The unknown number of San Francisco State University adjunct professors who face layoffs this month amid a “financial emergency” are reeling as they try to figure out their next moves, but they’re not the only ones affected.
SFSU students told The Standard they worry it will be harder to get into classes they need in order to graduate, and that the cuts will diminish the quality of their education.
“If you have fewer classes, the classes remaining are going to be way more crowded,” said Alban Gentile, a French exchange student who is studying at SFSU.
He said that at his home university, Sciences Po in Paris, lectures can accommodate hundreds of students. Small class sizes and a favorable student-to-professor ratio are what drew him to SFSU, he said.
“It’s a shame to have neoliberalism go to such an extent,” Gentile added.
Some students are organizing to fight back. At a meeting Friday on campus, students brainstormed ways to raise awareness about the cuts and put pressure on administrators to reconsider.
“Critical thinking is important, and they’re taking it away,” said Tiy Todd, a third-year political science major who this year transferred to SFSU from community college. Todd, 48, is a disabled veteran who left the military in 2003.
“There are so many people losing jobs,” she told The Standard. “I sympathize, because I’ve been broke, without healthcare or a plan. It’s gonna be a sad Christmas for a lot of people.”
Sohrab Ford, a second-year student majoring in philosophy and English education, was one of the meeting’s organizers.
“My first semester, they cut half the faculty in my department. It felt like a stab to the heart,” Ford said. “I really love these professors. They care deeply about us.”
Ford added that some of the energy from spring student demonstrations against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza had translated into the efforts to resist layoffs. The student, who wore a keffiyeh, said he wanted to draw a stronger connection between the California State University system’s investments in the defense industry and the cuts, quoting an old protest slogan: “Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation.”
SFSU spokesperson Bobby King said the university is cutting classes because it has fewer students.
“Because lecturer course assignments are based on real demand and enrollment, there should be no impact on students’ ability to get the courses they need,” King said via email.
Christy Shick, a lecturer in the English department, blamed the layoffs on “careerist administrators” who want to show how quickly they can cut costs and scoffed at the idea that the reductions would not affect students.
“What planet are you living on?” Shick said via phone. “How high in the ivory tower are you that you’ve lost touch with the people on the ground here?”
She predicted that graduation rates would decrease dramatically in the next six years as a result of the downsizing.
But not everybody at Friday’s meeting shared that view. Fourth-year journalism student Neal Wong, who was wearing a lanyard for the SFSU newspaper Golden Gate Xpress, said it isn’t fair to solely blame administrators.
“The issue is declining enrollment,” Wong told The Standard.
King, the SFSU spokesperson, said enrollment fell to 22,357 students this fall from 29,586 in 2018.
While Wong acknowledged that the cuts would mean reduced access to “niche subjects,” he suggested that student concerns are overblown.
“I’m not worried,” he said. “Professors are often more qualified than lecturers to teach courses.”
Shehab Arikat, another student, was on campus Friday afternoon when he stopped to talk with The Standard.
“It’s crazy, man. So many people’s incomes depend on these classes,” he said. “Teachers won’t really be motivated to teach you if they know it might be their last semester.”