WOW Week WOW Week

      I was an industrial research chemist for a brief period (1 1/2 years). The Research Director had a sign above his desk, "The function of a Research Director is to recognize a dead horse as soon as possible and take it out and shoot it!"
      But the theory here is also pivotal for any management position. Tradition can be important, but it can also be a dead horse. Cal Poly had two such traditions, one of which has been taken out and shot.
      A long term, self perpetuating, ever increasing tradition here was called Poly Royal. It consumed more and more of the students' time during spring quarter to where the academic work finally suffered mightily! The Faculty I believe generally disliked the lost time and the tiredness of the students. Finally, youthfulness and beer created a situation that could no longer be tolerated and it was abandoned, replaced at a later date by a much more moderate kind of a MayDay celebration.

      But there still exists another destructive tradition which bears the sanctity of tradition, WOW Week. This stands for Week of Welcome. This is where "upper claasmen" lead the wide-eyed freshman out, replete with silly hats and signs, ostensibly to familiarize these neophytes with this new world they are about to enter. They show them the library, the rest rooms and other assorted goodies. In turn, the student newbies are properly respectful and non-questioning about the need for such trivial instruction.
      We are taking a bunch of reasonably intelligent students from high school, mostly A and B students, and treating them like kindergarten children. They left high school with great anticipation that their life was about to take a giant step toward adulthood by going to college. Gone would be the carefree treatment of school they "enjoyed" in high school. They are mentally prepared to cope with this new and tougher life experience.
      So what do we do. We send them out in Cub Scout packs with a leader, two or three years older than they are. Their express purpose is to allay the fears of these helpless children entering into a dangerous forest of new customs and duties. What they actually do is make light of the transition and convince these new students that they have nothing to fear. This is going to be JUST LIKE HIGH SCHOOL!

One time tested way of learning how to survive in water is to take the kid out and throw him into the pond and let him struggle to find shore. Of course, you don't let him drown, but you do let him struggle! We have a similar situation here. If a kid from high school isn't smart enough to cope in this larger pond, find the library and the rest rooms by themselves, they need to stay home and grow up. They don't belong in college! Oh yes, Cal Poly, along with many other schools, pretends to be a University. Look up the definition someday. Cal Poly, like most other insitutions of higher learning, is really a collection of colleges, not a UNIVERSity.

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