CSUN Prepares to Cut 900 Classes, 500 Instructors : Education: The layoffs are part of a plan to cut each Cal State campus budget 8%. It would mean fewer students and larger classes, officials say.

Cal State Northridge has laid plans to dismiss more than 500 temporary faculty members and cancel nearly 900 classes in anticipation of massive budget cuts projected for the coming academic year, university officials said Wednesday.

“This is a very serious budget crisis,” President James W. Cleary said. “The worst I’ve seen in my 23 years in office . . . If it gets worse than this, we’re out of business. It’s just that bad.”

Under the plan being completed, 532 of the university’s 556 part-time instructors would be laid off and 176 management and staff employees would lose their jobs, Cleary said.

The layoffs and cancellations are part of a plan to cut the budget of each campus of the California State University system by 8%, but the measures have not been finalized because of the changing nature of the state budget situation, said CSUN spokeswoman Mindy Berman.

“Things have been changing by the day,” she said. “Things could change next week.” The 532 instructors targeted for layoffs are classified as temporary employees but hold one- or two-year contracts that are normally renewed, Berman said.

The instructors work as part- or full-time lecturers.

“It’s very painful,” said Shahid Ansari, head of the department of accounting in the business school. “We have to let go two lecturers who have been with us for many years. That’s part of the reason people are so distressed.”

If the layoffs are implemented, university officials predicted, classes will become larger and fewer classes will be offered, cutting the student population from 30,000 to 26,200.

“We’re being told we have to cram our classes,” said Jody Myers, coordinator of the Jewish Studies program.

“It turns us into a UC campus where students go to these big lecture halls and it doesn’t matter if they don’t come or fall asleep. You don’t have the same hands-on teaching. We’ve prided ourselves on having that at Northridge.”

Some classes will be held in the school’s theater and in the student union building, which can accommodate larger classes, Cleary said.

The school’s educational equity, outreach and mentoring programs aimed at increasing the population of students from disadvantaged backgrounds will not be affected by the cuts, Cleary said.

The layoffs may be less severe if CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz is successful in his effort to persuade legislators to approve an early retirement plan, a budget cut of 6% instead of 8% and a fee increase of 40%, Cleary said.

“I can’t tell you how important ‘the golden handshake’ is,” Cleary said, referring to generous benefits offered to induce older faculty members to accept the early retirement plan.

“It would give us more flexibility and enable us to bring in more temporary faculty” to replace the higher-paid, senior tenured faculty members, he said.

Although the exact amount of the cuts that will have to be made by each of the state university campuses have not been determined, some predict that they could range between 17% and 34%, Cleary said.

“That would be catastrophic,” he said. “It could impact us in a way that would take generations to recover from.”

Cleary, who had been scheduled to step down next month, said he will stay on through August until the new president, Blenda J. Wilson, assumes office. “We thought it in the best interest of the university that there not be a hiatus,” Cleary said.

Faculty members had expressed concern that the school would not have a leader between June and September when Wilson is scheduled to start.

Cleary expressed concern over the effect of the cuts on students.

“It’s a tough thing to tell a student, ‘you have to pay more and you’re going to get less,’ ” he said.