Union representing University of Arizona workers worried about layoffs amongst financial crisis

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Margaree Little has been a writing instructor at the University of Arizona since 2021. She teaches English courses to about 200 Freshman a year. During her time at the university she said she’s been concerned about layoffs.

“Instructors in the writing program have been systemically devalued,” Little said. “I think everybody in my cohort has some level of that fear all the time.”

United Campus Workers of Arizona said eight writing instructors are expected to be laid off in the next 2 weeks, but as of May 2, some have already been notified that their contracts will not be renewed.

Little is a member of the United Campus Workers of Arizona. She doesn’t know yet if she is going to be laid off.

If writing instructors are laid off, she said current instructors might have to take on another class.

“It would be more that the program would be scrambling at the last minute to find people to teach the classes,” she said.

Little said it’s something that has happened before and sometimes instructors would have to take on another class the day before the semester starts. Little said classes are already taking on more students than they should be.

“That affects the amount of time that the instructor can give to each student and each student’s work, which isn’t fair,” she said.

Through a recent survey, faculty and staff asked officials to delay layoffs.

This comes as the University of Arizona deals with a financial crisis.

The United Campus Workers of Arizona tied these layoffs to the university's financial crisis.

KGUN9 reached out to the U of A and they responded with this statement:

“This university is here to serve the state of Arizona and our faculty are here to serve students in the state of Arizona and we love our jobs, which is why we do what we do,” Little said.