All 57 student academic advisors at the Viterbi School of Engineering have been laid off, sources confirmed to Annenberg Media.<\/p>\n
Those advisors were told they would be able to reapply for their jobs, but that only 44 positions would be available, likely at a reduced salary. Laid off employees were given 60 days\u2019 notice on Monday, Sept. 29, according to a Viterbi professor who requested anonymity to be able to share details freely.<\/p>\n
As of Sunday, students hadn\u2019t yet been told that their advisors have been laid off.<\/p>\n
Student academic advisors in Viterbi work directly with students. They help ensure students graduate on time, coordinate professional development opportunities and support freshmen acclimating to campus. When asked how the school would continue supporting student success in the wake of what is, effectively, a complete turnover in advisement, Viterbi provided this statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cStudent academic and professional success is a top priority. Student support at USC Viterbi will continue without interruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
Viterbi did not provide any further details on how they plan to support students during the turnover.<\/p>\n
Faculty within the school sent a collective letter to Dean Yannis C. Yortsos in protest of the layoffs, expressing what the professor described as \u201cprofound concern\u201d that remaining staff who already bear high workloads were facing the consequences of \u201cupper-level mismanagement\u201d by the college.<\/p>\n
The school noted that \u201cno changes\u201d have been made to the Freshman Academy<\/a>, a Viterbi mentorship program between upperclassmen engineering students and first-years.<\/p>\n State labor documents obtained by Annenberg Media reflected 55 additional reported layoffs last week, though it\u2019s unlikely that number included the complete layoff count of all Viterbi academic advisors. The 55 layoffs reported in those documents include some employees who were not in Viterbi, including SEIU 721 union members.<\/p>\n The loss of Viterbi\u2019s academic advisors are the latest in a series of mass layoffs across the university, with the total number of laid off employees up to at least 692<\/a>.<\/p>\n In July, interim President Beong-Soo Kim announced<\/a> that USC faced an operating deficit of more than $200 million, requiring \u201cpainful\u201d but \u201cnecessary\u201d mass layoffs to restore the university\u2019s financial health.<\/p>\n In just over 80 days since that announcement, departments and colleges across USC have faced layoffs and budget cuts, including the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism<\/a>, the Keck School of Medicine and healthcare system<\/a>, the Rossier School of Education<\/a> and the Dornsife Office of Experiential Learning<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All 57 student academic advisors at the Viterbi School of Engineering have been laid off, sources confirmed to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":281166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[75277,75275,1582,276,145227,2961,15876,224,5337,145225,145233,145226,145229,145231,145230,145224,145232,145228],"class_list":{"0":"post-281165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-annenberg-media","9":"tag-beong-soo-kim","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-dean-yannis-c-yortsos","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-layoffs","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-school-of-engineering","18":"tag-seiu-721","19":"tag-student-academic-advisors","20":"tag-upper-level-mismanagement","21":"tag-usc-budget-cuts","22":"tag-usc-layoffs","23":"tag-viterbi","24":"tag-viterbi-freshman-academy","25":"tag-yannis-yortsos"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115325900185854808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}