The University of Arizona terminated the contracts of at least 10 full-time faculty members from its writing program this week, citing low enrollment next fall. The decision comes after more than a year of financial woes and cost-cutting efforts at the university.
Jon LaGuardia, who has taught in the UA writing program since 2008, said he received a phone call Monday from the program director informing him he was among the 20 percent of writing faculty who would not have their contracts renewed. LaGuardia and the other affected instructors all taught intro-level composition classes including English 101, English 102 and honors option English 109H, required for all UA freshmen.
The faculty members say they were given 24 hours to access their online course materials and six days left on their health insurance plans.
“I am in a place of complete and total uncertainty right now,” LaGuardia said. “I’ve been doing this for so many years, I actually don’t know what I’m going to do next.”
In a statement to the Sentinel, UA spokesperson Mitch Zak said the writing program adjusts staffing levels based on projected enrollment every year.
“As part of this year’s process, some contracts have not been renewed. We recognize the impact this has on the individuals affected, and remain committed to supporting our faculty and advancing student success,” Zak said.
All the faculty who lost their jobs Monday were career-track lecturers — full-time positions with benefits. The instructors say they knew there was a possibility their contracts would not be renewed at the end of each year but as career-track faculty (the writing program does not have tenured professors), they had an expectation of job stability. The UA’s website says career-track faculty should expect to be kept on each year.
“The career track has an expectation of renewal,” LaGuardia said. “Even if you’re on a single year contract, you can expect — should be able to expect, according to the definition of the role career track — that your contract will be renewed.”
Faculty members who spoke to the Sentinel all said terminating full-time teachers and asking them to come back as adjuncts, for lower pay and no benefits, is a common practice within the writing program to reduce expenses, especially since the university announced its financial crisis last year.
In January 2024, the UA revealed a shortfall of $177 million, due in part to declining revenue and ballooning expenses. As a response to the deficit, UA officials announced across-the-board budget cuts and layoffs — and the resignation of then-UA President Robert Robbins, who will continue to be paid his base salary of $734,407 until the end of his contract next July, as first reported by the Arizona Daily Star.
“This is all strategy by management to try to keep costs low so that money can go elsewhere, such as upper administration, such as former President Robbins, who is still earning almost a million dollars a year, even as he’s no longer the president and doing no work for the university,” said Logan Phillips, one of the faculty members who was let go this week. “And meanwhile, my family is going to be scrambling to find income.”
The fear of not having their contracts renewed keeps many instructors afraid of speaking up about their pay and conditions, said Phillips, who joined the program in 2018. As lecturers in first-year writing courses with class sizes around 25, their work is often undervalued, he said — he hears from many of his freshman students that he is the only one of their professors who knows their name, because their other courses have hundreds of students.
“We are often the mental health first responders to our students, because we are the ones who notice when they don’t show up for class, because we are the ones who take attendance, read their writing and help them navigate the first semesters away from home. So that is a lot of emotional labor that isn’t in the job description, but is in the work every single day,” he said.
Last year’s incoming class at the UA was the largest on record — just over 9,300 new freshmen enrolled in classes at the university, equivalent to more than 370 first-year composition classes. Faculty say they were told next year’s enrollment is down by around 2,000, though historically, the incoming class sees a bump in enrollment in late summer.
“We always hear every semester that there’s a possibility that there’s low enrollment happening and people might not get their contracts renewed. And every year — every year, without fail — just around July, right before August, before the semester starts, there’s an influx of freshmen, and now people who might have been laid off or who were adjuncts get calls while they’re wildly looking for people to fill in the spaces to handle all these students,” said Danny Clifford, a senior UA writing instructor who was not affected by the cuts.
For years, some demographers have predicted a decline in college enrollment beginning this year, due to lower birth rates after the Great Recession, leading to fewer 18-year-olds nationwide.
“We fully expect — and we have known this for months — that we, along with every other institution in the country, are going to be facing declining enrollment,” said Leila Hudson, UA Faculty Senate chair. “We can use it as an opportunity to restructure and strengthen ourselves, rather than reacting to it in the most destructive and desperate way that one could imagine.”
Full-time, non-senior lecturers in the UA writing program earn roughly $45,100 to $48,900 a year, about $12,000 less than their counterparts at Arizona State and Northern Arizona universities. Faculty say they negotiated a raise for this upcoming school year — though they were required to teach more classes in exchange for the pay bump — and some believe the university cut jobs in order to afford their new higher salaries.
“This is a job that a lot of people give themselves to because they love it, they see the value in it, and they’re dedicated because they have those values,” LaGuardia said. “They believe very strongly in the education that they’re participating in. The salary and the working conditions make it really hard to continue.”
United Campus Workers Arizona, the union representing some of the writing program faculty, said in a statement that the cuts were a “necessary reminder” to all campus workers that UA administration “will always choose profits over people.”
One UA writing teacher who was laid off Monday said her family of four will lose their health insurance starting next week. She asked not to be named in case she decides to return to the university as an adjunct.
“I can get a policy on Healthcare.gov that costs more than I have. I can go, as a 42-year-old academic with a terminal degree, and apply for work at Starbucks, which is, honestly, an option at this point,” she said. “I am shocked by how hurt I am by this.”
Last month, the university hired its first chief artificial intelligence and data science officer, David Ebert, at $445,000 per year, the Star reported — almost equal to the salaries of the 10 laid-off writing teachers. (A university spokesperson said the position was created with help from a $3.5 million gift from an anonymous donor.)
“Proper writing skills, proper human skills of expression and writing and clarity and critical thinking are more important than ever in the age of AI,” said Hudson, the Faculty Senate chair. “For the price of 10 amazing, qualified, experienced, outstanding human teachers of writing and thinking who are going to positively impact every student that they come in contact with — there’s no amount of AI or AI expertise or AI authority that replaces that.”
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