BSU Education Department Professors Raise Concerns Over Staff Layoffs

Since the pandemic, Bemidji State University has struggled with low enrollment. Over the past few years, it has had to make teacher retrenchments as well as program cuts in an effort to balance the budget, and just this year, BSU announced they will be cutting 14 more faculty members and two programs.

Within the university’s Education department, which trains students to become teachers, there have been six layoffs.

“There’s some complexity in teacher education where there’s rules about what credentials you have to have, what experiences you have to have in order to teach particular things,” explained BSU School of Education Chair Layna Cole. “The people remaining won’t be able to deliver the programs that we have because they don’t have the experience or the credentials.”

The professors are concerned with more than just the current teaching jobs at BSU. They’re also focused on the broader impact that these cuts could potentially have in northern Minnesota.

“If you go to any of the small towns around here, most of the teachers have come from Bemidji State,” said Cole. “So if we stop producing teachers, what will happen to those schools? What will happen to those communities?”

“Losing this program would be pretty detrimental to the region,” added BSU Special Education Associate Professor Sean Wachsmuth.

So far within the Education department, there have only been reductions to staff and not to programs, but instructors are still voicing their concerns.

“We appreciate and respect the fact that the university has gone into this with the intention of not cutting any programs,” said Wachsmuth, “But it’s just not the reality.”

“If we have 400 elementary majors with one on-campus person and two online people, that’s impossible,” said Cole, “I think the livelihood of every community is really reliant on how good their schools are, and if there’s no teachers for the schools – awkward.”

In regards to possible Education department cuts, Bemidji State has said that there is nothing to worry about.

“We will not eliminate professional teacher education at Bemidji State University. Period,” said BSU President John Hoffman. “Professional teacher education is the history of our institution and it is the future of our institution. Teacher education is not going away. It is one of our core programs.”

One effect from the staff reductions is the need to put more students into fewer classes. These bigger class sizes have caused some concern among teachers, but according to the school:

“The number of students in the classroom is actually smaller now than it was in 2018 before the pandemic,” Hoffman stated. “We still have some room to fill some seats.”

Despite these promises, some BSU professors are still concerned about the widespread impact these cuts could make if they cause the collapse of the Education programs.

“And it’s not me,” Wachsmuth emphasized. “It’s the students in northern Minnesota that are absolutely going to suffer from these cuts.”

Last week, BSU revealed that 4,076 students enrolled for classes this year, an increase of 4.2% increase over last year.