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Lecturer Rob Hennig addresses his political science class. As a result of recent budget issues, the department is letting go of three lecturers.

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Students equally affected as some classes may no longer be offered

Being an excellent employee isn’t enough to secure a job these days amid shrinking state coffers and budget shortfalls.

The political science department issued pink slips last quarter to its three lecturers. Set to leave in June, they will be taking some of the courses they teach with them, said department chairman Mike Lofchie. Additional office staff layoffs are possible in the near future, he added.

Just like other departments, who are receiving less state funding this academic year, the department must share the university’s burden by decreasing its $95,000 operating budget to $44,000 – a 54 percent cut.

The layoffs are to reduce internal costs as much as possible to accommodate the shortfall this year, but also to prepare for additional cuts anticipated later this year and next, Lofchie said.

Thus far, the political science department reduced its budget by the required amount in its supplies, telephone and mail accounts, Lofchie said. But those will probably go in the red, he added, because they have already been spending money based on previous amounts for six months. When that happens, the department will have to “scramble to find other funds,” reducing its spending in other College of Letters & Science-funded accounts, including those for staff’s and lecturers’ salaries.

Though laying off the three lecturers mitigates shrinking budget constraints, the decision has dire consequences for students interested in taking some upper division courses in the next few years.

Unless the department can enlist some of its full-time faculty to teach the courses currently taught by lecturers Rob Hennig, Jalil Roshandel and Daniel Garst, the classes – involving jurisprudence, civil liberties and the Supreme Court – are unlikely to be listed in the schedule of classes for a while.

Due to a stipulation in the lecturers’ union contract, the department can’t hire any temporary lecturers to teach the classes – it could be interpreted as a way to circumvent the lecturer’s contract, said University Council of the American Federation of Teachers Executive Director Sean Brooke.

“A budget crisis is a budget crisis. Everybody is hurting: students who can’t get classes they want, lecturers who are excellent,” Lofchie said.

For Hennig, the only public law scholar in the department, the layoff comes at a particularly inopportune time. June marks the end of his sixth year at UCLA, the line in the sand where the university must offer the temporary staffer a more secure three-year contract, provided his “eye of the needle review” is deemed excellent, and there is a continued need for his specialty.

Though hundreds of students continue to fill his public law courses to capacity each quarter, Hennig will never know the results of his six-year evaluation.

He isn’t going to get one, Lofchie said, adding that the current budget situation precludes the need for a review, regardless of the results.

Hennig, who is planning to transition from a career in academia to a new one in the private sector practicing law, said he’s disappointed with the outcome.

It’s “odd (the department) has made all these hires, but none of them are in public law,” he said, speaking of the 12 recently-hired tenure-track professors during the last few years.

But faculty hires don’t financially impact the department directly, Lofchie said. While lecturer’s salaries come out of one of the department’s “flexible” accounts, faculty salaries come out of a separate account not affected by state cuts.

The department’s “flexible money” has to be used where it’s needed most, said Lofchie, who added it wanted to maintain its current number of teaching assistants – five more than the College allocated them.

Lecturers are not the only people concerned about the future of their careers at UCLA.

Nancy Huynh, a part-time graduate student affairs officer responsible for a number of duties in what Lofchie called the “busiest office in the department,” said Lofchie told her in a December 2002 meeting that though he wanted to keep her, it was unlikely the department would be able to after February.

“When I was sitting in the meeting, I was sort of in shock … there is a proven need for our positions. It doesn’t make sense why they can’t keep us on. The reality is I am not making that much money. I am at the lower end of my pay scale and work part-time – it won’t make that much of a dent in the budget,” Huynh said.

Huynh said she and her full-time counterpart, Glenda Jones – who together make up the graduate student advising and support staff – have been working nights and weekends the last few months to keep up with all the work involved in processing graduate student applications that were due Dec. 15, 2002.

Opening and organizing thousands of pieces of mail associated with the 410 graduate student applications this year – an 80-person jump over last year’s numbers – by a Jan. 6 deadline is demanding, Huynh said.

“They said they would have (student) help for us, but because the students have their own job descriptions, they weren’t able to help as much as promised … everything was self-contained,” Huynh said.

“I feel terrible, this is devastating,” Jones said when asked how she felt about Huynh’s possible layoff.

Based on past experience last month, Jones and Huynh are doubtful the extra student help promised to alleviate some of Jones’ burden after Huynh leaves will be enough.

Nothing about Huynh’s possible layoff has anything to do with her contribution to the department, Lofchie said, adding that “she’s terrific.”

The department’s Executive Committee plans to meet Friday to discuss alternatives to further staff layoffs, Lofchie said.

He added, “we are in a dreadfully difficult time … I don’t think anyone is getting their first choice right now.”