Saturday marks the send off for another graduating Cal Poly class. As students toss their caps in the air, some are relieved about finishing five years worth of work, some thinking about the future, and some are, well, too drunk to care.

Graduation being one of the two days out of the year that bars open doors at 6 a.m., — aside from St. Patrick’s Day — students flock downtown for one last hurrah, celebrating with family and friends.

And families don’t hold back on participating.

Buck, a bartender at Frog and Peach, said moms and dads celebrate just as much as their graduating children.

“It’s fun to see the parents — they’re the ones who are usually paying for it. It’s just not students. It’s all the people that they bring with them. You see moms doing Jägerbombs and not knowing what they are,” Buck said.

McCarthy’s bartender Jerry, who has worked graduation morning during the last 20 years, said the bar-hopping morning is a happy one.

“Everybody’s glad that the kids are graduating. And we do get a lot of moms and dads that come in and drink with their sons and daughters,” Jerry said.

Whether parents escort their graduates early Saturday morning to reminisce on college experiences or celebrate the end of tuition payments, the 6 a.m. tradition has become an event for everyone — not just the students. Other bartenders said the morning is simply a good time.

Bulls bartender Rich Reynolds, who has seen lines of 50 people outside the bar at 5:45 a.m. for the past two years, said it’s nice to see parents sharing a few drinks with their sons and daughters.

“I’m not saying that we hoop and holler and have shots, but it’s more of a social thing and they’re here with their friends and family. It’s really more about this is their last chance to come down before you graduate,” Reynolds said.

Despite the enjoyment of seeing moms take tequila shots before the sun rises, there are always students who take it too far. Past commencement ceremonies have been interrupted by graduates who have had a little too much. Director of Student Life and Leadership Ken Barclay recalls a few moments when the Jägerbombs took too big of a hit.

“Several years ago, this girl was so sick she left the ceremony, went to the bushes, and vomited. So she was wiped out for the ceremony. Last year we had to turn away a girl because she couldn’t stand up,” Barclay said. “It’s sad that people on an important day of their lives which should be a really wonderful time, make some poor choices.”

Barclay said that commencement should be a memorable time with family and friends rather than a day of discomfort — despite how long students have been at Cal Poly.

“In my view, why do something that’s going to make you sick or jeopardize your enjoyment? Even if you’re here six years or 10 years, to me, it’s still a special time,” Barclay said.

Most students seem indifferent to the situation. Graduating architecture senior Vince Cimo said the early morning bar run is a boost for local businesses.

“If the bars have been doing it for this long and it’s profitable for them to do it because kids are excited about graduating and want to experience the bars early for one last time. If they’re making money and it’s beneficial for the kids, why the hell not?” Cimo said.

However, the physical and mental state of students on graduation day is up to them, Cimo said.

“Graduation’s all about saying you’re your own person and in control of your own actions. And if you choose to show up to graduation drunk and make an ass of yourself in front of your entire family and colleagues and professors, then that’s your deal,” Cimo said.

And students have indeed made asses of themselves. Graduate student Ron Sloat recalls his graduation day last June when one student let it all hang out.

“Last year, one guy smuggled a bunch of beer onto the graduation field, and he had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the speech, so he lifted his gown and just went for it. He was at that point where he didn’t care anymore,” Sloat said. “I can only imagine — what if a parent had a 10 to 20x zoom on their cameras trying to take picture of their daughter on the field, and looking back at it 20 years from now going, ‘Oh my god what is that?’”

Although it may be a hilarious memory to some, school officials said they want students to focus on the ceremony in good health. Commencement Assistant Marie Cole said she hopes that those participating are in good condition.

“Participating the commencement ceremonies is a choice — it’s not something that’s just automatic. So if a student chooses to participate in it, I would think that you’d want to feel good doing it,” Cole said. “The vast majority of students do just fine. There are always just a few who can’t seem to handle it and make the choice to function at a level that doesn’t feel good.”

And despite the good business, bartenders don’t condone getting completely smashed before the ceremony. McCarthy’s bartender Jerry said students should be old enough to know their limits.

“By the time that they’ve graduated, they should be mature adults and be able to be in control of their own life. We serve them, and if they drink too much, then shame on them,” Jerry said. “And when we see a person getting a little drunk, we guide them out the door and send them on their way. We’re not here to make people miss graduation, we’re here to help them celebrate.”

Students have the choice over their well-being (and that of their parents) on commencement day. Yet whether the drink of choice Saturday morning is coffee or Kahlua, it’s time to celebrate.

Stock photo

California State University (CSU) campuses must now comply to a mandate from the Chancellor’s Office to reduce undergraduate enrollment. Cal Poly must cut 1,648 of 17,349 students, but administrators said the cuts should not affect diversity on campus.

Reducing the number of admitted students proportionately reduces the number of available spots for eligible minority applicants, Chancellor Charles B. Reed said in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Stricter admissions policies are often thought to discriminate against minority students, who might not have access to the same academic opportunities.

However, Cal Poly administrators like  Provost Robert Koob say the university will be able to avoid this.

“By lowering totals, we don’t anticipate to inappropriately impact the minority groups,” he said.

The decrease may very well change the racial makeup on campus but will do so inadvertently, he added.

There are three ways Cal Poly will reduce the number of incoming students: graduating more students, reducing the size of the incoming class and enforcing academic disqualifications.

Graduating those who are eligible reduces the number of students on campus and is not influenced by race or ethnicity. The university is also block scheduling some students, especially seniors, to ensure they graduate.

Though graduating students will help alleviate some of the pressure by lessening the number of students enrolled, the undergraduate student body will be most impacted by the acceptance of fewer students and the disqualifying of currently enrolled students.

Cal Poly had a record number of applications for its fall 2010 quarter with nearly 39,000 submissions.

Race is not a variable in this process, said James Maraviglia, assistant vice president of admissions, recruitment and financial aid.

While more than 600 first-time freshmen already accepted early admission offers, Cal Poly still has no record of how diverse the new class of students is, Maraviglia said.

According to state laws, race cannot be a factor in the admissions process. California’s Proposition 206, passed in 1996, says California State University campuses cannot admit students with consideration to race, sex or ethnicity.

“The admission that we do is truly race and ethnicity free, solely dependent on qualification,” Koob said of Cal Poly’s admission process, which is largely based on standardized test scores and high school grades. This is unlike some universities which include more components, including essays in their admissions decisions.

Prospective applicants will face a more competitive pool because of the limited spaces and undefined number of available spots, he said.

Reducing the incoming class is only one change, though. A more immediate effect of the budget is reducing the number of Cal Poly students through academic disqualifications.

Disqualification is based on a student being placed on academic probation for consecutive or multiple quarters.

Academic probation occurs automatically when undergraduate students earn less than a 2.0 grade point average in a given quarter.

Only a small percentage of students on academic probation each quarter are disqualified because Cal Poly has not yet rigorously enforced the policy, Koob said. But Cal Poly asked each college to evaluate students eligible for academic disqualification more strictly.

Electrical engineering junior and Black Student Union president and electrical engineering junior Adonna Anderson said disqualification does not automatically affect minority students.

“I think more on the mindset that everyone is equal with the same opportunities and chance of making it here, regardless of being a minority,” Anderson said.

The federal money allocated to the California State University (CSU) system will be used to add courses and sections enabling student to graduate on time. Because the university just received the $1.3 million, Cal Poly Provost Robert Koob said some of the money will be used to supplement winter courses but most of it will be used in spring. He added that the money will be used to make sections available for courses with waiting lists and for both major and general education classes.

The California State University (CSU) system received a one-time allocation of $77.5 million in federal money, according to a press release from the Chancellor’s Office released Oct. 22. The 23 CSU campuses were to receive $25 million this year; the Chancellor’s Office will withhold the rest to safeguard against future financial troubles.

The money is for courses offered in winter and spring, as well as student support services. The release noted that system wide, CSU campuses will add up to approximately 4,000 additional course sections and potentially retain up to 800 lecturers for winter and spring quarters.

Many students are understandably worried about graduating on time, according to feedback from students during ASI’s four-day budget debate last week. Koob said the money will help keep students on track.

“We’re going to try to use it for our goal of getting people to graduate,” Koob said.

He added that the average unit load increase by .35 units in fall, meaning students were able to take more classes than ever before. This is partially due to the block scheduling of freshmen.

“We want to continue the momentum we had in fall,” he said.

The CSU budget deficit for the 2009-10 year is $564 million. The system is in the process of implementing an action plan that includes employee furloughs and workforce reductions; enrollment cuts, increased student fees, and additional cost cutting measures on campuses. The guiding principles behind the plan are based on serving as many students and preserving as many jobs as possible while maintaining academic quality and fiscal balance, according to the press release.

The provost said that while the $1.3 million is certainly helping Cal Poly stay afloat, it’s just a temporary patch.

Graphic by Kevin Black.

Cal Poly leads the California State University (CSU) system with 74 percent of students graduating within six years. Provost Robert Koob predicted these rates will continue to rise despite the poor economic environment in California.

Additionally, the freshman retention rate (which measures the amount of Cal Poly students who return for their sophomore year and, Koob said, is strongly influential in graduation rates) from 2008-2009 was at a record high.

Of the 3,011 freshmen who enrolled at Cal Poly in 2003, 2,288 graduated within six years, according to a press release from the provost’s office. The standard for higher education graduation rates nationwide is measured by six- and four-year rates, according to Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, which operates under the National Center of Educational Statistics.

Of the 3,575 students who came to Cal Poly in 2005, more than 30 percent (1,073) graduated within four years. This percentage is up from a 15 percent four-year graduation rate 10 years ago.

Koob attributed Cal Poly’s graduation rate to the high-quality students and faculty who care about education, orientation and residential housing programs. These programs are crucial to creating an environment that make students feel comfortable and enables them to succeed. Koob’s goal is to increase the six-year graduation rate 6 percentage points to 80 in the next four years.

Koob plans to raise the rate in part by maintaining and raising an already high freshman retention rate. Students returning that first year is key because of high dropout rates at that time.  In 2008, 3, 450 freshmen enrolled at Cal Poly and 91.4 percent returned as sophomores; it is the highest this rate has been in Cal Poly’s history.

Koob said he does not think the current budget deficit will affect the graduation rates or freshmen return rates.

“The standards haven’t changed; it’s our enforcement that seems to be changing,” he said.

In fact, Koob said it should help students who can’t graduate on time figure out early and decide on other plans. This might translate to higher graduation rates.

“The graduation (rate) will go up because the budget crisis will force us to be more selective,” he said. “We’ve gotten so much better information about what each student needs to take when.”

Carole Moore, program coordinator for Career Services and a career counselor, said there was significantly more freedom to take classes when she was a Cal Poly student.

“There was no hurry,” Moore said. “We don’t have that luxury now.”

Moore said that Cal Poly still has an approach that fosters student and faculty relationships. Job fairs, orientations and networking all add to the Cal Poly experience, she said.

“I think that Cal Poly, as opposed to other schools, has a close relationship with its students,” she said. “My guess, just being here on campus, is the personal approach we take to education.”

“There are a lot of really lasting relationships,” Moore added.

Moore said the fact that Cal Poly makes newly admitted students declare a major upon applying to the university can be difficult for students if they want to switch, but it could help the graduation rate. Students like it here, she said, and rarely want to leave, even if the school doesn’t have a desired major.

“I meet with students constantly about changing their major,” she said. “One question we ask is it a major we offer at Cal Poly. Almost always the answer is, ‘I want to stay at Cal Poly.’”

Cindee Bennett-Thompson, the associate director of admissions, said the declaration of a major is key to retaining students and having them graduate.

“One of the biggest reasons for (high graduation rates) is students are required to declare a major when they apply,” Bennett-Thompson said. “Once they’re here, they know they want to be here.”

All these factors lead to Cal Poly having the highest graduation rate in the CSU system. For instance, CSU Long Beach has a 54 percent graduation rate over a six-year period, according to their Web site.

The University of California system generally has higher graduation rates. For instance, UC Santa Barbara has a 61 percent rate in four years and 79 percent in six, according to their Web site.

Graphic by Kevin Black

When landscape architecture freshman Marissa Mondon arrived at Cal Poly, she expected to be handed a schedule, just like every other freshman attending. But she didn’t receive her schedule because her high school hadn’t sent her transcript in time. The stress most freshmen probably felt at their first day of class was amplified when she had to crash all four of her courses.

“I felt isolated, because no one else was in the same boat,” Mondon said.

Over the summer, 3,820 freshmen were scheduled into their fall quarter classes. The block-scheduling program worked, as evidenced by feedback from freshmen and by an increase in the average unit load freshmen take — from 12 units last fall to 16.

History freshman Liz Goralka said most of her friends are only taking 12 units, but she’s taking 16 because a professor at the summer orientation program SOAR advised her to.

“Most people I know except the honors students are in 12, but I signed up for 16 anyway. It’s kind of stressful, but not the worst thing in the world … It sucks that other people can go out and have more fun than I can,” Goralka said.

It will be easier to stay at 16 units than to transition from 12 to 16. Plus this way she won’t have to catch up later on, Goralka said.

“I might as well start hard and let it get easier. It’s manageable; it’s not like I want to kill myself every night,” she added.

Provost Robert Koob presented the idea of block-scheduling each freshman’s fall quarter classes last winter. Using information submitted by each department about what classes each major should be taking in fall, the provost’s staff assigned freshmen their classes over the summer, instead of letting them register for classes as students have done in the past.

Associate Registrar Debbie Arseneau said the point of implementing this new program was to keep students from falling behind by taking prerequisite courses early on.

“The goal was to get students started on the right track to graduate on time,” she said.

Given the short time frame for implementing block scheduling, most feedback from the freshmen and colleges about the program was relatively positive.

Associate Dean Roxy Peck said the College of Science and Math was happy with the block-scheduling process and its results.

“We have had very few calls from students who weren’t able to get classes this fall — even continuing students,” she said. “There have been noticeably fewer calls from unhappy students and parents, which I think is a sign that we did a better job of getting both continuing students and new students into classes. The first week of classes was unusually quiet for us in that respect.”

Peck said she asked freshmen what they thought about block-scheduling, and the response was uniformly positive, even from students scheduled into 7 a.m. classes.

“Two students told me that they had friends that were attending other universities that were having a lot of difficulty getting classes and that they really appreciated having a full schedule,” she said.

However, there were a few issues with the process, including the scheduling of students with AP credit and those with extracurricular activities, College of Liberal Arts advisor Wendy Spradlin said.

“We have students coming in with numerous AP exams passed,” Spradlin said. “If the university doesn’t receive their scores in time, they can easily be scheduled into classes that they don’t really need. That defeats the purpose of the effort.”

Spradlin said that block-scheduling works better for majors that are heavily specified, where students have to take certain classes to fulfill a requirement, but for students who have more freedom in their curriculum, like CLA students, it doesn’t work as well.

It results in students being assigned a course to meet a GE area instead of getting to choose the course they’d like to take to fulfill that particular area. For example, a student might be assigned ECON 222 for D2 but really would have preferred HIST 213, she said.

“Freshmen who are block scheduled haven’t been forced to review their GE options, so the realization that a different course would have been more appropriate for their educational goals does not come till later … It’s just more efficient to let the students choose the courses they take to fulfill GE areas.”