Cal Poly Humboldt rebrand targets enrollment jump by 2035

Cal Poly Humboldt, formerly Cal State Humboldt, is leaning on its 2022 polytechnic rebrand—after early enrollment gains and major facilities funding—to attract more students and reshape course offerings, from polytechnic data science to applied humanities. The

When Jonathan Juarez looked up the path that brought him back to school, the choice was personal before it was academic. The 30-year-old was working in Los Angeles, helping support his parents and brother, when he decided it was time to finish his bachelor’s degree.

Instead of staying local, he enrolled at the California State University’s northernmost campus about 700 miles away. He was drawn by a new major at a university that has been rebuilding itself under a different name.

“I love being able to look back to where I came from, to where I am today,” Juarez said. He is expected to graduate from Cal Poly Humboldt in 2027 with a degree in polytechnic data science. “I told myself, ‘I need to go back. I want it. I really want to see if I can finish this.’ And I fell in love with academia again.”.

The campus. once known as Cal State Humboldt. rebranded as Cal Poly Humboldt in 2022. becoming the third CSU polytechnic campus after San Luis Obispo and Pomona. Since then. it has launched new interdisciplinary programs that emphasize applied learning and combined disciplines—part of a deliberate push to make the offer to prospective students feel clearer.

For interim provost and vice president for academic affairs Shawna Young, the logic is straightforward: if students are looking for job and career readiness, they should recognize the campus for that.

“That should help boost enrollment,” Young said. “because those who are interested in seeking that kind of job and career and workforce readiness will think of us.”

Cal Poly Humboldt had 6,276 students in 2025, after growing from 5,858 in 2022. The university’s long-range aim is to enroll more than 11,600 students by 2035—an aspiration it pursues even as campus leaders confront the “demographic cliff,” a nationwide trend of decreasing enrollment.

Campus officials say the polytechnic label gives them a competitive edge with applicants that Cal State Humboldt did not have. Vice president for enrollment management and student success Chrissy Holliday described it as a clearer pitch.

“We have looked at it as a recognition,” Holliday said. “The hope was to carve out a differentiation of what makes Cal Poly Humboldt unique, so our pitch becomes less about pretty pictures and more about the value we’re offering students.”

That emphasis has been backed by major facilities and new program timelines. CSU leaders asked Cal State Humboldt to apply for polytechnic status in 2020. citing the campus’s “many distinct strengths in the sciences.” Those sciences. university leaders say. are now set to expand as construction moves forward.

A new engineering and technology building is expected to be completed in 2027. the year the first cohort of students who applied to the new Cal Poly will graduate. Funded with a one-time state investment of $433 million. the building carries a $100 million price tag and will house a new mechanical engineering bachelor’s. an engineering and community practice master’s. and. by 2029. bachelor’s programs in forest engineering and regenerative engineering and design technology.

The state investment also supports housing. A two-building housing complex located half a mile from campus was part of the funding package, and the state Legislature approved an additional annual allocation of $25 million to pay for the rollout of polytech course programs through 2029.

The data science program is one of the direct results of the polytech transition, according to associate professor of mathematical biology Kamila Larripa.

“That investment allowed some of these new programs to fully form and not just be an idea,” Larripa said.

But rebranding has also meant trade-offs. Last year, the university closed the religious studies department. Instead, it added a history of religions concentration to the history degree program. Campus officials also shifted the economics major to a business degree concentration.

Those changes have echoed beyond Humboldt. Faculty and staff at other universities pursuing polytech status have watched the transition and worried about how quickly institutions are moving. how humanities programs could be affected. and even how gender balance might shift. As Central Connecticut State University explores the designation. some opponents argue it is being rushed through. could shutter humanities programs. and could threaten the university’s gender balance.

On Humboldt’s campus, the reaction from arts faculty has been more reassured than alarmed.

Nicole Jean Hill, chair of the art and film department at Cal Poly Humboldt, said people have asked her whether the polytechnic rebrand made her and other arts faculty nervous.

“I’m not worried at all,” Hill said. “because we totally align with what that is in our field.”

Hill described how art and film students engage in hands-on learning every day. She also said the relationship between STEM and arts fields “doesn’t feel competitive or ominous” at Cal Poly Humboldt.

“I think a lot of the STEM faculty recognize the importance of arts as well,” Hill said. “I really love teaching students that are from the STEM fields. It’s my favorite thing about working here.”

For at least one student. the timing of the transition created a direct route to a degree that matched his interests. Jack Conti. a fine arts major. had been more interested in video and animation than traditional media like ceramics and painting. With just a few semesters left until graduation. Conti said he was prepared to stick it out with studio art and finish his degree.

Then Hill told Conti about a new interdisciplinary media arts major that would be launching. The program combines art, film, and digital technology.

Conti could take a few more courses, apply his earlier graphic design credits from community college, and finish two semesters early with a degree aligned with his career interests. He said he realized he had the needed credits to be among the first students in the program.

“I realized that I had a lot of the credits needed to be one of the first people to do the media arts program,” Conti said. “So I shifted course and started taking more design and digital art classes, and it just pretty much worked out perfectly.” He plans to get a master’s degree in media arts.

Not all of the human impact is about shifting majors, either. Some faculty members have been reworking humanities courses around post-college outcomes.

Sara Hart. chair of the new applied humanities department. has spent the past spring and summer researching how to align the new major and its focus areas—health. technology. and social responsibility—with workforce needs. She interviewed industry leaders in Silicon Valley, New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C. about what they want to see in future employees.

Two major themes emerged from those conversations: employees need to be more flexible and communicate better. Hart then worked with a team to build a curriculum rooted in the liberal arts while tied to workforce applications.

One class, called Applied Storytelling, is designed to strengthen professional communication. In another, called Navigating Change, students read the Stoics alongside contemporary classics in change management.

The major also requires 300 hours of service work and includes a career curriculum.

“Our goal is to make sure that students have access to a strong, multidisciplinary humanities curriculum that prepares them for their own chosen professional futures,” Hart said.

Taken together. the changes at Cal Poly Humboldt show how a polytechnic rebrand can be more than a marketing shift: it can reshape what students build toward. what campuses fund. and what departments decide to redesign or close. Enrollment has risen slightly since 2022. but campus leaders are pushing toward a much bigger target by 2035 as they compete for a shrinking pool of students.

Whether the polytechnic label ultimately delivers on its promise may come down to what students like Juarez—and Conti—find when they arrive: not just a new name, but a clearer path to the degrees and outcomes that helped draw them in.

Cal Poly Humboldt polytechnic rebrand enrollment growth CSU applied humanities polytechnic data science engineering and technology building housing complex applied storytelling navigating change departmental changes