Around 50 students and nonteaching staff members at Oregon State University gathered outside Magruder Hall on Thursday, June 20, to voice concern and displeasure with the layoffs of seven employees at the college’s veterinary teaching hospital.
According to folks at the rally, including students studying at the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine, the reductions in veterinary technician staff announced in May will not only impact veterinary services but student education.
Classified Oregon State University staff and students march while chanting at a rally at the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine on Thursday.
“I’m appalled,” said Kimberly Terrones, one of the seven classified staff who lost a job and who helped lead a short march in front of Magruder.
She’s been a veterinary attendant for 1½ years, she said, working with such large animals as goats, pigs, sheep and horses. Her duties include stocking medical supplies, cleaning up after procedures and preparing isolation rooms for animals.
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Terrones said she understood the cuts were related to budgetary issues.
Classified union president, and former Corvallis city councilor, Andrew Struthers said he had heard about potential layoffs at Magruder earlier this spring. That followed OSU, and other public Oregon universities, reaching an agreement on updating classified workers’ current four-year contract in late February.
Struthers said the union requested to see budgetary information from administrators last month but have yet to receive it.
Classified workers have also authored a letter, addressed to administrators, with 100-plus signatures, voicing concerns about the impacts of the cuts.
In response to questions about the reasoning behind the layoffs, university spokesperson Rob Odom said the cuts followed a “review of current operations,” and that no other colleges or departments would be affected.
“The college has worked to minimize the impact of these changes on employees while preserving its ability to provide outstanding patient care, education and research,” Odom wrote in an email.
According to senior veterinary student Chloe Letsinger, an aspiring ER veterinarian, the positions lost will indeed be felt by students and staff at the veterinary hospital. She spoke before the small crowd of classified workers outside Magruder, with the aid of a megaphone, to express her disappointment.
Senior veterinary student Chloe Letsinger delivered a short speech to around 50 classified Oregon State University staff and students gathered outside Magruder Hall. The event followed the layoffs of seven veterinary workers.
“We are being trained as doctors, and the technicians are essential for a functional clinic, both in our teaching hospital and in practice thereafter,” she said, adding that students and workers were already “stretched thin.”
Additionally, there was frustration expressed by Terrones and other union members over the university posting nine new, part-time student veterinary positions earlier this month, after the layoffs in May.
According to classified union officials like Stephanie Prentiss, who came to the rally clad in a purple SEIU Local 503 shirt, those postings showed the administration was replacing workers with students at reduced hours and wages.
Odom said that wasn’t true, saying the new hires were part of the college’s education and training mission, and were unrelated to the layoffs.
“The seven eliminated positions were not replaced with postings for student workers,” he wrote via email.
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