 "Photo: Aaron Castrejon/Poly Post")
University President Michael Ortiz and ASI President Jeff Weintraub addressed campus-wide questions and concerns during the second Pizza with the Presidents of the quarter in the university quad Thursday.
Faculty and staff stood by to help Ortiz answer a few in-depth questions, ranging from tuition increase, executive orders, campus field usage and class availability for graduating seniors.
Q: The budget is in a dismal state. What are the repercussions for voting against the May propositions?
A: “I can’t predict what the consequence would be, but I could tell you what I do know,” said Ortiz.
Our first priority, of course, is to not have layoffs of faculty and staff.
I can’t predict what is going to happen. We have planned well up to this point, but after the election we don’t know what the impact is going to be. We do know that if the proposition fails that it will create an $8 billion hole that will need to be filled.”
Weintraub said, “we actually went to Sacramento. We talked to two state senators and two state assemblymen.”
“We asked them what their outlook is on all these propositions and they are just as in the air as anybody else. They don’t necessarily think it will postpone or don’t think they could make it work, but they emphasize to us that if [the propositions] don’t pass or if the bottom drops out that we will work closely with our schools and with the CSU.”
Q: What could you and ASI do to get active sports clubs on campus like ultimate frisbee, Cal Poly Pomona cycling and ski and snowboard team back to a competitive, collegiate team and compete against Division I and Division II?
A: “The executive order was really written only for groups that are major athletic programs, so the requirements are really strict,” said Dean of Students Rebecca Gutierrez Keeton.
“We have tried to work with risk management to get those three groups together so we could get cheaper insurance for you and find quotes that you could afford.
I think what has been happening is that we haven’t been able to find insurance companies that are giving us quotes that [are] cheap enough for you to get.
And know, the chancellor said they are trying to get insurance for all the sports clubs from across the CSU system together so that we could get one insurance quote cheaper than for one.”
Q: I’m curious if you guys could have anything in place for students trying to graduate who have to wait for classes that aren’t offered until next spring?
A: “We have actually had a policy in place now that if you’re down to having one or two classes in order for you to graduate, that those classes will be available … or there are other classes to substitute for that class in order for you to graduate,” said Ortiz.
Q: We hold a soccer tournament every year, but if we want to rent fields on campus we are getting charged $3,640 for a one-day event. Where is an organization supposed to come up with this money?
A: “This is another executive order,” said Ortiz. “If the space is being utilized, then we have to have, number one, security in place. Number two, we have to have ground keepers in place … and number three, we have to have the fee for the use of the facility. That’s all part of the agreement.”
The fields that we have are really kind of delegated to the Kinesiology Department.”
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