Cal Poly and Cal Maritime will officially merge after CSU trustees vote 

To help end a financial and enrollment crisis and keep the specialized institution afloat, California State University Maritime will merge with Cal Poly SLO.

Over the past seven years, Cal Maritime's enrollment has declined by 31 percent and it currently has a little more than 700 students, according to a California State University (CSU) board of trustees staff report. The trustees voted at the end of July to adopt the merger.

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• Photo Courtesy From Cal Maritime
• LEARN BY DOING The California State University board of trustees voted to support a merger with Cal Poly SLO and Cal Maritime, as Cal Poly's reputation could help bring enrollment back up at Cal Maritime.

Cal Maritime has had to cut costs across the campus, such as reducing office and divisional budgets and expenditures, eliminating vacant positions and downgrading others, and instituting a hiring freeze on all nonessential positions. It also eliminated two vice president positions and restructured two others with a salary reduction, according to the staff report.

CSU Executive Vice Chancellor Steve Relyea told New Times in previous reporting that Cal Maritime provides 25 percent of the country's maritime workforce but can't continue to operate as a university in the fact of decreased enrollment and financial crisis. However, he believes that a merger with Cal Poly will help bring the university back up to operating levels.

"Do you look for a partner that would have compatible and synergistic academic programs and training programs that when integrated together would provide something much more powerful than either by themselves? So, we started to pursue that option," he said.

The likely candidate that quickly became evident was Cal Poly.

The CSU board agreed with Relyea and approved the merger on July 22.

Because Cal Poly is a growing university with a strong reputation for excellence in engineering, agriculture, and architecture, the goal is that the polytechnic university will bring high-quality facility, staff, and students from diverse backgrounds to Cal Maritime, as well as expertise in enrollment management, marketing, and brand-building to help drive up application demand, and strength in fundraising that will bring philanthropic partners to Cal Maritime, according to the staff report.

"Cal Poly can provide essential services to support the facilities maintenance needs of the maritime academy's physical infrastructure," the staff report states. "Cal Maritime lacks the resources to provide robust institutional financial aid to its students.

"Integration with Cal Poly will provide access to greater levels of institutional financial aid than the status quo, thus allowing the maritime academy to structure its financial aid within an overall framework that increases support for new California residents and students from other Western states including Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii and from U.S. territories in the Pacific."

Following the merger, Cal Poly Vice President for Student Affairs Keith Humphrey will move to a new position at Cal Maritime, where he will focus on ensuring that the student experience for both campuses' students remains strong, according to an Aug. 13 letter from Cal Poly's president Jeffery Armstrong.

Cal Poly Executive Communications Specialist Keegan Koberl told New Times that the university is still searching for a candidate to fill Humphrey's former position.

"In the meantime, I am pleased to share that Cindy Villa has agreed to help with the transition effective immediately and will lead the Student Affairs division in the interim," Armstrong stated in the letter. "I am grateful to Cindy for her willingness to step into this important role and know the division will benefit immensely from Cindy's exceptional leadership experience and abilities." Δ