More than 170 of the 1,000 professors and lecturers at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo have signed a petition protesting a plan by campus administrators to seek a $15-million loan to install PeopleSoft software.

At issue is a recent decision by Warren J. Baker, Cal Poly's president, to move forward with the software, which manages student records, even as other cash-strapped campuses of California State University are delaying the upgrade.

Richard A. Bergquist, PeopleSoft's chief technology officer, is a member of the "president's cabinet" at Cal Poly, a group of 49 business executives that helps Mr. Baker shape campus goals. Some faculty members wonder whether Mr. Bergquist's relationship with Mr. Baker influenced the president's aggressive efforts to install the software. And the professors are questioning what they say was a secretive process in deciding to seek the loan.

The petition asks Mr. Baker to "immediately halt the plans for implementation of the student-administration module of PeopleSoft until the state's budget situation improves" and until campus information-technology officials have conducted "a thorough and transparent cost analysis of other alternatives in the upgrading of our current software."

The petition also asks Mr. Baker to "reconsider" the decision to take out a multimillion-dollar loan for the project.

"We believe it is unjustified to spend millions of dollars to implement an expensive software package at a time when we are facing the worst budget crisis in the history of our university," the petition reads.

Questions from a reporter for Mr. Baker and Jerry Hanley, Cal Poly's chief information officer, were referred to Colleen Bentley-Adler, director of public affairs for the California State University System. Ms. Bentley-Adler described Mr. Baker as an "honorable man" who would not bow to sales pressure from a business executive. And she said there was no indication that he and Mr. Bergquist had ever discussed PeopleSoft's installation at Cal Poly.

She also said that it would be foolish for Cal Poly to seek bids from other software vendors because all Cal State campuses must use PeopleSoft products as part of a systemwide computer overhaul. But a memorandum from campus officials, a copy of which was obtained by The Chronicle, suggests that Cal Poly administrators had some flexibility in choosing their student-records software.

A spokesman for Mr. Bergquist, Steven M. Swasey, said the PeopleSoft executive had not been involved in Cal Poly's decision to install the company's products. A Cal Poly alumnus, Mr. Bergquist also serves on an advisory committee to the university's computer-science department.

Mr. Swasey said that Mr. Bergquist last saw Mr. Baker in April 2003, at a meeting of the president's cabinet, and that the two had spoken on the telephone six months ago about an issue unrelated to the PeopleSoft installation at Cal Poly.

Project Delays

The chancellor of the Cal State system, Charles B. Reed, decided in 1998 to replace old and disparate administrative computer systems on all of the campuses with PeopleSoft software. It was then estimated that the project, known as the Common Management System, would cost $400-million and would take nine years to complete. But Cal State's faculty union and the California Bureau of State Audits have harshly criticized the project, saying university officials understated costs and failed to justify the huge expense.

Most Cal State campuses have installed or are in the process of installing PeopleSoft software to handle personnel and financial information. But 8 of Cal State's 23 campuses, including Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo, are using student-records software from SunGard SCT Inc. and have yet to change over to the PeopleSoft system, which is designed to allow students to register for classes, find out the status of their financial aid, and keep track of debts, among other things.

As of December 2003, only eight campuses were actually using the PeopleSoft system for student records.

The other campuses are delaying the installation because Chancellor Reed has given them a reprieve. Richard West, Cal State's chief financial officer, said in a February memorandum to campus administrators that the installation could be delayed for two to four years because of "budget constraints."

Manzar Foroohar, president of the faculty union at San Luis Obispo, wonders if the university is pushing for a quicker installation because of Mr. Baker's ties to Mr. Bergquist. Further arousing her suspicion is what she characterizes as the secretive manner in which Cal Poly administrators came to their decision about the loan. She said that they began making plans to secure the $15-million loan last August, but that she and other faculty members did not find out about it until January, and then only by chance.

Ms. Foroohar said other campuses that have not yet installed the software and are using SunGard SCT products have all postponed the project for at least one year. And she said that if Cal Poly moved ahead with borrowing the money, other campuses might follow suit.

"That will leave CSU with a large mortgage that the students, faculty, and staff will have to pay for years to come," she said.

Ms. Foroohar, a tenured history professor, said she believes that the loan has already been approved by Chancellor Reed. However, Ms. Bentley-Adler, the system's spokeswoman, denied that the chancellor had done so. "The chancellor has not given approval to any of the campuses to do this," she said.

John Burdett, a systems programmer at Cal Poly who works on legislative affairs for Cal State's union, said the administration had requested approval for a $15-million loan, though he did not know whether the chancellor had approved it.

Still, Cal Poly administrators were confident enough about obtaining the loan that they provided the campus's Academic Senate in February with a detailed breakdown of how the money would be spent, starting this year. Administrators who addressed the senate included Richard Detweiler, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, and Mr. Hanley, the chief information officer.

"Upon a preliminary assessment of key factors and further commitments made by both the chancellor's office and PeopleSoft to work directly with the campus, the president [Mr. Baker] has made the decision to focus campus efforts solely on the PeopleSoft student administration product," said a memorandum that administrators provided to the senate on February 10.

The memorandum went on to say that an analysis originally planned to determine "which product will best meet Cal Poly's needs" would instead be an analysis of "how Cal Poly can best use the PeopleSoft student administration product as a toolset in order to meet our needs."

The memo explained the switch by noting that Cal Poly already used PeopleSoft for its personnel and financial systems and that campus officials worried about the future of the current system, Plus, which is made by SunGard SCT. The document stated that questions had arisen because of SCT's recent purchase of SunGard.

A company representative said SunGard SCT would continue to support its software and had not told Cal Poly officials otherwise.