts with one person willing to break from the pack

UPDATE! : OoOops.. it’s hitting the fan! Civilrights.org

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Cal Poly & Saudi Arabia Part deux!

I just love Cal Pooooly!Cal Poly appears to be working hard to eliminate local discussion.

After all, Cal Poly is the 800 pound Gorilla in San Luis Obispo County. There’s not a facet of our community that they don’t swing their weight around…. sometimes rather ruthlessly.

Ask any local attorney if they will represent anyone with a grievance or complaint against Cal Poly and they will decline and candidly tell you that they wish to continue practicing. Many folks — like my wife — just take their cases out of county and win at the Federal level.

That says a lot.

Even faculty have come to know it is ‘my way or the highway’ with Cal Poly’s administration.

So it’s also not surprising that local media soft pedaled Cal Poly’s intended arrangement with the government of Saudi Arabia. There are many examples of our local media going against national opinion in order to protect Cal Poly’s sensibilities. Anyone remember how Cal Poly harassed Cal Poly student Steve Hinkle until he won in Federal court?

Few in the local media covered Steve Hinkle at the time… unless supporting the university perspective. By contrast, Cal Poly was ‘savaged’ in the national press. (more on Cal Poly today)
For those few who haven’t heard, Cal Poly wants to set up an engineering program to award Cal Poly degrees to Saudi citizens. The problems are obvious: the students are restricted to male only …and only the ‘right’ Cal Poly Faculty will be able to participate. Oh yes, there is this little problem of who Saudi Arabia is after all. Besides oil, isn’t their next leading export terrorists? — or do we call them ‘insurgents’?

Here’s a few ‘soft’ examples from the local Media:

KSBY 6 Action News

the Tribune Newspaper

Here’s the real story:

UncoveredSLO.com

By the way, my blog “Cal Poly… training tomorrow’s terrorists?” practically stopped for a couple of days thanks to the demand…. even without Google. Isn’t the internet grand?

So… maybe we should ask Cal Poly’s controversial Dean of Engineering Mohammad Noori and President Warren Baker… how , again, is this really benefiting Cal Poly and where did this whacked out idea come from originally?

Roger Freberg

PS. by the way, Cal Poly says they are not breaking any ‘American Laws’, unfortunately, I have heard this before. (I think we have laws based on preventing business with those who discriminate?) It seems that we may need to find our own 2000 lb Gorilla to take on Cal Poly!

2/22 UPDATE:

InsideHigherEd.com – Read about how Cal Poly justifies their actions!

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Cal Poly… training tomorrow’s terrorists?

A Proud Cal Poly SupporterSometimes, one wonders when the pursuit of the almighty dollar (well, it used to be almighty) blinds university administrations and academicians to the world’s realities or common sense.

With apparently little oversight, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo has taken it amongst themselves to go to Saudi Arabia, set up a University and plans to award Cal Poly Degrees in Engineering. This raises several questions:

1) who knows about this project? Who approved it?

2) Did Cal Poly turn a blind eye to some of the Saudis enlightened ‘cultural’ requirements. Will Women, Jews and Gays be allowed to teach?… nah… I don’t think so.

3) Will female Saudi students be able to participate… I hear a NO?

4) How does this help spread tolerance and understanding?

A recent on-line article discusses these and other questions …. however, the only question I have for Cal Poly’s controversial Engineering Dean or Cal Poly president Warren Baker… will you take credit for what your Saudi friends may unleash ultimately on America?

It doesn’t take a scholar to recognize the fact that Saudi Arabia doesn’t hold the same values on life and human rights as do most Americans. Even Provost William Durgan of Cal Poly in addressing members of the Cal Poly Academic Senate (email) wrote:

“It is clear and indisputable that there are significant differences in American and Saudi cultural constructs, ethical tenets and understandings of human rights and responsibilities.”

The problems with doing more business with Saudi Arabia concerns the amount of moral and ethical compromises we as a country and as a people have to make in order to make a buck. I would have thought we would have learned our lesson.

History points to the cooperation between American Universities and Nazi Germany far after it was clear with whom we were dealing.

So, the question I have for Cal Poly and all other American Universities is simply: how much of our American freedoms or core values is anyone willing to sacrifice in order to make a buck?

More reading:

Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (Wikipedia)

Human Rights Watch — Saudi Arabia

Amnesty international — USA– Saudi Arabia

U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights — Saudi Arabia

So, it goes without saying that we nor any of our institutions should support Saudi Arabia’s isolationist ways. Helping the Saudis keep their ‘education in-house’ is the problem. If ever the little kingdom will move into any of the current centuries of civilized behavior, it will come only with greater exposure to the west and not less.

Cal Poly is just wrong.

Roger Freberg

UPDATE!

Cal Poly student Brian Eller’s superb article!

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Indoctrinate U. and today’s University

Did indoctrinate U. Make me Famous?
For those of you who haven’t heard about what’s happenin’ on college campuses today…let’s just say … it’s not all good.

Evan Coyne Maloney has produced a fascinating film — entitled ” Indoctrinate U.” — on what might be called ‘political correctness’ on college campuses.

One review:

“The Weekly Standard” said, “The documentary combines relatively shocking footage (one professor excitedly tells the camera “whiteness is a form of racial oppression . . . treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity”) with snappy editing to create a documentary that bounces quickly from subject to subject.”

Upcoming screenings of the film can be found on their site!

On one hand, on many campuses there exists a hyper-sensitivity to sexually displaying a banana on a campus, ‘hurting’ or ‘offending’ someone’s feelings…. whereas displaying our American Flag could become grounds for suspension some places. The inmates are running the asylum.

So, what has this to do with me? Yep, I may be in the film. For 7 years, my wife — the professor — struggled for existence with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo … and succeeded. And what happened to — in my humble opinion — the “bad guys?”... they eventually all received big raises and promotions.

If you get a chance… check it out. If it hadn’t happened to me… I’d be laughing.

Roger Freberg

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University of Southern California & Trojans

Trojan sports just like the University is first class!
The other night we traveled three hours one way to watch the Southern California Trojans ‘school’ the puppies from San Luis Obispo. To be honest, Cal Poly did put up a valiant fight for as long as it lasted… but the end was never in doubt.

Some small schools like to crow about how they really are as good as the major universities (believe me I have listened to folks from Cal Poly for years), but there are too many systemic differences to make any serious comparisons. Many who traveled down from San Luis Obispo for the game left wide eyed and bewildered.

First, I am not here to talk badly about Cal Poly… my Laura teaches there now and I did for a time as well. However, I really believe that accurate comparisons start with accurate perceptions and I think the Cal Poly Basketball team learned part of that hard lesson the other night.

The truth is that every university has a few academic and athletic ‘gems’ that they are justifiably proud … in my less than humble opinion, Cal Poly’s Professor Laura is certainly one of them… unfortunately, there just aren’t very many like her. By contrast, the academic community of Southern Cal vibrates with talent.

So, you can’t compare schools that have doctoral programs and well respected masters and professional degrees and real athletic programs with schools that have… well… much less.

Fight on!

Roger Freberg