Can Do! : Cal Poly Means Business as It Grooms Hands-On Decision Makers
Thirty-six years after Willie Keith Kellogg donated his ranch for an agricultural college in Pomona, horses still graze on the Cal Poly campus, a living reminder of Kellogg’s lifelong love for equines.
But despite such pastoral appearances, the dominant academic trend at Cal Poly today is tied to another of the late cornflakes magnate’s passions: business.
Cal Poly’s School of Business Administration--riding a wave of interest in business careers and touting its high-tech curriculum--has emerged from relative obscurity in recent years to become the most popular school on campus, surpassing the university’s highly regarded agriculture, engineering and architecture programs.
Nearly 5,000 of Cal Poly’s 17,000 students are business majors. Enrollment in the business school is growing at an 11% annual clip. The school has outgrown its modest two-story quarters and its classes are scattered among several buildings on the sprawling 1,200-acre campus. Most students come from the San Gabriel Valley area, although applications from out-of-state and foreign students are increasing, school officials said.
Hands-On Approach
The school’s major draw, said Dean W. Slater Hollis, is its curriculum. Cal Poly--one of only two polytechnic universities in the state--emphasizes a hands-on approach to business education rather than the theoretical orientation stressed by most liberal arts institutions.
The business school has become a fertile recruiting ground for dozens of major employers, especially in the high-technology and tourism industries.
“If you hire from Berkeley, they know how to do research, but it’s going to be a long time before you can get them to do something practical,” said Bill Strasen, a recruiter for General Dynamics Corp.’s Pomona Division. “If it were Rand Corp., I don’t think they’d get their best people from Cal Poly. But for industry in general, Cal Poly is a great place.
“The business school is the best-kept secret there. They teach how to make decisions, not just how to use a text. A Cal Poly grad can hit the ground running.”
Not Without Critics
But Cal Poly is not without critics.
For example, a recruiter for a major accounting firm--who requested anonymity--said the business school, which began in 1968, has yet to develop the faculty, the resources and the prestige of older programs, such as those at USC.
Hollis answers critics with a simple response: The program is a success.
Students are “flooding in the back door” by switching to business majors after entering other schools at the university, Hollis said.
More than 800 qualified freshman and transfer applicants were turned away last year, said Robert J. Healey, an associate dean for planning and programs. But the admissions restrictions, which have been in effect for several years, have failed to stem the tide.
Nationwide Upswing
To some extent, the school’s growth reflects a nationwide upswing in the popularity of business programs that began in the 1970s. Domestic colleges and universities granted 215,817 bachelor’s degrees in business in the 1981-82 academic year, compared to 128,244 in 1972-73, according to the National Center for Education Statistics in Washington, D.C.
That trend is only one reason for the business school’s boom, faculty and students say. Besides its curriculum, Cal Poly offers relatively small classes and bargain-basement tuition of $633 a year for California residents.
Business students must take 50% of the 198 class hours required for a bachelor’s degree in the business school, a considerably higher concentration in their major than is required of most liberal arts students.
Hollis, a lawyer and former pharmaceutical industry executive, became dean five years ago. He likes to paraphrase Aristotle to describe the business school’s philosophy.
“The things we learn to do, we learn by doing,” said Hollis, adding, “This is not a school to train and educate (business school) professors.”
‘Line Functions’ Stressed
The school’s department of operations management is a working example of this philosophy, Hollis said. Cal Poly stresses management of so-called “line functions” such as inventory control, purchasing and the production and distribution of goods and services. Conventional programs emphasize staff functions such as management information, personnel and finance, he said.
“Liberal arts schools train the minds,” Hollis said in an accent reminiscent of his native Tennessee. “We train the minds and the hands.”
Hollis characterizes Cal Poly’s typical operations management majors as “half-engineer, half-business student,” noting that their training makes them particularly useful in high-tech enterprises.
“I came to Cal Poly because it offers the operations management department,” said Markus Bohi, a 25-year-old native of Buerglen, Switzerland, who already has a bachelor’s degree in agriculture. “It’s very different (from Swiss universities), much more practical.”
Six Other Departments
The school has six other departments: accounting; computer information systems; finance, real estate and business law; hotel, restaurant and travel management; management and human resources, and marketing management.
Students are encouraged to serve internships with companies to supplement their classroom experience. Each must complete a senior project involving real-life, problem-solving situations.
In the department of hotel, restaurant and travel management--the only program of its kind in the state--students regularly work at the Kellogg West Center for Continuing Education on campus.
For her senior project, Cyndi Dexter, who transferred from a similar program at Michigan State University, supervised the planning, preparation and serving of a Creole-style dinner for more than 100 people at the Kellogg West Center.
Didn’t Apply Experience
“Michigan State was technically oriented, too,” Dexter said, “but we didn’t apply the experience.”
Mike Cumpston, 28, the school’s student body president and a marketing management major from Upland, was sales manager for a stereo concession in a department store before enrolling in Cal Poly. “I find myself saying, ‘My goodness, if I had only known then what I know now,’ ” he said.
Practicality also is pushed for the faculty. The business school’s 175 faculty members are encouraged to do consulting work consult and to publish to remain current in their fields, said Charles E. Pinkus, chairman of the department of operations management.
Cal Poly is a member of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, a St. Louis-based professional and trade group and the sole accrediting agency for domestic business schools. But Cal Poly has not sought accreditation from the assembly. About 250 of the assembly’s 600 members are accredited, a spokesman said. Hollis said accreditation would impose curriculum restrictions contrary to the school’s hands-on orientation.
The biggest challenge right now is coping with the school’s expansion, Hollis said. In June, the business administration building will be converted into a computer center and administrative offices will be consolidated with other business classes elsewhere on campus. The school also is raising funds for a new hospitality management center.
“The heritage left by W. K. Kellogg is very visible on this beautiful, bucolic campus,” said Cal Poly spokesman Ed Pierce, who acknowledges that the business school often has been overshadowed by other disciplines. “We have to make people realize this is more than a cow college and an ‘ag school.’ ”
