photo credit: Noah Abrams
Scenes from the SSU campus on January 30. 2025.

Hundreds of students, staff, faculty, and community members packed shoulder to shoulder into the main quad at Sonoma State University Thursday afternoon.

KRCB's Noah Abrams was there and files this report.

Most eyes were fixed on the big screen, sandwiched into the quad between the student and rec centers at SSU. They were listening into----and shouting over--- the virtual town hall held by university administration. Anger towards the administration and the budget cuts was palpable in the crowd.

Elaine Newman is a math professor and president of Sonoma State's chapter of the California Faculty Association. She said it's a sad situation to have the proposed cuts be the catalyst for campus unity.

"Everybody is here and you can see that people are pretty angry and upset about what's happened to the campus," Newman said.

Proposed cuts include six academic departments: Art History; Economics; Geology; Philosophy; Theater/Dance; and Women and Gender Studies.

Economics Professor Florence Bouvet said the sting of losing her position and department is made all the worse by the timing of the announcement.

"Like many other faculty, the hiring cycle starts in the fall, and so by just a couple of weeks, we really lost an opportunity to secure a next position....secure something," Bouvet said. " And it's also very unfortunate for the students because again, they miss the deadline for transfer."

Also slated for elimination: Sonoma State's entire NCAA athletics program. SSU has 11 different NCAA teams, and over 200 student athletes - including baseball player Jacob Courtney.

"I'm trying to be as optimistic as possible about this," Courtney said. "Us as a baseball program, we've got big things planned for this year and we had big things planned for next year and all of the years to come. So, I'm hoping we can save it. I think all the sports deserve another season. I think all the teachers that are losing their jobs deserve a future here. We got a brand new head coach. He just got hired this year, so we're really feeling for him."

Mia Solorio-Smith, a senior on the women's soccer team who transferred to SSU, says she's thinking about the students who won't get to follow her footsteps.

"There are a lot of transfer students that just came in this semester and it's heartbreaking to see that they put faith into Sonoma State and they're not getting anything out of it and they unfortunately actually had to pay tuition, pay for all the things to be here and now they have to go and find another home," Solorio-Smith said. "I love my time here at Sonoma so it's also heartbreaking to know that people won't be able to experience that same thing that I did."

Elaine Newman said she feels the cuts are steering the school away from the California State University system's mission, and taking away opportunities for local students who might not have the means to pack up and move to Los Angeles or other parts of the state in order to further their education.

"Nobody in this community wants this to happen," Newman said. "It is just horrific to our students who who are losing their majors, who are athletes who are losing their sports. This is the the vibrant student life that's being cut, that's so important to this university."

16 additional degree programs are being eliminated. SSU Interim president Emily Cutrer says the $24 million dollars in cuts is necessary to close a long standing budget deficit, and avoid further cuts to academics.

At the end of administration's virtual town hall event, Cutrer said, "I want to say again, how much I appreciate people taking advantage in a positive way of what is best about being at the university, and that is our ability to speak and to speak openly, to say what we believe, what we think, express our concerns, question, assumptions, question, authority, um, so that as much as possible, we can come to an understanding of what is happening at the university."