Newsletter #22

Hi Everyone,

As this giant ball of rock and gas approaches completion of unarguably the crappiest trip around the sun I've ever personally experienced, we're all settling into the Fall. And by settling in, I mean that some of us are suspended in a perpetual state of anxiety and uncertainty, while most of us deemed “safe” only find hope when looking forward to the upcoming holiday where we're told we should be giving Thanks for what we do have. For all of us, I can only assume December will be another frantic mass exodus into a 10 day winter retreat that we're expected to ”come back refreshed from”.  Unless, of course, we get to re-experience the brilliance of another asinine proposal like the “Winter Curtailment” debacle that was announced in the same meeting they so kindly gave us back half of what they silently cancelled. At this point, those of us who are still here would probably take them up on a few extra unpaid days off…if we weren’t simultaneously maxed out on our vacation accruals.

It's been over a month since the last Newsletter. That's been somewhat intentional. It's been a tough 30+ days at USC. I'm continuing to grind through the regular ebb and flow of the daily operations. I  still feel very fulfilled with my daily work, and by the work and people of the Staff Assembly. But like many, it’s always been that way. Most of us still love the work we do, and the people we do it with.  As the first two months of the semester have progressed, instead of constant notifications I'm now receiving more sporadic texts from colleagues about layoffs in their areas, interspersed with the occasional jaw dropping notification. Not from admin, but from a few well connected student journalists. It's crazy that they have been our most reliable source of information in all of this. Because Open Communication is hard or something…

At home, my son's 3 month recovery from a patellar avulsion appeared to be complete, only to have that followed up with two separate ankle sprains a few weeks apart, missing large chunks of a soccer season on a coveted team he tried out for and made this past Spring. Fortunately he hasn't had another retinal bleaching event. My daughter is in 6th grade at a new middle school, having to wear a back brace for 22 hours a day for scoliosis diagnosed in March, which only presents a 50% chance to avoid surgery, and a 100% chance of stress, anxiety, anger and embarrassment. My wife is starting her second year in a MSW program at CSULA, needing the entire family's support by allowing her time and space to read, study, write, and rest. And just today (10/13), on a day off for my annual physical- taken to ensure I can get my health assessment signed- I had to take BOTH kids to Urgent Care. My daughter for a wrist injury from playing goalie yesterday (thankfully not broken), and my son had a pretty serious fall at school where he hit his head (possible concussion). Have I mentioned just how much 2025 sucks?

I’ve chosen to share these personal stories mostly because they’re relatable, and they’re the stories of the ones truly affected by the changes. My part was to just be there to do the job. And I've delivered. But my “problems” are not unique, and they pale in comparison to what many others are going through. I haven't lost my job. We have our health (well sort of). My kids haven't just completed their bachelor's degree elsewhere, only to find themselves suddenly ineligible for the Masters degree program they had banked on.

Aside from two months of crushing layoffs- learning about colleagues and friends from across the Trojan Family- what has been striking is the immense size of the deficit targets in individual areas. A select few areas are choosing to be forthcoming (sort of) by sharing the targets and number of positions eliminated. And while that may help put into perspective the reason why cuts are necessary, it still doesn't brunt the blow of finding out about 20 staff cut here, or 14 laid off there, or 55 being told to reapply for 37 spots with a pay cut for all, or 162 applying for 115. Or finding out from hard-working, long serving, highly qualified staff that “they weren’t selected” for a position that they already held, and in most cases, at least “exceeded some expectations”. Nor has it been comforting to hear that some are being told that the layoffs in their area will continue for another month. Or worse, when groups are told “we’re all done”, only to have it followed with an ominous and cryptic “for now”. Pretty sure that last part wasn't in “the script”. One of the things they might want to consider cutting out in the mass layoffs Zoom calls are comments like “we had to make some really tough choices”. Yeah…no. If you're not joining folks in the unemployment line or taking a pay cut to save a FTE or two, you can spare us the drama of how difficult this was for you and the leadership team. That’s making it about you. Now to be fair, it now appears that a few school’s leadership teams offered voluntary temporary pay cuts to save FTE positions but were denied by “central”, because they weren’t permanent. Perhaps admin can take note. Or perhaps their contracts won’t let them take pay cuts, only made-up promotions and massive bonuses simply for sticking around a while.

In all of this, they didn't just betray us, they have betrayed themselves. They let this problem fester, just another ticking USC time bomb, intimately known by the select few who could fix it, and instead they ignored it. Or pretended it didn't exist. It was a problem for a future leader- since our current one was stepping down- and we couldn't let it spoil the moment. And so they sat on yet another terrible secret while publicly promising how good it was going, touting new campuses and buildings, praising our acceptance into a new Conference, the bright future of AI. And how safe the fences made us. But they knew, and they did nothing, except volunteer our kid’s future, and ultimately ours as well.

If you think I'm being overly dramatic, or I’m just “angry at USC”, allow me a moment to explain. All of this was on full display in the UPC State of the University 2025 address. It remains posted but unlisted on YouTube with only 9 views to this day. 3 of them are mine. It was an attempt at celebrating the accomplishments that no one really felt, in a spirit that belied the truth of our financial hemorrhaging and sagging morale. It praised how we had grown in size and scope and funding. Research was at a historic high. In our health system, admissions were up, surgeries were up, and our quality and satisfaction scores were as well. In some areas like campus safety, we had “less staff than we had in 2019!” How proud we were of this. The Capital Campus went “from idea to purchase” in 9 months. Our “USC Competes” moonshot included $700M (a new even higher number!) invested in compensation. Our recent deficits were mentioned in passing, just a handful of seconds spent on the complexity of recent challenges, lumped together in a sum of $2.5B, explained by a single caption on one slide simply as “Covid and legal settlements”. That’s it? When it came time to talk about our finances, we were told that recovering was going to require “some effort”. Interestingly and tellingly, precisely at 1:04:20 attendees were told almost as an afterthought that “we’re going to have another conversation with people later about the financial condition, and I’m going to pass past that one”. A slide was skipped over, but visible for less than a second, was the following “Finances: Current Pressures & Actions”. Of course we didn’t have enough time in the presentation for that. Let’s just move on.

We now know that looming ominously on the horizon- but known by only a few- were merit pauses, hiring freezes and ultimately mass layoffs. I don’t remember any offer to “have another conversation” before these happened. Also now clear in retrospect, the comments made praising our self-funded healthcare system were yet another indication that they were already keenly aware that there would be wholesale changes (cuts) to our 2026 employee healthcare offerings. But why ruin the celebration with those details? It was such a great past 6 years!

While company-wide layoffs are not common at USC, they are a reality of life. They exist whether we like it or not. They suck, and while the reasons we must endure them in this particular instance are absolutely infuriating, they are part of a cycle of business (and life) that are generally understood. Growth, plateau, atrophy. Death, decomposition, and ultimately, rebirth. Typically, that middle part is self-inflicted and avoidable if you're paying attention and staying true to your Values. Sure, sometimes you grow too fast or you branch out into things too aggressively. These are common reasons for a precipitous decline that requires a drastic reset. But this was different. It was known, it was negligent, and they pretended to us like it wasn't happening. The operated status quo when it most certainly wasn’t, and we’re now paying for it dearly.

Specific to us, what they did last October was worse. They willfully and knowingly broke a promise, nullified our contributions, and acted like we should understand why. And they didn't even have the courage to tell us until after they did it. In fact, they never did tell us in writing, they only wrote to us to give some of it back. Still to this day, people are confused about what happened, and not just former employees. There are plenty of current employees who don't know exactly what was taken away, and what was restored. But to a person, they're all disgusted when they learn the truth. For most of this community, it's always been crystal clear. It will never be forgotten that USC cancelled our kids and our 15 year letters without so much as a hint of warning, and told us that we simply needed to remain employed to take advantage of what we had already earned. They took away dependent’s graduate degrees, reduced our spousal coverage, and drastically reduced the age cap. They even tried to make it seem like the age cap reduction was intentional because the new maximum age (26) now aligned with our health benefits. And while the absurdity- and in some cases, impossibility- of the “just remain employed” clause seemed to be lost on them, more importantly, we now see that they lied to us about how necessary these cuts actually were. At the time, the cuts to TAB were made to seem not just consequential but existential. Necessary and immediate cuts, designed to save USC’s future. Now we know the truth. The cuts made to TAB that remain cancelled to this day were a rounding error when compared to the almost $1B benefit pool. The 15 year letter was a benefit with a decaying timeline, in percentages and amounts that could be pulled from elsewhere, budgeted for and offset in future years, and honored until they ran their course. They were literally still going to be actual savings in future years. Would it have been tough to keep them, yes. But overall they had no significant impact on the immense financial hemorrhaging we now know about, other than they were something that could be taken with impunity. In reality, they were a third of what was being spent on Housing loans for a dozen or so executives, which they kept. They cost less than a single handful of financially negligent administrators, which they kept, and about the same as a new house near the beach, because somehow the old one wasn't good enough. All of these were somehow deemed “untouchable”. Because apparently some commitments can't be broken. But just some.

And so here we are. Again. Waiting to bear the burden of even more cuts made to our livelihood. Waiting to see who will be left to pick up the pieces this time. Waiting as we have in the past, for a new leader to lead us through yet another self-inflicted crisis. And if history is any indicator, we might just have to do it all again in the future.

And so, bruised and crushed and staggering, missing our departed friends and colleagues but refusing to give up, we Fight On.

We are 402 strong.

Aside from a bunch of words that you just endured- thank you for allowing me that- there aren’t many updates. We're still collecting responses on what will be used to resume our Instagram postings. We will do that once the University issues some sort of “we’re done… for now” message. So until then…

Table of Contents

• Surveys and Open Docs

• Community Resources

• Things to do

Surveys and Open Docs

TAB in Retrospect (Survey) - There have been some great answers, but we only have 16 participants. You’re all here in support of restoring TAB. For those of you impacted, share with me how. We will use this to re-ignite our Instagram account, once we get some semblance of an “all-clear” message.

Thoughts and Questions - This was a throwaway survey, in that it generated responses were out of alignment with our mission, mostly unusable. But I’d still encourage anyone who needs to yell at a wall to put in some responses. As a great example, here’s one entry that I think resonates with most of us. “Mr. Kim, please stop communicating with us without actual data and information. I don't want to hear about layoffs without you telling me exactly when they are going to happen, how many people will be laid off, and how much money we will save from this. I already knew there were going to be layoffs, so nothing you said was new information, only a continuation of a lack of open communication.”

In a meeting last week related to new benefits cuts (don’t worry, only for future employees) I shared a similar sentiment. Everything being presented was “data lite”. It mirrored the one slide we got on TAB that they thought adequately summarized why they were cancelling us. I remember the days when a decision needed mountains of data, and it was constantly asked “but what are peer institutions doing?” But I digress…

Feelings v2.0 - So I went to retrieve the link for this one…it’s been up for a while and it really doesn’t get used a ton, but someone posted something on it as recently as this weekend related to the Dornsife layoffs. OMG, I love you whoever you are. If you’re not too shy, let me know privately so I can come give you a hug in person. Thanks also to the reposting of quotes regarding the $500M in compensation they touted in the October email. By the March 11th, UPC SOTU, apparently it was $700M. How proud they were.

I like the idea of an evolving doc and a place to vent. I don’t check them too often, but it’s not as much a space for me as it was intended to be for you. When we did this the first time, we got 9 pages of feelings. Have a look if you haven’t seen Feelings 1.0 before. Maybe it will encourage you add your own thoughts to v2.0 and/or complete the TAB survey above.

Storytelling - This is a place to indicate if you’re interested in telling your story. Sometime soon-ish, I’ll reach out to this group and start categorizing and brainstorming. It could be an interview, it could be a short story for a website post, or something to add to our Community Document folder. Something on the record, or anonymous. I don’t know…I just know we (you) have a bunch of good stories, and we (I) will need them to push the issue and get TAB fully reinstated. Consider adding your name to the survey. It’s not a commitment, it’s just expressing interest. Worst case scenario, I reach out to talk to you.

Community Resources

As in the past, I’m sharing things I’ve learned about more recently. Sometimes they’re articles, sometimes they’re events, sometimes they’re resources. These are food for thought, not endorsements specifically by me or this community. This disclaimer is especially important for this newsletter, as most are about the Compact, which touches on politics.

Reject the Compact - Open letter from the USC-AAUP and members of the USC community at large. It has 66 pages of signatures (faculty, staff, students, alum). You can sign it here.

Rally at Tommy Trojan (Friday, 10/17 at noon) - Also from the USC-AAUP, in collaboration with groups of students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff, gather to let the administration know where we stand on this Compact. A teach-in at SAL 101 follows at 1:30.

Detailed article on the Compact - Article from the Talking Points Memo (TPM) that provides a comprehensive breakdown of the Compact.

Shame if anything happened to your nice university - Substack post by Darby Saxbe, Ph.D Professor & Director of Clinical Training Department of Psychology. I enjoyed the storytelling, and it has some “Music Recommendations" of the Week”. Nice touch.

Our Community Data - Data from past surveys, USC 990s and data visualizations, and some community documents. If you have some time, there’s some good stuff there.

Things to do

Follow our Instagram - Be ready once we start posting again. It was nice to see a pretty regular 15-30 interactions on our previous posts. Hopefully we can get that going again soon. If you haven’t already, go back and look over some previous ones and “smash the like button”.

Follow the YouTube Channel - This is where we will post videos in the future. Take a look and watch the three posted already. Sure they’re a bit cringe, but I’m ok with that. I even wrote a poem about you. I don’t need your likes or comments, I’m just hoping for views. On a positive note, at least I’m already doing better than the UPC SOTU.

My15atUSC Discord (invite good for 7 days) - It’s gotten a bit quiet, but understandably so. Maybe we will do a voice event or meet up once the dust settles…if you join us, I’ll ask you to confirm your identity before adding you to other channels.

So that should be enough for the next 3-4 weeks, right? It’s only 15 links, and no quiz. You got this.

Keep in touch as you learn more. I’m only an email, phone call, or text away. Take care of yourselves, and reach out if I can support you in any way. Thanks for hanging in there.

Until next time, Fight On,

Phil