Oregon Public Broadcasting

Faculty and students were shocked this week by the number of layoff notices given to teachers, after Clatsop Community College axed one program and shuttered others.

The actions are all in the face of a $1 million gap between revenues and expenditures it is required to fill by June 31.

Actual layoffs start spring term. Some faculty will be offered adjunct work, if available, at about one-third of regular pay. By law, they won’t be able to collect unemployment if they don’t accept offered adjunct work.

“They’re getting our expertise at a fraction of the cost,” said Heather Walsh, a chemistry instructor who was one of those given a layoff notice.

College leaders are actively trying to raise the funding necessary to rescind some of its cuts, for example in the nursing program.

“We’re in conversations with some nonprofit foundations that focus on health care – some local hospitals,” said President Larry Galizio. “We’re looking far and wide.”

After reaching the financial high-water mark in college funding in 2007, faculty at CCC survived some rough years relatively unscathed. Staff cuts piled up – 13 staff members lost jobs  in 2009-10, and 14 lost jobs in 2010-11. But, there was no net loss of faculty members.

The loss of funding simply became too great to avoid laying off faculty.

“When I came here four years ago, I had dreams and visions of bringing the college along in positive ways,” said Stephen Schoonmaker, vice president of students. “This is not what I envisioned us having to do.”

He leaves in January to become president of the College of the Ouachitas in Malvern, Ark., leaving behind about $45,000 in savings from his remaining salary for the college.

Roger Friesen, dean of Student Services, will also be let go at the end of the school year. He and Schoonmaker are the biggest salary savings. Their pay ranges between $76,000 and $115,000. Exact details of their salaries were not immediately available.

The two positions will likely merge into one new hire next year.

The administration combed through programs, finding places they could cut, suspend or reorganize to save money while keeping the greatest benefit for students.

The most perplexing was in the business department, a popular major at many schools. Layoff notices were given to four instructors.

Vanessa Corder took small business courses to help her eventually run the family automotive business.

“I know money’s tight, but teachers shouldn’t have to lose their jobs – at least not so many,” she said.

Schoonmaker said the program suffers from a lack of enrollment after the core courses. The college will focus the business program on what the community needs and reopen a new version next fall.

Popular ceramics instructor and artist Richard Rowland, who volunteers his work at two women’s resource centers and Columbia Memorial Hospital, also got a notice Wednesday.

“I hope the community can step in and help us,” he said. “I know they realize the benefit of the college.”

In science, the college handed notices to a biology instructor and Walsh, a chemistry instructor. Schoonmaker said the college will look at rolling the biology requirements for nursing into anatomy and physiology courses.

“We have four science faculty – two of whom were women,” said Walsh. “We were both let go.”

Even in the high-demand nursing program, one instructor was given notice.

The Marine and Environmental Research and Training Station (MERTS) suffered fewer impacts. An automotive instructor received a notice; the seamanship instructor was downgraded to 75 percent; and a fire science instructional assistant, a nonfaculty position, was also cut to half-time.

Student Brian Wideman, a laid-off Weyerhaeuser millworker from Seaside in the automotive program, gets only two years of financial aid through the Trade Act, a retraining program. He’s in the automotive program at CCC.

“I think the college has their hands tied behind their backs,” he said. “The government saw (cuts) happening, and they didn’t do anything about it.”

Galizio and Schoonmaker both said they are looking into private-public partnerships for the automotive program, along with raising fees to cover its costs.

The criminal justice program was the only program to officially catch the ax, along with its instructor, because of low enrollment and graduation rates.

Other notices went out to the Spanish instructor, a history and political science instructor, an English instructor and a full-time librarian, although library hours will not be affected. Most of the programs will switch to adjunct professors.

Options are limited for the 15 faculty given notice: possible adjunct work for a third of the pay or unemployment and the search for a new job. Those offered adjunct work will get no more than 49 percent of their current time, after which the college has to pay benefits, which Human Resources Manager Leslie Lipe said currently costs $784 per month for each faculty member with more than one person on the plan.

JoAnn Zahn, financial manager for the college, said the estimated amount the college will save spring term – while paying for three months of benefits to laid-off faculty – will be $311,000.

Along with Schoonmaker and Friesen, the college gave notice to two part-time math lab instructors and a maintenance worker. It cut both its cooperative education coordinator and fire science assistant to half time and left vacant another coordinator and graphic artist position. Zahn estimates those cuts will save about $65,000 the remainder of this fiscal year.

Arriving in August, she found the $1 million gap between revenues and expenditures, sending the college into further attrition.

The survival of programs and rehiring of teachers all depends on the fiscal climate in the coming years, said Galizio.

This story originally appeared on dailyastorian.com.