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We asked former Stanford employees who were laid off this year about the impact of the university’s recent staffing reductions. Here is what they said.
Impact on students
For several of the staff members, the impact of the layoffs on students was top-of-mind. Friedlaender, Meyer Tapia, and the anonymous director of the student facing office emphasized how the elimination of their programs could negatively impact the well-being of students. Friedlaender and Meyer Tapia said that students told them that SLED courses helped them get through their studies. Occasionally, students even said that a SLED course saved their life.
Meyer Tapia noted that SLED courses served as a preventative health resource which helped divert students from crisis intervention programs such as counseling and psychological services. The elimination of the program, therefore, could leave a hole in students’ wellness resources.
“Our [SLED] classes are educating and supporting students as whole people,” Meyer Tapia said. She added that the SLED courses were “not just [about] how to be brilliant from the neck up, how to be impressive, how to make money, but how to be a healthy whole human who makes a positive impact on your community.”
The director of the student facing office said that many staff positions were created because students, especially students from marginalized backgrounds, identified they wanted those positions in the university. The staff member has been left to wonder how offices that serve the well-being of students will fare if the institutional social memory around positive progress and change has been halted.
“If the values are around academic success,” the staff member said, “I worry that the ecosystem and the infrastructure that has supported that in a healthy way has been partly taken away.”
Impact on remaining staff
Several of the laid-off staff members noted that the reductions may impact the staff members who remain at Stanford. Meyer Tapia said she’s been in touch with old colleagues at Stanford, and stress levels are high. She noted that the university has expanded undergraduate enrollment by about 150 students, a decision Stanford President Jonathan Levin announced in April.
“There are more students than ever, and less support staff than ever,” Meyer Tapia said. “Those who are left are trying to do their jobs and cover for other people’s jobs.”
Impact on institutional engagement
Several of the five staff members, including Nazario-Miller, were troubled by what they viewed as Stanford’s lack of opposition to federal policies which some leaders in higher education have described as intrusive and coercive.
In 2024, the Stanford Board of Trustees and Faculty Senate approved a resolution and statement, respectively, affirming the university’s commitment to free speech and academic freedom and the avoidance of institutional orthodoxy.
Stanford has declined to sign a letter from the American Association of Colleges and Universities which calls for constructive engagement and speaking out against the “unprecedented government overreach.”
“I’m particularly disappointed that Stanford has continued their own course of non-action and silence at a time when they could have risen up and been a leading voice, like other higher education institutions like Harvard,” Nazario-Miller said. “But they gagged themselves with their policy of institutional neutrality, and so now Stanford can’t even defend itself.”
