University Graphic Systems is one example of Learn By Doing within the College of Liberal Arts.
A video focusing on both Cal Poly’s international student population and Learn By Doing culture went viral on campus earlier this year — but some complained when Cal Poly’s College of Liberal Arts (CLA) wasn’t included in the video.
But the video was never meant to be released at that time, said Elaine Sullivan, director of marketing for International, Graduate and Extended Education.
“We hadn’t finished,” Sullivan said. “It had nothing to do with leaving anyone out.”
The video, funded by Extended Education, is currently being produced and filmed by Peregrine Media Group.
Robin Chilton, director and cinematographer for the Learn By Doing film, said the video was leaked before it was supposed to be released.
“As a business, we’re allowed to contractually show our work to clients and people that we want to work for next,” Chilton said. “(The video) had a password protection that was on it. But one day, I had a client that wanted to see the video; because of that I unlocked the password and in that one evening, one person saw it on my Vimeo site and passed it around.”
The video received 300 views overnight, but this wasn’t when it officially went viral, Chilton said.
“We turned it off … and then I spoke to (Cal Poly) and asked if it mattered if I kept this video up to show to my clients,” Chilton said. “The video then opened up again for a short time so that my clients could see it.”
The video was found by another individual and shared on social networking sites, such as Facebook, Chilton said.
“Before I even knew what happened, the video had 5,000 views,” Chilton said. “We took it down the next day, when it had about 10,000 views. But we decided to put it back up for that day to let it run its course … People were liking it and we didn’t want to disappoint.”
Because the video leaked, Chilton said, Peregrine Media Group did not have a chance to properly finish the film.
“It was never supposed to be up,” Chilton said. “It was a mistake that it went out. To be honest, we had no idea that it would receive that kind of attention, simply because it’s intended for another type of audience.”
Peregrine Media Group also struggled with finding international students from every college — especially when only three, a biomedical engineering major, an architecture major and a business administration major (who wasn’t in the original video) came forward and showed work that demonstrated Cal Poly’s Learn By Doing approach, Chilton said.
“First of all, it is not that (CLA students) weren’t included,” Chilton said. “What happened in this was that we went to produce this video primarily for international students. So we searched the international student body at Cal Poly and the students that came forward were in certain colleges.”
In the video, one student is from India, one is from Ireland and one is from China. Chilton hoped the video would be used as a general Learn By Doing video and exemplify Cal Poly for what it is, not highlight any particular majors more than others.
“We didn’t have any options for CLA in the amount of search time that we had,” Chilton said.
“The CLA was never not planned on being included,” Chilton said. “Wherever that information came from is incorrect. Liberal Arts is going in the video. Marketing has a strong desire to include the CLA in the video … and while we didn’t have students to shoot with, we did shoot additional material to actually be put in for Liberal Arts … Cal Poly said themselves that we have to include them, so we are working on that. It’s just that the video got out before we were actually able to make that happen.”
CLA will be portrayed through journalism and performing arts aspects of Learn By Doing, Chilton said.
Sullivan hopes the completed video will be posted as soon as possible.
“On one level, it was wonderful that people loved it, but it was frustrating to not have it have its launch and have us be able to make a big deal out of it,” Sullivan said. “Because we will and want to make a big deal out of it.”
Chilton agreed about the leaked-video mishap.
“The sharing was a mistake,” Chilton said. “However, the actual existence of it on Vimeo was not a mistake — we’re allowed to do it.”
Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong agreed excluding CLA from the video was unintentional.
“They are going to reshoot and balance (the video) from a college perspective,” he said. “It will be back. That was a Learn By Doing moment … it wasn’t intentional.”