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Faculty and students told the board that the University of Oregon administration's handling of budget reductions had eroded trust and damaged the university’s reputation.
This story was updated, as of 6 p.m. Sept. 16.
University of Oregon faculty, students and alumni denounced layoffs and the administration’s financial decision-making process at a Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 16, before trustees unanimously approved the school’s 2025-26 budget.
About 40 people signed up to speak during public comment, which fell on the second and final day of the board’s fall meeting on UO’s Portland campus. Faculty and students said the administration’s handling of budget-cut planning had eroded trust and damaged the university’s reputation, urging trustees to delay approval of the budget for more community input.
“The actions of the administration over the last three months, with respect to potential cuts, have burned trust more quickly than I had thought possible,” said Mike Urbancic, an economics teaching professor and the former president of the faculty’s union, United Academics of the University of Oregon, who lost his job in cuts earlier this summer.
Last week, officials laid off 28 officers of administration, 21 classified staff members, six other staff members and five career faculty. They also eliminated 59 vacant positions. Including previous cuts made in the spring and summer, personnel reductions accounted for $24.9 million of UO’s $29.2 million total budget cut.
Some speakers on Tuesday directly asked UO President Karl Scholz to take a pay cut. Comments were often followed by cheers and snaps from the audience.
The faculty union secured a chartered bus to take faculty, students, student workers and staff to the meeting. Representatives of all four labor organizations spoke in opposition to the cuts.
Benjamin Riesenberg, a career faculty member in UO Libraries and a faculty union member, described the job responsibilities of some of the department’s seven employees who received layoff notices last week, including four career faculty members.
The roles included institutional repository manager, who publishes and preserves scholarly work from departments across campus; a public scholarship librarian, who partners with faculty to advance “open knowledge”; and the library’s director for employee engagement, development and belonging.
“Layoffs at the libraries or of any faculty and staff who carry out UO’s educational and research mission diminish UO’s commitment to exceptional teaching, discovery and service,” Riesenberg said.
Several students, alumni and community members also spoke out against the apparent recent elimination of Forensics, an academic co-curricular program for debate and public speaking housed in the Clark Honors College.
The college and the UO student government jointly fund the program, but two weeks ago, the college withdrew its support, according to Michael Sugar, a 2014 UO alumnus who now teaches a high school debate team in Oregon.
“Forensics is a gateway to further education and successful careers, which is what a university should deem as top priority,” said Shelby Malstrom, a 2012 UO and Forensics alum. “We ask that you maintain the program through the fall, which has virtually no associated cost, and that you help us find a permanent home within the university.”
The dean closed the program on Monday without “any prior notice or consultation” with the program’s director, student members or student government leaders, according to a petition protesting the closure.
Later in the meeting, Associated Students of the University of Oregon President Prissila Moreno reinforced the claims.
“ASUO and its mandatory incidental fee could have taken on more of the burden, but we were never asked how we could be part of the solution,” she said. “We were simply told that a historic program serving students was ending in less than two weeks.”
The college decided to “end staffing support” for the UO Forensics program, effective Sept.15, and to transfer the ASUO funding for this academic year to the Forensics Teams “after consultation with academic leaders,” according to a university statement.
The Forensics Teams will retain funds for this academic year, including roughly $180,000 in ASUO funding dedicated to travel and competitions, per the statement. The program will no longer have a paid director position supported by UO, but as a registered student organization, the teams will continue to have access to ASUO resources and to UO Forensics gift funds.
“The closure of UO Forensics does not necessarily mean the end of Speech and Debate or Mock Trial at the university,” the statement reads.
‘Empty expressions of understanding’
In his report, after the public comment period concluded, Provost Christopher Long said the university must recognize that the burden of the cuts has fallen “unevenly” across the institution, despite the necessity of the reductions.
“People who have made important contributions to the life of the university have lost their jobs, and for this, I’m sorry,” he said.
Michael Brown, an instructor of sociology and political science, said he was one of the non-tenure track faculty members to receive a layoff notice in June.
He said he has taught 16 different courses across three different departments over the past three years, criticizing the “empty expressions of understanding and sympathy” that he has received from individuals who make 10 or 20 times what he does.
His partner, Claire Herbert, an associate professor of sociology at UO, also opposed the cuts during public comment, stating that Brown teaches more classes than her but brings home less than $39,000 a year.
“Michael and I have stayed committed to U of O and educating Oregon students, only to be betrayed by administrators who suddenly assert a crisis so dire that our lowest-paid teachers and other workers are laid off and entire departments were on the chopping block,” she said.
Before trustees voted to approve the 2025-26 budget, board Chair Steve Holwerda voiced trustees’ appreciation for all the public comments. He said trustees are responsible for hiring and firing the university president and for setting the budget, but not for running the university.
The board, Holwerda said, has complete confidence in Scholz and university leaders like the provost, deans and department heads to run UO and make financial choices.
“Our job is to approve, not to decide where those cuts are made,” he said.
Trustees then unanimously approved an operating budget authorization for $1.54 billion for fiscal year 2026.
Projected operating revenues for the education-and-general fund are not expected to cover projected expenditures during the year. Officials anticipate a shortfall of $4 million, after recent budget reductions.
