UC Berkeley to terminate fall program for freshmen, threatening mass lecturer layoffs | Campus

The Fall Program for First Semester, a program that has supported thousands of freshmen over its 43-year history at UC Berkeley, is set to shut down.

The recommendation was made last December by a “work group” of campus administrators in a report submitted to Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin.

The Daily Californian obtained a copy of the report and campus officials have confirmed plans to terminate the program. However, administrators have not set an official closure date or directly notified the 29 FPF lecturers who may be laid off.

As a result, lecturers have been left in limbo as the termination threatens to be one of the largest lecturer layoffs in campus history, according to UC-AFT union representative Jessica Conte.

“A campus committee conducted an evaluation of the Fall Semester for First Year (FPF) program and determined that the program no longer aligns with its original objectives, meets current campus and student needs, or demonstrably provides the intended benefits for student academic and enrollment outcomes,” said Dean of Extended Education Richard Russo in a statement.

Each year, hundreds of freshmen enrolled in FPF descend on Downtown Berkeley to a nondescript office building where they will spend their first semester in small classes taught exclusively by a group of FPF lecturers.

These lecturers, some of whom would face the end of their career at UC Berkeley in the case of a layoff, learned of the impending closure from Conte.

After receiving notice of the closure in early January, Conte and a team of FPF lecturers sent a “demand to bargain” letter to campus officials. While the lecturers’ union cannot prevent the closure, campus administrators agreed to come to the table.

As the first round of bargaining begins this week, Conte said the union’s primary objective is to preserve positions for the lecturers whose seniority, pay and benefits, including health care, may be eliminated with the loss of FPF.

Before 2024, FPF instructors were not represented by the University Council – American Federation of Teachers, the systemwide union for lecturers. While their duties were almost identical to those of main campus lecturers, FPF instructors did not enjoy the same protections or benefits.

The union filed a grievance against campus with the California Public Employment Relations Board. Campus decided to settle out of court and, among other concessions, agreed to recognize FPF instructors as lecturers starting in fall 2o24.

These newly minted lecturers were given two-year initial contracts. Those contracts expire this year.

“(UC Berkeley) had a two-year moratorium where they couldn’t just get rid of the program, so it kind of looks bad,” said FPF and campus lecturer Devin Leigh.

In the past, lecturer layoffs often coincided with increases in class sizes.

“I don’t know if (the administration) is thinking they will just continue to pack classes,” said FPF and campus lecturer Arunima Paul. “In bargaining, we are hoping to get some answers about how these students will be absorbed.”

While campus spokespeople did not respond to questions about the possible impacts of FPF’s closure on course sizes, the work group report suggests that campus may be planning to simply cut the overall number of admitted students.

According to the report, UC Berkeley overenrolled by 311 undergraduates last year, necessitating admissions to “reduce the number of incoming admits for fall 2026.”

“Undergraduate enrollment came in higher than anticipated for 2025-26 because we had a greater number of students accepting offers of admission this last fall than we expected,” said campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore in an email when asked about the statement. “It’s not known exactly how this will affect fall 2026 admission numbers.”

FPF was first established in 1983 as a program for spring admits in the College of Letters & Sciences. In 2016, campus stopped offering spring admission for FPF.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, student opt-ins plummeted by more than 90%. In 2022, the FPF fee of $2,100 was eliminated, but opt-ins remained low, totaling only 63 of the 605 students enrolled in the Fall 2025 session.

One student who opted-in to the program in 2023, third-year global studies major Isa Mills, said she regretted joining FPF as a freshman — primarily because of its location and because it didn’t integrate her into campus life well.

Report authors cited this concern, particularly for freshmen forced into the program, as reasoning for their determination, claiming FPF created “an inequity in our incoming student body,” which “siloed (them) in a separate program they did not select.”

For FPF philosophy lecturer Richie Kim, the metrics presented in the campus report do not capture the true value of FPF. These, he said, can be found in the relationships nurtured in the small program.

“It’s a major loss, and I think, concretely and tangibly, (students’) experiences will be changed,” Kim said. “People will lose out on something that would have made their experiences much better.”

Usually, lecturer layoffs operate on a last-in, first-out basis, in which seniority could protect workers from termination. However, FPF lecturers are considered separate from main campus departments, despite often teaching the same courses.

As a result, Kim’s experience from more than a decade teaching at FPF, quantified as “term credits,” will not transfer automatically to the campus’s philosophy department.

It is the transfer of these term credits that Conte and the bargaining team hope to win in their negotiations with campus officials.

“It’s not FPF, the institution, we’re hanging on to, it’s the faculty,” Leigh said. “(Campus) has an obligation to do right by these people, because they have served its mission.”