San Francisco State Students and Faculty Mourn Job Cuts With a Funeral March

Ryan Moore, a San Francisco State University lecturer, hoisted an empty wooden coffin to his shoulders with the help of five other people. They carried the heavy prop, loaned from the school’s drama department, in a jazz funeral. Hundreds joined the procession through campus, with a brass band in tow.

The protest on the last day of the university’s fall semester mourned the loss of nontenured faculty — known as lecturers — who were let go to reduce costs.

“Our friends have taught here at SF State for five, 10, 15 or 20 years,” Moore, who teaches sociology, told the crowd. “And yet, we are gathering here in ceremony because they have been so unceremoniously dismissed and tossed away without so much as a pink slip.”

Students and faculty marked the latest round of academic job cuts at San Francisco State, which administrators attributed to shrinking enrollment. The campus, which is part of the California State University system, faces ongoing financial woes that are expected to deepen next year due to state budget cuts.

Other CSU campuses, such as Sonoma State University, Cal State East Bay and Cal Poly Humboldt, are also experiencing enrollment declines. Administrators at San Francisco State said the city’s high cost of housing contributed to the school’s challenges in competing with CSUs in Southern California that meet or exceed their enrollment targets, as well as other colleges with more elite reputations.

Moore said that as SF State becomes smaller, the course and job cuts are disproportionately hitting certain academic departments, such as the humanities and liberal arts. He believes those reductions threaten the state’s vision of higher public education for all, regardless of ability to pay.

“We are losing this vision, the idea that everybody deserves access to not just some kind of vocational training, but like a full, well-rounded education in the humanities and in the social sciences,” Moore, 54, said.

SF State enrollment hovered around 30,000 throughout much of the 2010s, but since the fall of 2019, it has been declining quickly. In the fall 2024 semester, the college had just over 22,300 registered students. That enrollment drop has led to less money from tuition and state allocations, the two main sources of revenue for SF State.

Campus administrators eliminated 1,080 course sections between the fall of 2019 and 2024, letting go of 155 lecturers whose positions were dependent on the availability of classes to teach.

That figure does not include current job cuts. SF State won’t know how many lecturers are losing their positions until it finalizes its course schedule in January, according to a spokesperson.

“This is a political decision that politicians and administrators are making. They’ve chosen this response, and it’s the wrong response,” said Sean Connelly, a lecturer who was told he would not be rehired next semester.

After 17 years teaching in the school’s humanities and comparative literature department, Connelly’s last day is Dec. 30. He likened the loss of his job to the “death of a friend.”

“This is my vocation. This is the thing that I studied for years and went into debt to do,” said Connelly, 57, who is applying to positions at high schools and other universities. He even put in an application with the U.S. Postal Service.

“I was very depressed, anxious about the future,” he said. “Angry, though, too, because public education is a fundamental right, in my view, and the state of California needs to fund it.”

As a public institution, CSU has served as an avenue for upward mobility, especially for young people from lower-income backgrounds. Nearly one-third of students at SF State are the first in their families to attend college, and 70% receive financial aid.

Moore, a close friend of Connelly, is teaching at San Francisco State next semester, but is applying to other jobs.

“I’m proud to teach here, and if I had it my way, I would be here for the rest of my teaching career,” he said. “That’s what I really would like, but that seems increasingly unrealistic.”

In an October letter sent to university staff, Lynn Mahoney, SF State’s president, asked employees to reaffirm to students that the university is committed to preserving the quality of their education and the support they receive.

But at the funeral march, many students said they had already been impacted by fewer course options and the departure of beloved lecturers at a time when student tuition is increasing by about 26% over the next four years. Brie Flowers, a sociology major who had just taken her last class with Connelly, had a message for the university’s administration.

“Do better. Figure it out. We need more teachers. If you are going to cut courses, your enrollment is going to continue to decline,” said Flowers, a junior who transferred from community college in Los Altos Hills, California, and is minoring in counseling. “No one wants to come to a college where they won’t be able to graduate on time and get the courses that they need to graduate.”

San Francisco State must reduce its budget by about $25 million, according to Mahoney. In addition, the school is expecting state budget cuts next year. Mahoney declared a financial emergency in an email to faculty on Dec. 5, adding that every university unit will need to make “hard reductions.” She urged staff to advocate for SF State to lawmakers.

“We need to make it clear how important it is to fund the CSU and SF State. Cuts will inevitably have negative impacts on our students and the state’s workforce,” she wrote.