Mustang Daily Staff Report
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University President Jeffrey Armstrong confirmed in a memo to campus today that after discussions with California State University (CSU) Chancellor Timothy White and presidents from other CSU campuses, Cal Poly will begin the process of converting to semesters by the end of the decade.
“Following discussion, there was a clear understanding by Chancellor White and all presidents, that the benefits of a common calendar outweigh individual campus preferences,” Armstrong wrote in the memo.
Armstrong confirmed that though he recommended to White that Cal Poly remain on the quarter system, it was decided that the CSU system as a whole would begin the process of converting to semesters.
It is expected that Cal Poly will begin the conversion process after all other quarter-based campuses are converted. This delayed conversion, Armstrong wrote, is related to the strong opposition to semester conversion within the Cal Poly community.
“In consideration of the different perspectives on this matter — including the Cal Poly Semester Review Task Force report and the supporting votes by the Academic Senate, (Associated Students, Inc.) ASI Board of Directors, and the students’ campuswide referendum — Cal Poly would not convert to semesters until the other campuses have gone forward,” Armstrong wrote.
Armstrong wrote that the phased approach to semester conversion is also in effort to minimize costs at every converting campus.
“At the CSU systemwide level, this phased approach will enable the CSU to defray 75 percent of each campus’s expected reasonable costs associated with converting to semesters,” Armstrong wrote.