Follow the links below to the 2004-05 Cal Poly Plan Initiatives funding requests and progress reports as of Spring 2005 (if submitted). Final annual reports will be submitted and published in Summer 2005.

• General Education and Support Courses
  • College of Liberal Arts
  • College of Science and Mathematics
• Information Technology Services - NEED TO FINISH THIS SECTION
• Robert E. Kennedy Library

General Education (GE) and Support Courses    Top

Funding Request:

The $1,050,000 in 2003-04 Cal Poly funding for GE and Support Courses for the College of Science and Mathematics and $300,000 for the College of Liberal Arts are making a profound difference in the GE course offerings of these two colleges.

Support of the GE program is even more essential in 2004-05. Although the overall enrollment in the University will decrease by approximately 5%, the number of new freshmen entering Cal Poly in Fall 2004 will be essentially the same as for the past two falls and budget cuts to Cal Poly exceed the enrollment target modification. There will be strong demand for GE and support courses, demand that significantly exceeds present resources.

In making resource allocations for 2004-05, the University has recognized past under-funding of GE and support and has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to these programs by reducing GE and support budgets by only 2.75% while major programs in the six colleges are enduring reductions of 6.5 to 8.0%. Still, the cuts to GE and support total almost $750,000 and without the $1,350,000 of Cal Poly Plan money allocated for 2003-04, these two colleges will have nearly $2.1 million less to spend on these programs in 2004-05 than this year. (CSM and CLA also have been allocated almost $900,000 in cuts to their degree programs for 2004-05).

It is anticipated that Cal Poly Plan revenues will decrease in 2004-05 because of decreased headcount enrollment and it is noted that reserves have been largely depleted. A request for $1,000,000 in Cal Poly Plan funding has been submitted in order to enhance GE offerings in the coming academic year. The distribution of this resource will be around $650,000 to the College of Science and Mathematics and $350,000 to the College of Liberal Arts. These two colleges will monitor GE demand and modify these distributions as needed to maximize their effects.

College of Liberal Arts: $350,000
This augmentation will produce approximately 60 additional four-unit GE lecture sections.

College of Science and Mathematics: $650,000
This augmentation will produce the equivalent of approximately 120 four-unit lecture sections or 240 one-unit lab sections in GE and support areas.

The Colleges of Science and Mathematics and Liberal Arts have made deep cuts in operating expenses and other categories in addition to Lecturer funds. Both colleges anticipate that the College Based Fee student committees will allocate substantial CBF revenues to instruction in 2004-05. However, College Based Fee revenues cannot be used to a significant extent to mitigate cuts to GE because the courses in question are taken largely by students in other majors and College Based Fees revenues are generated only by students majoring in the Colleges of Science and Mathematics and Liberal Arts. In addition, CBF revenues are relatively small, only about 5-6% of base budgets, whereas for the professional colleges the revenues are 12-17% of their base budgets. Theoretically, College Based Fees from the professional colleges could be used to enhance GE and support courses. However, to coordinate consistent and reliable distribution of funds to this purpose in a timely manner through dozens of student/faculty College Based Fee committees in the academic departments is extraordinarily complex and conceptually and administratively difficult to manage. Furthermore, the professional colleges are also suffering large budget cuts and their students may wish to use the fees to support instruction in their degree programs.

The Cal Poly Plan Steering Committee can be assured that any allocation made to support GE will be used efficiently and effectively. The Colleges of Science and Mathematics and Liberal Arts generate over half of the student credit units produced by the University using only a third of the total budget to the seven colleges.

Final Reports:

College of Liberal Arts (CLA)   Top

Year end reports will be submitted and published during Summer 2005.

College of Science and Mathematics (CSM)   Top

Year end reports will be submitted and published during Summer 2005.

Information Technology Services   Top

Funding Request:

GOAL: Utilizing Cal Poly Plan funding, each year determine key deliverables based on priorities at the time that augment, accelerate and enhance infrastructure support for Student Success Initiatives and report on accomplishments in a responsible fashion.

STRATEGY: Fund a System Administrator position that represents one of 2.3 staff positions required to deliver more, sooner and better. The position will augment ITS support for Student Success Initiatives by improving the infrastructure that will:

• Facilitate Student Success through enhanced support for implementation of projects such as Degree Works
• Augment support for the creation of a self-service data model that enables Department, College and University decision makers to determine an appropriate course of action based on information deployed through PolyData, the Cal Poly data warehouse
• Leverage portal technology to make information available in a concise and targeted format
• Enhance support for learning management systems such as Blackboard
• Accelerate the build-out of a fault tolerant development, test and production environment
• Improve backup and recovery processes for critical student data

Progress Reports as of Spring 2005:

Tasks identified to meet strategy and status of deliverables:

Enhanced Data Warehouse Support

Augmented DegreeWorks Support

Infrastructure Upgrades

Robert E. Kennedy Library   Top

Funding Request:

As a result of the fiscal challenges confronting the CSU/University, the Library's base budget will be reduced by a total of $996,183 or an estimated 17.47%, during 2003/04 and 2004/05 fiscal years.

In light of the above budget situation, Cal Poly Plan funds are critical. Funding will enable the Library to maintain core level infrastructure, services and access to resources that potentially benefit all Cal Poly students and faculty. A total of $150,000 is requested for:

• Extended library hours: $26,000
• Investment in digital collections/enhancement and access of e-learning resources: $50,000
• Digital Teaching Library (DTL)/investments in digital hardware/software: $50,000
• Enhancements of Online Public Catalog (OPAC)/library public work stations: $24,000

Progress Reports as of Spring 2005: