Dear Supporters,

We are grateful to everyone who signed our petition at Change.org and contacted the PSU administration to halt the layoffs of our colleagues. We are updating you on our campaign and asking for your further support in advocating for our Department. We have included below a draft letter you can adapt to contact the administration.

Despite overwhelming opposition, the administration has yet to directly acknowledge our petition or meaningfully engage with the curricular impact of these terminations. They have not substantively addressed how these cuts will damage our department’s and the University’s ability to serve students. Nor have they recognized the loss to key community programs like the Oregon High School and Middle School Ethics Bowl and the Philosophy High School Summer Camp.

What has become increasingly clear is that the administration’s decision-making behind the layoffs is badly flawed, driven by the Board of Trustees' directive to cut the budget rather than for curricular reasons, as the administration alleges. In response to the Faculty Senate’s demand for clarity on how layoffs were determined, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Science outlines his decision-making as follows:

1. He relied on data provided by the consultant Gray DI data to assess the “Contribution/Net Revenue (C/NR)” of academic programs. Programs with C/NR below 65% were flagged for further review. The Philosophy Department was assigned a C/NR score of 51%.
2. He then determined course enrollment needs by dividing the total number of students enrolled in a department by the average course capacity.
3. Departments were then assessed as having “excess instructional capacity” if the Dean determined that the number of faculty teaching in the department exceeded the projected course needs or student enrollment.

Each of these steps is highly problematic, unjustly affecting not only Philosophy but all of the departments suffering layoffs.

First, Portland State did not properly vet and correct the Gray DI data. We contacted a colleague in the Faculty Senate Budget Committee who participated in the 2024 summer Gray DI training. His review of the data revealed many anomalies, including the failure to include cross-listed classes. The university also attributed a course instruction cost of $51,142 to our High School Summer Camp. In fact, the instructional cost was $0, as donations from our Spring Day of Giving Campaign entirely covered the camp. We also found that our substantial contributions to University Studies, Portland State University’s general education program, appear not to have been not included. 

According to our colleague’s revised estimate of all Philosophy Department contributions, our C/NR score should be 64.5%.

Second, course capacity is a misleading metric for determining instructional needs. Course capacity refers to the maximum number of students a department is willing to enroll in a class, not the actual number of students taking courses. It measures how many students departments and faculty will allow into a given class, not how many students are taking classes in the department. It penalizes departments like philosophy with high course caps, even if they have the same number of students as a department with similar enrollment numbers. 

Philosophy has historically set high course caps—often 50+ students per class—and so our department appears to have "excess instructional capacity." However, this does not mean that our enrollment has declined more than other departments or that we have an actual surplus of faculty. Instead, it means that departments with artificially low course caps were less likely to be flagged for cuts, even if they served the same number of students overall. We appear to have been penalized because we did not lower our course caps, not because the drop in enrollment has been significantly higher than in other departments. 

Third, “excess teaching capacity” has been determined based on a crude calculation without any attention to the curriculum and the needs of students. The administration has given no analysis to the needs of philosophy majors (e.g., will they be able to complete the courses they need for graduation, are they exposed to a wide range of approaches and faculty experts?) or students more generally. In particular, the faculty they are laying off teach all of our classes that are part of the university-wide Race and Ethnic Studies requirement, our Philosophy for Children offerings, and many of our most popular courses.

As a result of the layoffs, next year, we cannot offer:

• Philosophy of Race
• Latinx Philosophy
• Philosophy of Games
• Indigenous Philosophy
• Queer Philosophy
• Philosophy of Sex and Love
• Philosophy for Children Capstone
• Oregon High School and Middle School Ethics Bowl
• The Philosophy Summer Camp for rising High School seniors

Beyond the loss of specialized courses, the Dean has prohibited our department from offering 'Knowledge, Value, and Rationality,' a core sophomore-level course in PSU’s general education program. This decision cuts off a crucial entry point for students exploring philosophy and undermines our ability to recruit and sustain our major. Fewer students will encounter philosophy early in their studies without this course, reducing overall enrollment and further destabilizing our department’s future.

Layoffs based on flawed and misleading data are not just harmful to the institution and students, they are unjust. If the administration cannot even ensure accurate assessments before making irreversible decisions, how can we trust their claims that these cuts are necessary or justified? 

We call on our supporters to urge PSU’s leadership to take responsibility for these errors and reverse the terminations before further damage is done—not just to our department but to the integrity of PSU. Write to the administration and Faculty Senate leadership and demand that they review the Gray DI data and the methods used to justify faculty layoffs. We have included emails of Portland State University leadership below.

Department of Philosophy Faculty, Portland State University

President, Provost, and Chief of Staff

"Dr. Ann E. Cudd" <president@pdx.edu>, "Shelly Chabon, PhD." chabonr@pdx.edu, Sheila Martin sheilam@pdx.edu

Board of Trustees

trustees@pdx.edu, Jasmine Beach jasbeach@pdx.edu, trustee.berry@pdx.edu, trustee.chandler@pdx.edu, gkh@pdx.edu, ho23@pdx.edu, mmadriga@pdx.edu, sheryl8@pdx.edu, smoodyju@pdx.edu, Judith Ramaley <jramaley@pdx.edu>, Vicki Reitenauer <vicr@pdx.edu>, Beth Tarasawa <tarasawa@pdx.edu>, Mark Rosenbaum <markrose@pdx.edu>, Wally Van Valkenburg <wvanval2@pdx.edu>, AJ Romero-Gemmell <romerog2@pdx.edu>, Angelika Vinevtseva <anvi2@pdx.edu>

Faculty Senate Steering

Kate Constable <k.d.constable@pdx.edu>, Nicholas Matlick <nmatlick@pdx.edu>, Mark Leymon <mleymon@pdx.edu>, Sonja Taylor <sonja22@pdx.edu>, Matt Chorpenning <chorpen@pdx.edu>, Jill Emery <jemery@pdx.edu>, Lindsey Wilkinson <lindsw@pdx.edu>, Richard Beyler <drrb@pdx.edu>, Ramin Farahmandpur <rfp@pdx.edu>, Vicki Reitenauer vicr@pdx.edu

Dean’s Office

Todd Rosenstiel <rosensti@pdx.edu>, Matthew Carlson <carlsonm@pdx.edu>, DeLys Ostlund <delys@pdx.edu>

Incoming Interim Dean: John Ott <ott@pdx.edu> 

Subject: Urgent: Request to Reverse Faculty Layoffs Based on Flawed Data

Dear [Recipient's Name],

I am writing to express my deep concern over the recent faculty layoffs at Portland State University, particularly in the Philosophy Department. These cuts, made using flawed and misleading data, threaten the quality of education at PSU and severely impact students.

The administration has not adequately addressed how these layoffs will:

• Eliminate essential courses, including Philosophy of Race, Latinx Philosophy, Philosophy of Games, Indigenous Philosophy, Philosophy of Sex and Love, and Queer Philosophy.
  Remove all faculty teaching the university-wide Race and Ethnic Studies requirement.
• End crucial community programs like the High School Ethics Bowl and Philosophy Summer Camp.
• Reduce PSU’s general education offerings by cutting Philosophy’s contributions to University Studies.

Additionally, the Gray DI data used to justify these cuts contains serious errors, including inaccurate financial assessments and misrepresentations of course contributions. These flawed calculations have led to unjust decisions that harm students, faculty, and PSU’s academic integrity.

I urge you to immediately review the data and reconsider these terminations before irreversible damage is done to PSU’s students and programs. The university must take responsibility for these errors and ensure that decisions about faculty employment are based on accurate information and genuine curricular needs.

Sincerely,
 [Your Name]
 [Your Affiliation (if applicable)]
 [Your Contact Information]