Outgoing President Carol Folt said Wednesday that she is not sure what impact the re-election of Donald Trump will have on USC, but the school is starting to make financial decisions that consider Trump’s threats against the Department of Education.
“We are going to need a big buffer should some of these changes come,” Folt said.
At an Academic Senate meeting marked by faculty frustrations with USC’s administration, Folt said the Trump administration’s plans around the Department of Education are a factor in the financial decisions USC has been making.
Folt added that USC’s individual schools are no longer enrolling enough students to meet their budgets and international students’ visas could be affected under the Trump administration, affecting how much money USC can spend. She also noted that the university’s $7.3 billion endowment could be taxed up to 35% by the next presidential administration.
The Academic Senate met Wednesday with Folt and Provost Andrew T. Guzman to discuss the financial decisions USC administration has made this past year, which faculty said were without proper consultation.
After Folt’s initial speech, Guzman said, “it is simply more expensive to be in higher education.”
Every USC school and administrative unit was asked to reduce their budget, Guzman added, noting that there has been a hiring pause as USC works to build new streams of revenue.
“Difficult decisions are going to have to be made,” Guzman said.
Faculty at the meeting raised several questions about the cost of new security measures implemented following the anti-war student protests on campus last spring.
One faculty member said they would “like to know more about the rationale for those procedures, and [they’d] like to know when we might see those gates fall.”
Guzman said he was unable to answer this question.
“I think transparency is really important, and one piece of transparency is I’m going to be honest with you when I can’t give you information,” he said.
The faculty also questioned the USC administration’s decision to cut employee benefits last month, sharing that they felt there was a lack of transparency ahead of the announcement.
“[The change was] imposed as opposed to consulting with the faculty, and those [changes] have created the most opposition from all the faculty councils,” said Professor Ivan Bermejo-Moreno, chair of the Viterbi Engineering Faculty Council.
Guzman said cutting these benefits saved USC $10 million, but for “an $8 billion school,” the faculty said they felt the savings were too small to justify the impact.
Guzman added that all of USC’s decisions were made to continue the school’s mission of teaching, research and care.
In response, Vice Dean of Faculty and Research and Roski Professor Amelia Jones said, “maybe faculty could be included in those conversations before.”
Guzman and Folt left the meeting shortly after their remarks, leaving the faculty in attendance to have an open discussion. Some faculty said they felt “powerless.”
“We’re asking for favors, and [administration does] it if they want,” Roski design professor Bruno Lemgruber said. “Do we have any power?”
Some faculty members proposed obtaining legal counsel to represent the faculty and review any documents that university administration sends them. The administration was described by one faculty member as “out of touch.” Another said trust between faculty and the administration had “eroded.”
“We have soft power,” English professor Devin Griffiths said, “The administration doesn’t want a faculty that’s pissed off.”
A previous version of this article wrote that USC has a $150 million endowment. USC has a $7.3 billion endowment, of which could be taxed “close to $150 million a year” under the Trump administration, according to President Folt at the Academic Senate meeting. Annenberg Media regrets this error.