Sonoma State University students held an on-campus protest Thursday while SSU administrators conducted a virtual town hall meeting to discuss controversial budget cuts.
Hundreds of protestors gathered in Seawolf Plaza around 1 p.m. and spoke out during the meeting on zoom. Students, faculty and community members voiced their concerns over the expected cuts of all intercollegiate athletic programs as well as a number of academic majors and departments starting in the fall 2025.
As the meeting began playing on the 30 foot wide “LoboVision” screen in Seawolf Plaza, administrators began popping up using stock photos of the SSU campus and buildings as their background to the dismay of the crowd. Members of the growing audience started shouting things like “You’re not here” in response.
“I am here to support fellow faculty and students,” said Sarah Whylly, a SRJC philosophy professor. “I am also here to support our discipline. We teach reason and we don’t understand how that’s not important.”
Crowd members chanted “F*ck you CSU” as the Town Hall Zoom meeting played on the big screen. The air was thick with disappointment in the small quad and the feeling was echoed by students and staff alike.
The town hall meeting was originally supposed to be held in person on campus, but was moved to zoom in anticipation of a large number of attendees surpassing the building capacity, according to SSU interim President Dr. Emily Cutrer.
During the meeting, crowd members chanted “cut her [Cutrer] salary, not our classes.”
Throughout the meeting Cutrer addressed public comments and questions made by students, parents, faculty and alumni who sought answers to various aspects of the proposed cuts. Many of those who made comments were deeply concerned with how the administration came to the conclusion that these specific cuts are necessary.
Other common questions posed by the public revolved around how the university plans to help students who must now consider transferring to a new school or choosing a new major at SSU as well as sharing concerns over how the budget cut was announced via email to faculty and students.
“I’m just extremely disheartened and heartbroken by the whole process,” Verhans said in response to the cuts being announced via email.
SSU baseball player Vinny Lencioni, who was present at the protest, commented on the post-season plans for himself and his teammates, “All of us have it in our minds that this is pretty much a tryout every game against these teams that possibly could be our next stop after Sonoma State.”
Geology students could be seen holding signs and chanting, “Rock beats scissors,” while protesters toted posters saying “I deserve the classes I paid for.”
SSU art programs were heavily targeted in the cuts, with Art History, Art Studio, Dance and Theatre Arts all being identified for elimination.
Grace Peterson, an Art Studio major and Art History minor has been especially affected by the recent cuts.
“The fact that they’re cutting it entirely is taking away history that people have established over thousands of years and it’s foundational to the next program and the future of artists and it is literally leaving a skeleton of a program behind,” she said.
Many students, faculty and alumni believe that there’s a pattern in the programs being cut, such as the art departments and women and gender studies.
“These are groups that are actively under attack,” said Brett Grunig, professor in the Art Department at SRJC and SSU alum. “And these are programs that are always first for cuts in so many institutions.”
SSU is the first CSU to make major cuts, but it will likely not be the last.
“Sonoma State is being treated essentially as a guinea pig campus for cuts that the administration is considering for other campuses,” said Aaron Barlin, a representative of the California Faculty Alliance.
Additional reporting by Atticus Hendrickson, Drea Hernandez, Ziggy Leon Carrillo and Zoe Steiner.
