The California State University Board of Trustees discusses a proposal to merge Cal Maritime and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Nov. 20, 2024.
Amy DiPierro
California State University took another step Wednesday toward merging Cal Maritime in Vallejo, its smallest campus, with the university system’s most selective institution, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
A committee of the Cal State board of trustees greenlit the merger proposal Wednesday, a decision designed to keep the maritime academy in operation following enrollment declines that threatened its financial viability as an independent institution. Wednesday’s unanimous vote in favor was confined to the Joint Committee on Finance and Educational Policy. The proposal will approach its final hurdle when it gets a full board vote on Thursday.
System officials argue that combining the two Cal State locations will ultimately benefit both universities. Cal Poly would gain access to maritime academy facilities including a $360 million training vessel and pier; Cal Maritime hopes to boost the number of students seeking merchant marine licenses.
“Please do not think of this as a contraction of the system,” said Chancellor Mildred García in remarks following the committee vote. “This is indeed an expansion – an expansion of opportunity for current and future students, of authentic and equitable access,” she said, as well as a benefit to the maritime industry.
If the full board votes in favor, the system will face a tight timeline to unite the two institutions under the same administration by July 1, 2025. After that deadline, the combined university plans to continue under the Cal Poly name and Cal Maritime would be rechristened Cal Poly, Solano Campus. The intent is for all students at the newly merged university to be enrolled as Cal Poly students starting in fall 2026.
The renamed Solano campus would be led by a vice president and CEO reporting to Cal Poly’s president. A superintendent with the rank of Rear Admiral in the U.S. Maritime Service would lead the maritime academy, which would remain in Vallejo.
Cal State envisions a blitz of activity as 2025 and 2026 deadlines approach, including navigating accreditation processes and updating the curriculum. Perhaps the biggest challenge is to revive the number of students earning their merchant mariner licenses, programs which would be housed at a renamed entity called the Cal Poly Maritime Academy pending approval from the U.S. Maritime Administration and other agencies. Merchant marines are the civilian workforce responsible for operating commercial shipping vessels; they also supply U.S. military ships and bases.
The maritime academy is due to receive a new, 700-student training vessel in 2026, but the school’s interim president, Michael J. Dumont, has warned that without a merger, Cal Maritime “is not going to be able to operate that ship, because it won’t have the people to do it. It won’t have the budget to support it.”
Cal Maritime has 804 students enrolled this fall. To boost that number, Cal State officials have said “substantial investments in recruitment and marketing” at high schools must begin now.
Officials have said cratering enrollment – headcount tumbled 31% between the 2016-17 and 2023-24 school years – and rising operating expenses are to blame for Cal Maritime’s difficult financial position.
Dumont said in an email to the campus in August that the campus expected to notch a $3.1 million budget deficit in the 2024-25 school year, counting deficits in both its general operating and housing funds. This fall, the campus laid off 10 employees as the school year started.
Steve Relyea, Cal State’s chief financial officer, and Nathan Evans, the system’s chief academic officer, have framed the merger choice to trustees as one between combining the two institutions quickly or preparing to close the maritime academy. Presentations to the board co-led by Dumont and Cal Poly president Jeffrey D. Armstrong also note that Cal Maritime’s situation has been worsened by a flurry of departures among important campus leaders, among them its chief financial officer. Cal Maritime has tried to cover for those positions by striking agreements with Cal Poly, Cal State officials said in September, creating “the problematic misperception that leadership is moving ahead with the integration before board action in November.”
Cal State formed 23 workgroups to study issues relevant to the merger, which it has since reorganized around a handful of themes like academics and enrollment.
Both faculty senate and student government representatives are already contemplating what it will take to knit the two institutions together, including questions about how to blend existing governance structures and distribute fees that support student government, according to a memo summarizing the process. Faculty additionally have been tasked to identify “overlapping, adjacencies and duplication in academic programming and curricula,” the memo said.
Dustin Stegner, chair of the English department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a statewide senator in the Academic Senate of the CSU system, said he was amazed by the committee members’ enthusiasm for the proposal.
“This was born out of a financial crisis of Cal Maritime not being sustainable, and it is being described as a great opportunity for the whole system,” he said. “It certainly seems like making a lot of lemonade out of a lot of lemons.”
Stegner, who has served on one of the workgroups assembled to provide feedback on the integration proposal, said he is still waiting for the board of trustees to address questions about whether faculty members’ job security could be impacted by the merger. He said there are also open questions about whether the combined university will offer more online courses in order to reach students on both campuses and whether students who switch majors may also be permitted to switch campuses.
Cal State representatives have not yet decided which metrics the system should use to gauge the merger’s progress. Financially, Cal State will be eying anticipated cost savings and also checking to make sure absorbing the maritime academy “does not become a financial burden to Cal Poly,” according to a memo to the board. Updates on areas like how many students are enrolling in programs that yield a merchant mariner license and the student body’s diversity are also expected. CSU officials anticipate a report updating the board on the merger’s progress in May 2025.
The university system has hired consulting firm Baker Tilly as an advisor to guide the merger effort and monitor its success based on the to-be-determined accountability metrics. System records show the chancellor’s office inked a $500,000 contract with the firm in September.
