Sitting in the middle of one of the most liberal states in the Union, conservative Cal Poly stands out like a sore thumb.
Easily considered one of the most conservative schools in the state, the university has hardly been noted for the kind of student revolutions that led universities like Berkeley to fame. Yet even from within this relatively quite campus, political moments for the history books have been written.
Teddy Roosevelt and a “common sense” school
Established by a state legislative act in 1901, Cal Poly opened its campus to students in 1903. Standing before the citizens of San Luis Obispo that spring, on May 9, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt commended them for their “common sense” in establishing a polytechnic school.
“I am glad to learn that the State of California is erecting here the polytechnic institute for giving all of the scientific training in the arts of farm life. More and more our people have waked to the fact that farming is not only a practical but a scientific pursuit, and that there should be the same chance for the tiller of the soil to make his a learned profession that there is any business,” the president said.
Cal Poly’s first war
World War II hit Cal Poly with the same shock as it did to the rest of the United States, as the news streamed in through the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. The first wartime issue of the student newspaper, on Dec. 12, 1941, proclaimed the words in bold: “U.S. FIGHTS AXIS,” “WAR WITH JAPAN, GERMANY AND ITALY” and “HONOLULU BOMBED.”
By the end of the week, Cal Poly was observing blackout restrictions.
Yet in sharp contrast to the wars that would follow decades later, Cal Poly’s student body seemed eager to take up arms for their country.
Student body president Walter Dougherty wrote in the newspaper, “We students of California Polytechnic… are training ourselves with certain specific objectives in mind. Now we are called upon to turn aside from these objectives and give to our country military defense. There can be no hesitation if we are asked to lay aside our books and papers, but rather a willing step forward to the task ahead. I know that none of us shall hesitate.”
His words seemed to ring true around campus, with more than 80 students dropping out of school right after Pearl Harbor, even before the draft began calling them forth.
As another effect of World War II, the 24 Japanese-American students who had been enrolled at Cal Poly during the 1941-42 school year had disappeared by the end of 1942, forced to relocate with their families to government internment camps in California or Arizona.
Then by 1945, the war that had defined a whole generation of college students ended and Cal Poly faced new challenges again. Thousands of young veterans, all funded by the new G.I. Bill, flooded home and Cal Poly’s already established “learn-by-doing” focus was exactly what many of them wanted. To accommodate the surge of post-war students, the university had to rapidly hire new faculty and begin a large campus upgrade.
The Cold War and Cal Poly’s nuclear threats
By October 1962, the United States was firmly in the grips of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the Cuban Missile Crisis only further looked to chill relations.
In the aftermath of the the crisis, Army engineers approved eight Cal Poly buildings as fallout shelters. Rather casually, the campus newspaper noted, “In the event of all-out nuclear war, Vandenberg Air Force base, located 50 miles south of campus, could be a main target area. In the event of this occurrence, Cal Poly could be heavily showered with radioactive fallout.”
Mourning John F. Kennedy
A year later, the United States was hit by tragic news. On Nov. 22, 1963, “El Mustang” published its first “second edition,” reporting on the assassination of President Kennedy.
Coming out just an hour and a half after the president’s death, the student newspaper reported on the campus’ reaction. “For some, the first inkling of the tragedy came when they noticed the flags near the Administration building being lowered to half-mast… Business stopped completely in El Corral Bookstore as reports came over the closed circuit radio system. Students with purchases in their hand stood and waited and listened. ‘I’ve forgotten what I came in for now,’ said one student listening to the news.”
“The hippie generation, student unrest and the psychedelic world”
Cal Poly saw one of its rarest occurrences, a student protest, in October of 1963 when students were disgruntled over university policy toward female students. Three women had been suspended for the rest of the quarter after they had attended off-campus fraternity events. The school proclaimed that it neither recognized nor approved of fraternities, and that the three women didn’t have permission to attend the event.
In an uncommon show of emotion, the student body marched and petitions circulated, questioning the role of the university as a “surrogate parent.”
Although the protests didn’t bring immediate change to either campus policies or mainstream sentiments, they did begin to foreshadow the revolutionary youth attitude that would mark the country by the end of the decade.
Reagan comes to campus as Kennedy takes the reins on a restless generation
On April 3, 1968, Cal Poly held its first university presidential inauguration as it appointed Robert Kennedy as its new leader for the tumultuous decade to come.
Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, stood before the students of Cal Poly to deliver Kennedy’s inaugural address and praised Cal Poly for being such a success.
Meanwhile, the student reporter who attended Kennedy’s first press conference observed keenly the challenges that lay ahead for the new university president.
“Sitting in front of the typewriter for six hours preparing this story gave me time to reflect on this man in charge of such a respected institution. No other college president (on this campus) has had to face the hippie generation, student unrest and the psychedelic world,” the reporter wrote.
Even heading a notoriously conservative campus, Kennedy was just as concerned about the oncoming tide of student demonstrations as the other university leaders of the time. As it turned out, his concerns were well-placed as Cal Poly proved to be no exception to the student protest phenomenon, especially as popular opposition toward the Vietnam War grew.
The Oct. 15, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium that drew millions of anti-war protesters around the world was well represented in San Luis Obispo and on the Cal Poly campus.
The Mustang Daily reported, “Even this conservatively minded campus and this relatively isolated city were witness to conspicuous observance of this event.”
Indeed, local observance of the anti-war event began the night before, with a rally in Mitchell Park, where campus speakers, folk music and discussions on war issues filled the otherwise quiet area. Protesters then held a candlelight march and gathered at the Mission downtown.
“The Vietnam War protest planned for Wednesday… received a degree of support from President Robert Kennedy. The college president refused permission for a meeting on the library lawn, but offered use of the Amphitheater for the entire day,” the Mustang Daily reported.
“I do indeed support the concept that the war should be brought to a speedy conclusion,” Kennedy said. “I have expressed it on many occasions.”
As the actual day of the Moratorium rolled around, student protesters planted 20 white crosses on Dexter Lawn and drew a crowd of about 500 people as they delivered anti-war speeches.
About another 250 students marched to the Administration building and then to the Amphitheater, where Kennedy had made sure microphones had been set up for them.
It was later said that Kennedy’s tolerant but firm attitude toward student sentiments helped keep the peace at Cal Poly, even as an unwanted war raged abroad.
On to modern times – Sept. 11 and beyond
2001 was easily the most polarizing year the campus had seen thus far in its history. As a traditionally conservative campus, the year’s events, led by a still-popular Republican White House, would bring forth the blue-blooded patriotism that hallmarked a large population of the student body.
That fateful day in mid-September first stunned the campus into silence as news came from the East Coast of terrorist planes descending on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Like the rest of the country, Cal Poly met the news with confusion and mourning.
A few weeks after the attacks, on Oct. 4, 2001, approximately 50 Cal Poly students held a peace march on campus, wearing green armbands inspired by peace protests at Berkeley. Organized by the Progressive Student Alliance, the march was escorted through campus by university police to prevent uprisings.
When Operation Enduring Freedom dropped its first bombs on Afghanistan just three days after those protests, student reactions were again mixed on campus.
By November, the polarizing issue of a possible war with Iraq and the continued hunt for Osama bin Laden continued to cause a rift among the Cal Poly community.
The Nov. 15, 2001 rally led by the Cal Poly College Republicans was means to counteract the “divisive anti-American demonstrations organized by leftist groups on campus,” the club was quoted as saying in the Mustang Daily.
The club put up posters around campus depicting Osama bin Laden and other images of the war on terror, and invited veterans and the campus ROTC to their rally. One of the most controversial images depicted the five-day weather outlook for Afghanistan with a mushroom cloud and temperature of 4,500 degrees anticipated for the week’s end.
A faculty-led campaign, meanwhile, protested that Republican rally, calling the club’s message “hate speech” and saying their posters stereotyped Muslim-Americans.
With the continuing concern over foreign policy, Cal Poly became just a small sample of the issues that began unfolding and shaping the Millennial generation.
Even California conservatives can turn into hippie environmentalists
Pointing to the environment and global warming as the biggest issue of our generation, Evans considers January’s Focus the Nation summit at Cal Poly one of the most monumental political moments on campus.
The global warming summit served as the largest teach-in in America’s history, according to the event Web site, with an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 students, faculty and community members who participated.
“The environment is serving the same stimulus for your generation as did Vietnam during its time,” Evans explained. “It serves as a tipping point.”
He said that over the past decade, various campus groups have come forth with initiatives to save water, recycle or promote alternative energies, but have all pretty much sparked up and then disappeared.
“Then to see this massive event come together, along with big coalition groups like Empower Poly, it really is a mark of the times.”