More than 100 USC faculty members signed an open letter condemning 203 layoffs at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, a part of the university’s broader efforts to deal with its more than $200 million operating deficit.
“USC’s current financial crisis is not of Dornsife’s making — but our staff, and ultimately our students, are being handed the bill,” the letter reads. “It is time for the University to operate with integrity. If the administration won’t lead, the faculty must show the way.”
The letter, which was shared on an email list for USC’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, currently has 101 signatures and has not yet been published beyond the Google document. AAUP and Devin Griffiths, an author of the letter and associate professor of English and comparative literature at Dornsife, did not respond to requests for comment.
Though 162 of the laid-off individuals were given preference to fill a consolidated 115 positions, according to an October email from Dornsife Dean James Bullock, the AAUP letter said the cuts will significantly impact the school’s services, including the layoffs of “most” of the East Asian Studies Center staff. The center was rolled into another department, the letter reads.
“An important goal of this reorganization is to manage our budget reduction in a way that allows all departments, including our small but impactful units, to maintain their academic integrity and self-direction while continuing to provide a high level of student support and advising that is balanced across the College,” Bullock wrote in the email.
Dornsife, which the letter called the “heart and soul” of the university, also includes a majority of USC’s Ph.D. programs and research across fields.
“The remaining staff are now being asked to do more with less. The reorganization strips away the specialized, tailored advising that our students rely on,” the letter reads. “Top-tier faculty and students do not join institutions that are in a state of chaotic retreat.”
The layoffs at Dornsife are a part of more than 1,000 university-wide layoffs, which have impacted many of USC’s schools, along with specialized departments like athletics, cybersecurity and administration. Dornsife also closed the Office of Experiential and Applied Learning, though the office’s programs continued, Dornsife Dean of Undergraduate Education Emily Hodgson Anderson wrote in September. The layoffs included nearly all academic advisors, which the letter deemed “an act of startling cruelty.”
The letter also called USC’s handling of the layoffs “a failure of accountability” due to an alleged lack of communication between the University administration and Dornsife ahead of the layoffs and criticized the school’s new centralized hubs model.
The restructuring into the hub model means employees will report directly to Dornsife rather than specialized departments, Dornsife Student Services Assistant Jonah Cano told Annenberg Media in October.
The letter said other universities that have switched to a hub model have experienced an “abject failure” at maintaining the quality of their services while implementing the money-saving procedure.
“We recognize that reorganization of University services is inevitable and necessary over time, and that centralizing functions has succeeded in some other universities,” the letter reads. “But centralization only works when driven by a desire to improve services and student outcomes.”
The letter claims that these layoffs reflect the university “again failing to live up to several of USC’s stated core values: community, well-being, and accountability.”
“Eventually, the reputation of the University will suffer,” the letter reads.
Dornsife did not respond to Annenberg Media’s repeated requests for comment.