Cal Poly's cultural centers are moving

Author

Carly Heltzel
April 24, 2025

Good morning. It’s Thursday, and I’m reading about the humanoid robots that ran a half marathon alongside flesh-and-blood competitors. Onto the five Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and California stories you need to know for today.

1.

Cal Poly’s cultural centers are being moved across campus in the newest change from the university’s ‘Space Optimization’ effort. All the centers will be moved from their current Bldg. 52 by the UU to the former home of Cal Poly Partners, Bldg. 15, in an attempt to create “a new centralized space” for cultural centers. The idea is to return Bldg. 52 to being used as the academic space it was originally intended to be, especially as Cal Poly expands its classroom needs. However, non-cultural centers (transfer, international, etc.) will remain in Bldg. 52. 

2.

Free access to ChatGPT Edu will begin on April 28 for Cal Poly students. This new model prioritizes privacy by keeping user input private and not using student responses to train its public model. The CSU is funding the access for 18 months as a part of its AI initiative to encourage ethical use of AI in learning. If you already have a ChatGPT account associated with your Cal Poly email, it will transfer automatically and cancel any existing subscriptions. If you don’t, sign in with your Cal Poly email. 

3.

Senator Adam Schiff and Rep. Salud Carbajal drew a massive, 2,000-person crowd at their town hall on Cuesta College’s performing arts center — a building with a capacity of 400 people. The rest were seated in the nearby gym and had a chance to interact with the pair after the main event. The crowd didn’t have many young people, and Cuesta College’s student government president said no students were notified of the event at Cuesta or Cal Poly, effectively “silencing the student voice.”

4.

California now has the fourth-largest economy in the world after surpassing Japan this year. That puts us behind only the U.S., China and Germany, reaching $4.1 trillion in gross domestic product. California is also the fastest growing of the four, with an increase of 6% over the 5.3%, 2.6% and 2.9% for the U.S., China and Germany, respectively. But this success could be under threat from the Trump administration’s tariffs. “California’s economy powers the nation, and it must be protected,” Gov. Gavin Newson said.

5.

A tennis instructor is suing Waymo after one of their robotaxis locked his thousands of dollars of equipment in the trunk and drove off while he was on the phone with customer service. Normally, a button on the Waymo app allows riders to open the trunk at the end of the ride, but this time, it didn’t appear. Now, the company has yet to recover the items and is treating the case as if he left it behind on accident. “I don’t know how they can’t find this stuff,” he said. “It didn’t just drive into a black hole.”