Mustang Daily Staff Report
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The Semester Review Task Force, which was expected to begin drafting a decision today on whether to recommend semesters come to Cal Poly, has postponed its meeting and decided to open it to the public, Cal Poly spokesperson Ellen Cohune said Thursday.
University officials said there is no official date or time set for the rescheduled meeting, but they expect it to be during the first week of winter break.
Take force chair Rachel Fernflores moved the meeting to allow the committee to have a larger time frame in which to work on their individual parts of the report, Cohune wrote in an email to Mustang Daily.
“She (Fernflores) told me that they postponed Thursday’s meeting because the writers needed more time to write the report,” Cohune wrote. “She said, while they are not obligated to do so, they decided to invite the public so there would be no doubt about their efforts to be fully open and transparent in their actions.”
Fernflores made the decision Tuesday, Cohune said, nearly one week after the task force deliberated about opening the meeting to the public. In Fernflores’ initial denial, she said the task force members might not feel comfortable speaking in the public and therefore wanted students, faculty, staff and media kept out of the room.
In an email to campus Wednesday, Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong said he wants “full transparency” in the task force’s report and expects the document to be made public immediately after he receives it later this month.
From there, he will review the report with Cal Poly’s academic senate and Associated Students, Inc., as well as with incoming California State University Chancellor Timothy White.
Sean McMinn contributed to this report.