Sean McMinn
smcminn@mustangdaily.net
An on-campus protest against converting to the semester system scheduled for Thursday has drawn hundreds on Facebook, and Cal Poly officials have taken notice.
Three students planned the protest to align with California State University Chancellor Timothy White’s visit to San Luis Obispo this week. Chemistry junior Molly Burns, who has been trying to organize an anti-semester movement since University President Jeffrey Armstrong announced it was likely Cal Poly would convert to semesters in March, said the goal is to make sure White knows students are “not OK” with changing to semesters.
“Hopefully with the petition, the protest, our Facebook group, the numbers that we have, I hope he’ll see we really don’t want to change,” Burns said.
Burns and the two other students planning the protest, mechanical engineering senior Christopher Lewis and mathematics senior Evan Hedge, will lead the protest on Dexter Lawn at 1 p.m. on Thursday. At 2:30 p.m., the students will lead a march to the Christopher Cohan Performing Arts Center, where White is scheduled to begin an open forum at 3 p.m.
Cal Poly Dean of Students Jean DeCosta asked for a meeting with Burns on Tuesday to discuss the protest. Following the meeting, DeCosta said she was “excited” for Burns and her team, and supported students speaking out.
“Our role is to be sure the students understand how to have a protest on campus,” DeCosta said. “My job generally is to support the students on a successful protest. So when I know about them, I like to point them in the right direction.”
Burns said she learned from the meeting with DeCosta that she would need to obtain a permit for the rally. She was grateful for, and impressed, with the dean’s support.
Burns also met with Armstrong’s communication director, Chip Visci, on Tuesday. The two had previously arranged to talk when Burns started a Facebook petition demanding Armstrong publically address students, which he did two weeks ago.
Visci said he was unaware of the protest before and during his meeting with Burns. Instead of addressing the protest, Visci offered to answer questions about semesters and told Burns he believed there are more pressing issues at Cal Poly.
“She was very clear on this that she felt very passionate about this,” Visci said. “And I said I just wanted to offer her my perspective that there are things more threatening to the quality of Cal Poly than the change from quarters to semesters.”
Visci and DeCosta both said they were surprised at how important semester conversion appears to be to some students, when it is not scheduled until 2020 at the earliest.
“I was sort of curious that students who are here now would take such an active role in something that was that far out,” DeCosta said. “But I was very impressed with Molly’s view as her obligation as a student to help the students of the future.”
Thursday will mark the first student gathering against semesters since Armstrong’s announcement.
In addition to administrative support, Lewis said two of his mechanical engineering professors agreed to cancel class so students could attend Thursday’s protest. He declined to say which, citing concern for their privacy.
Burns made it one of her goals when she began fighting against semester conversion to gain faculty support.
Mechanical engineering department chair and local California Faculty Association President Glen Thorncroft, a vocal critic of semesters since Armstrong proposed the change one year ago, said he was unaware of the protest and would not condone professors canceling class because of it.
“I would encourage them (students) to go to whatever forums they can attend, but I would hope students would attend class first,” Thorncroft said. “I support the students having a voice in this. And I’m really impressed with our students because they’re not even personally going to be affected by the calendar conversion, and yet they understand there’s a legacy to their campus.”