City College students and faculty gathered outside of Conlan Hall at the college’s main Ocean campus to protest 58 layoff notices issued by Chancellor David Martin as of Tuesday.
Although 58 layoff notices have been issued, both the administration and the faculty union said that eight of the faculty will be able to “bump”, or be moved into other departments unaffected by layoffs that they are qualified to teach, meaning only 50 full-time faculty are at risk of losing work.
The layoff notices, which were approved by the Board of Trustees on February 24, will become effective on May 15. Full-time faculty can appeal their pink slips.
Martin has said that layoffs are necessary as the school struggles with a decline in enrollment, which has affected its financial health for several years. As the school prepares for an upcoming visit by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges to determine whether the school will remain accredited through 2030, Martin has emphasized that the layoffs will be an important way to ensure the accreditation board that City College is taking concrete steps to become financially solvent and prevent a takeover of the school by the California State Chancellor’s Office.
But administrators’ gamble to appease the accreditors (who are, in some ways, responsible for the current problems) has hit students and faculty hard, with instructors who have spent years working at City College losing their jobs and students left uncertain if they will be able to find classes that don’t conflict with their work schedules.
Students and faculty in City College’s English as a Second Language program, from which seven full-time teachers are being laid off, say the cuts will limit accessibility to English-language training they say is crucial for immigrants and other non-English speakers to secure better job opportunities.
Débora Radaic, an ESL student originally from Brazil who is seeking a visa needed to work in the United States, said that layoffs in the ESL department would impact working students hardest by causing more time conflicts with their work schedules due to fewer offered courses.
“I will not have options. If I have to work, if they cut afternoon classes or night classes, I will have just one option. If I just have one option and I have to work, how will I take classes?” Radaic said. “So cutting the classes is devastating.”
Part-time ESL instructor Karl Graham underscored the importance of the ESL program to the college itself, saying that learning English can lead non-English-speaking students into other programs at the college after they have picked up enough of the language to take other classes taught in English.
“ESL is the gateway to so many other programs,” Graham said.
Others expressed exacerbation at the college’s history of cuts—many students and faculty are feeling deja-vu as a result of the new layoffs, roughly one year after another set of layoffs were also approved, only to be narrowly averted after faculty took salary concessions to cut costs.
A City College psychology student, Diamund White, said that cuts last year risked ending Project Survive, a student-led initiative which provides counseling and sexual violence prevention education through trained peer-educators. Diamond said that she found a community she identified with through the program after being referred to it by her therapist and working as a peer-educator.
“I used to be really shy and have a lot of anxiety, and through that program I was able to elevate out of that,” Diamond said.
Project Survive is not affected by cuts this year, but it was almost affected by sweeping layoffs last year which included layoffs to the Women’s and Gender Studies department that coordinates the program. Those layoffs were narrowly averted, but layoffs happening once again, it has made Diamond question whether Project Survive will be around to help future students in need of counseling like her.
This is not the first round of layoffs during David Martin’s time as chancellor—42 classified staff were dismissed on January 3, enraging their union, SEIU Local 1021.
Arnie Warshaw, a member of SEIU Local 1021 and a classified English tutor for 14 years at City College, said that faculty layoffs can also affect classified staff, such as tutors in subjects taught by faculty.
“If I didn’t have teachers to work with, I couldn’t work as an embedded tutor. So we’re connected.” Warshaw said.
SEIU Local 1021 and AFT2121 have formed the Revenue Unity Coalition, collaborating to advocate for more local funding for City College. AFT2121 has also advanced an alternative budget, and say that by cutting expenses in certain areas while also accounting for a COLA payment being received by the college this year, the college can avoid layoffs and end the fiscal year with a budget surplus.
Warshaw called for more local funding for city college, including by taxing wealthy individuals and corporations.
“I am sick to death hearing that there is no money,” said Warshaw. “It’s a question of political will.”
AFT2121 called for a public forum with the administration and the Board of Trustees on April 21, where they can present their alternative budget and hear responses from the college’s key decision-makers.
Chancellor David Martin did not respond to requests for comment.
