UCSC must reverse its decision to fire lecturers and cut language instruction

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If UC Santa Cruz seeks to honor the promise it’s made to its student body and the broader community, it should reverse the decision to fire lecturers, cut language instruction and gut critical student services. 

University Council-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT), the union representing UCSC lecturers, is circulating a petition pushing back against the cuts, which saw dozens of lecturers and one librarian lose their jobs or had jobs and pay significantly reduced. The petition already has more than 650 signatures. 

The university has its roots in the liberal arts and has long sought to center itself as an institution committed to public education and fostering academic diversity. “[UCSC] will provide a student-centered learning experience for our undergraduate and graduate students,” its mission statement reads. “[UCSC’s] teaching and learning will be enhanced by a culture of inclusion, respect, and agency, the open exchange of ideas, and the strength and perspectives that emerge from a diverse community of scholars.”

Recent actions, however, mark a stark departure from these professed ideals. 

Rather than uphold the “student-centered learning experience,” UCSC has demonstrated that it’s more focused on maximizing administrative positions and salaries at the expense of student resources and learning. It is actively undermining the ideals it promised to uphold.

Citing budget cuts, the university has discontinued its German and Farsi programs, and has reduced coursework for the Languages and Applied Linguistics program by 23.5%. This has meant job loss and insecurity for long-time devoted teachers.

Meanwhile, administrative positions have grown enormously. From 2019 to 2024, positions for senate faculty and non-senate faculty have increased by only 14% and 12.5%, respectively, yet positions for managers have increased by 28% and those for senior professionals by 55%, according to the petition and union representatives. 

These increases are anomalous even within the broader University of California system, and have been acknowledged within the Academic Senate. At a November meeting, Raphe Kudela, professor of ocean sciences and chair of the Committee on Planning and Budget (CPB), noted that based on a CPB-designed metric tracking the ratio of managers to faculty, the school is “over-staffed in manager positions.”

The ratio of managers to other staff and faculty, according to their findings, is “consistently higher” at UCSC than at any other UC campuses without a medical school, save Merced. 

I believe UCSC’s own financial mismanagement has played a role in the current budgetary crisis, though the university has yet to fully explain the specifics of the budget deficit or make the documentation transparent. This academic year started “with faculty being told that this was a year of budget cuts, due largely to an earlier administrative accounting error the details of which have not to date been made public,” according to a report from the UCSC Committee on Teaching and the Committee on Educational Policy. 

Federal and statewide cuts have also contributed to the deficit. Universities and medical centers across the country are reeling from the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health, which has long been a crucial funder of biomedical and behavioral research. Many institutions have been forced to lay off researchers and cut academic programs, and critical research on cancer and HIV has been severely affected. The arts and humanities have also seen cuts, with the administration canceling grants for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as calling for the elimination of both agencies. 

These cuts have exacerbated an already tenuous situation in California. 

Amid the state’s $12 billion deficit, which is in part due to rising costs and Trump’s uncertain tariff policy, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed an 8% reduction in state funding for the University of California and California State University systems.

The California State Assembly then countered that Newsom bring down the reduction to 3%. Newsom eventually agreed, which UC President Michael Drake praised in a recent statement.

Despite the reduction, campuses across California, UCSC included, have still opted to reduce student services and to forgo rehiring lecturer faculty — eliminating jobs and critical support services during an already uncertain time. It’s a classic ploy often used by big corporations: exaggerate the impacts of an economic downturn to fire workers, raise costs, and make things harder for people who are already the most vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the UC system, UCSC included, is continuing to pour money into bloated salaries for administration and has requested additional funds for more military equipment for campus police. UCSC’s request for two drones, which will be used to facilitate “crime scene reconstruction,” was approved by the board of regents last year. 

While proponents assert that competitive executive and administrative salaries ensure the university is bringing in the most qualified candidates for leadership, I believe it’s a sign of institutional rot: It increases the likelihood of leaders going after roles in pursuit of wealth and status rather than a commitment to improving the learning experience for its student body. If UCSC wants to stand by its ideals, the first cuts in the time of crisis should come from already-inflated executive and administrative salaries. 

These cuts weren’t inevitable. 

They were a conscious decision made in part from UCSC administrators’ efforts to consolidate budgetary control. As UCSC student newspaper City on a Hill Press has chronicled, the Fresh AIR (Academic Instructional Resources) model, a budget restructuring effort created under outgoing Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer, has vastly altered how UCSC allocates its funds.

While divisions and departments originally had more discretion over their own general funds, these are now controlled by the administration. This means that administrators, not subject experts in departments or the people actually closest to students, have the final say in where the money goes.

In the wake of these layoffs, organizations like the UC-AFT have called on UCSC to reverse the elimination of classes, programs and services and to cut administrative excess.

The union also calls for the UC system to use its Blue and Gold endowment pool, which currently stands around $6.5 billion, to help offset some of the damages done by cuts to higher ed. The university used these funds to offset the effects of COVID, and can do it again.

UCSC has the means to fulfill what it promised to its students. Campus leaders need to listen to the students and teachers who make it run.

Brock Hrehor is a 2025 graduate of UC Santa Cruz. He studied philosophy and served as an editorial intern at The American Prospect. He is now an incoming fellow at More Perfect Union.