During week eight, 18 College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences administrative employees were laid off. Three administrative positions were completely eliminated, and the other staff members were encouraged to reapply for 15 new jobs by Nov. 15.

The employees are not guaranteed to get rehired by DU, and they’ll be competing with outsiders as well. Some employees view the requirements for the new positions as irrelevant or different from the skills that were important in their former specialized jobs. 

The CAHSS administrative roles are being “reconstructed” into a “College-wide Support Services Team comprised of three functionally based units: Business and Operations, Enrollment Services and Marketing and Communications.” The new team of reconstructed administrative roles will be established by Dec. 13. 

The Clarion had the opportunity to speak with a faculty who specializes in social sciences and asked to be anonymous (hereby referred to as anonymous faculty member — AFM), Kate Herbert, a senior student who holds a leadership position in DU Backstage, a theatre-based club; and Dr. Nadia Kaneva, a professor in the Department of Media, Film and Journalism Studies.

In the spring of 2024, budget cuts were announced and there were threats to lay off even more staff than the individuals who were cut during week eight. 

“Faculty pushed back really strongly to say ‘we can’t function as a unit if this happens,’” AFM said. 

According to the professor, Provost Mary Clark had come to an agreement with a group of senior faculty members to stop further layoffs of staff. AFM explained, “What was communicated to us as a group was that there wouldn’t be any staff jobs in jeopardy this fiscal year.” 

AFM, along with the staff at CAHSS, had understood that there would be some sort of reorganization, but there would be no layoffs for the 2024-25 academic year. They were wrong.

“This is maybe a little bit of a guess on my part but I think [the layoffs] were done without consultation, because they didn’t want people to be able to respond and they felt if we just did it, [faculty and staff] wouldn’t have any way to fight back. However, there has been a lot of response from faculty, we don’t think it’s acceptable — either the decision or the way it was handled,” AFM said. 

To explain the new changes to faculty and staff, an emergency chair meeting was held by Interim Dean Rachel Walsh on Oct. 30. AFM expanded on what they learned from their chair, “To my knowledge, there was no consultation. It was just announcing this is what’s happening.”

AFM highlighted that the empty desk (pictured above) used to belong to an administrative assistant who helped with student advising, supervised student employees, made accommodations for visitors, managed the tenure process and planned departmental events.

“She’s like the person who knows things. She’s really a friendly face, she’s there and when you have questions about literally anything, she’s the person you go to,” AFM said of their former colleague. 

Herbert expressed that a recently let-go administrative assistant once helped her add a major, work through the student hiring process and helped her co-found a Registered Student Organization (RSO).

“No one will ever have the knowledge that she has, and it will cause our department to take on more stress than it has in a while,” Herbert said. 

MFJS is in the process of losing two staff members; one was in the department for multiple decades and worked in managing essential processes, and the other worked directly with students and potential new students.

“Without them, our undergraduate and graduate students as well as our faculty, will experience a direct loss of services and support,” Dr. Kaneva explained, “This is a real blow to the department.”

“In terms of how it will impact our work, I don’t think anybody knows,” AFM said. 

The 15 CAHSS positions being reorganized aren’t completely gone yet, and from what AFM has learned from other staff, “the Dean’s office still does not really know the plan of how this new centralized model is going to work.” 

Dr. Kaneva said the layoffs will also cause more confusion and, “…add to my own workload because I direct one of our graduate programs and work on recruiting and retaining students. The administration has not provided any clarity on how we are supposed to move forward other than to say that we will all have to work extra hours.”

Interim Dean Walsh has been asked by staff and faculty about the research and planning that went into the decision-making process to decide on a centralized staff model. Some other universities tried, but failed, to implement a similar system. According to AFM, when they asked Walsh about this, Walsh did not provide a sufficient answer. 

Walsh also told staff and faculty that these roles will remove face-to-face interactions and will be replaced with a support ticketing system. AFM was also told that faculty may have to start carrying out the tasks that used to be the job of their departmental assistants. 

Overall, faculty were given the impression the university was still ironing out some key details. Faculty were told that some of the jobs that prior staff had would be in the new model, but the professors may have to do some of the tasks previously assigned to departmental assistants. Some faculty remain confused as to the exact details of how tasks will be distributed. 

“How is that possible to not have a plan?” AFM expressed. 

AFM highlighted that the different majors in CAHSS are so diverse and distinct, like the theater, journalism and music programs, that it doesn’t make sense to take the majority of staff members and ask them to give specialized advice for all 21 departments.

There was a “college-wide” meeting, not open to students, that also took place online with Dean Walsh on Oct. 31. 

“Basically she read a prepared statement: she said ‘Let’s have a moment of silence so we can process this’ – it was really awkward. And then she took questions — I would say mostly she did not answer people’s questions,” AFM said. 

The dean also couldn’t produce a number when asked how much money the layoffs were saving. 

Herbert, other classmates and some faculty members got to meet with the Dean on Nov. 5. 

“She listened to questions, she was faced with tears from students and faculty alike. She said there was nothing she could do, that ‘her hands were tied’,” Herbert said of the meeting. Later in the meeting, Walsh mentioned more cuts were to come but could not clarify.

“I do not think she’s making these types of decisions in a vacuum,” AFM said of Walsh. “However, I do feel that she made choices about how to communicate with people that were deeply harmful and that have really made people feel disrespected and devalued.”

Herbert said that at the meeting that took place on Nov. 5, despite the room still having questions, Dean Walsh began putting on her coat and made a comment about her temporary position. 

“This comment sat very poorly with me. Even though it’s not your permanent position, it is your current position — so please do something to help,” Herbert said.

There is also a feeling of fear about speaking up and what repercussions it’ll come with, along with feelings of disrespect. 

“I’ve been here for eight years and I’ve never seen people treated this way,” AFM mentioned. They highlighted The Bridge, a newsletter for staff and faculty managed by the Division of Marketing and Communications and how they addressed the layoffs. “They call it ‘Staff Adjustments,’ no word that these are people. ‘Three staff positions…have been eliminated’ — that’s people who have lost their jobs, human beings.” 

The newsletter continues by highlighting that fifteen administrative staff positions will be “higher-paid roles”; this description of the reconstructed roles is misleading to those who were laid off as the “higher-paid roles” are only seeing an increase of $1-3 per hour more. 

The layoffs and hirings are noticeably taking place right before winter break, which makes those involved feel that staff are being treated inhumanely. 

“I’ve heard from staff who are in a position of like ‘Can I afford to buy Christmas presents for my kids?’ I don’t feel like the human element has been at all a consideration,” AFM said. 

Dr. Kaneva added, “Many faculty and staff believe that the plan for staff reorganization and layoffs in CAHSS has a lot of flaws and is implemented at the worst possible time of the year.”

“I think faculty in CAHSS feel really under attack because we do most of the undergraduate teaching. No matter what your major is, you have to take courses in CAHSS,” AFM expressed. “Four positions outside of CAHSS were impacted and yet, there were eighteen impacted. Why are we bearing so much more of the burden when we also produce the most tuition and teach the most classes?”