In a move that will devastate student recruitment, retention, learning, and success, Sonoma State management announced this week deep cuts to faculty, staff, and instructional and support programs. This decimation of a CSU Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) is unconscionable and immoral in every way one might imagine it, especially in a CSU system with billions of dollars in reserves and investments that are supposed to be used to prevent the very actions taken by the Sonoma State University Administration, where an entire campus and its academic and educational mission are left unrecognizable.

We anticipate 130 faculty will lose work (including tenured faculty, lecturers, Coaches and Faculty Early Retirement Program faculty); the elimination of 23 academic programs and six departments, and another seven departments would be consolidated to three. All NCAA Division II athletics programs would be eliminated. 

With these cuts, the Sonoma State Administration is cutting the faculty by over 25%. Layoffs are set for May for temporary faculty and July for faculty on the tenure track.

These cuts follow previous cuts to lecturers in previous years. Across the California State University system, management is claiming the need to cut course sections and faculty work due to budget shortfalls. Many campuses started experiencing cuts in the Fall 2024 term.

Management at Sonoma State has given up on finding solutions that don’t hurt students, faculty, staff, and the community. First- and second-year students in eliminated departments will need to change majors, according to CSU Chancellor Mildred García. Chancellor, is this the best your leadership can do: tell students to change their majors and their dreams because you refuse to use reserve funds when they should be used?

Cutting courses and programs is a direct attack on student success by increasing class sizes, expanding faculty workload, and reducing support programs that help students achieve, particularly first-generation and immigrant students, and those from marginalized communities.

We’ve seen this before, and we won’t fall for the administration’s premature austerity nonsense. Current funding from the state legislature is at historical highs, CSU trustees approved a student-tuition increase of 34 percent over the next five years, and CSU reserves are some of the healthiest the university has experienced.

The proposed cuts, department and program eliminations, and faculty job loss are not inevitable. Chancellor Garcia and the Board of Trustees can reverse these changes and demonstrate a leadership that privileges students, instruction, academic and educational integrity.