{"id":259307,"date":"2026-04-09T12:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/259307\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T12:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:46:08","slug":"master-of-social-welfare-students-protest-student-faculty-layoffs-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/259307\/","title":{"rendered":"Master of Social Welfare students protest student, faculty layoffs | Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Master of Social Welfare students gathered at Haviland Hall on April 7 to advocate for a reversal of prior and upcoming layoffs, as well as for fair pay and a decrease in the number of fieldwork hours required to graduate.<\/p>\n

This protest comes after approximately a quarter of MSW students went on tuition strike<\/a> at the start of the semester following the layoffs of practicum consultants Patti Park and Eveline Chang.<\/p>\n

According to the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare\u2019s website, practicum consultants are experienced social workers who provide students with individualized assessment, support and coaching throughout their program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning from people with lived experience and practicum experience \u2014 especially clinical and community organizing experience \u2014 I know how valuable their contributions are and how much we\u2019re missing without them,\u201d said Rainer Apostol, a second-year MSW student and protest attendee, in reference to Park and Chang\u2019s layoffs.<\/p>\n

At the start of the protest, attendees gathered on the steps of Haviland Hall to listen to speeches from current students and Claudette Mestayer, a recently terminated practicum consultant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mestayer spoke about the need for the protection of MSW students as well as practicum consultants. Mestayer noted that six students have been terminated since the beginning of this semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese six people now have to stay an extra year,\u201d said an anonymous protest organizer and second-year MSW student. \u201cThey don\u2019t get to graduate in two years like they planned. They have to pay for another year.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the organizer, most students had been terminated because they had no practicum consultants to advocate for them. They, along with Mestayer, also noted that the most vulnerable students, such as those with disabilities, are most affected by the lack of practicum support, thus leading to their termination.<\/p>\n

The organizer also gave the example of the MSW program at UCLA, which, for the same number of students, has seven practicum consultants while UC Berkeley will only have one by the end of the semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur immediate goal is to strengthen the quality of education provided to every student, and our ultimate goal is greater excellence,\u201d said Berkeley Social Welfare in a statement in response to the protest. \u201cThose efforts \u2014 which involve continued implementation of the restructured Master of Social Welfare curriculum \u2014 are now on track.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MSW<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Diego Alcantar | Staff<\/a><\/p>\n

Protest organizer and second-year MSW student Sarahi Soto-Talavera said the goal of the protest was to gain visibility from Berkeley Social Welfare and convince the school to meet their demands of reversing layoffs, ensuring fair pay and increasing student representation in decision-making.<\/p>\n

Students later led a rally circling Haviland and even protested inside the building.<\/p>\n

Outside and inside of Haviland, MSW students chanted, \u201cUC, UC, you\u2019re no good. Treat your interns like you should.\u201d<\/p>\n

MSW students continued their protest with a strike Wednesday, in which students refused to attend their internships for that day, accompanied by a letter explaining why.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur budget is a statement of our values,\u201d Apostol said. \u201c(Berkeley Social Welfare is) expecting \u2026 our program to be this voice of equity and advocacy for other people, and we are not being equipped to do that if (the school is) not doing that for us as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Master of Social Welfare students gathered at Haviland Hall on April 7 to advocate for a reversal of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[83473,83471,114374,114372,143,145,144,83470,114376,114375,83472,114373,1092],"class_list":{"0":"post-259307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-claudette-mestayer","9":"tag-eveline-chang","10":"tag-haviland-hall","11":"tag-master-of-social-welfare","12":"tag-oakland","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-news","15":"tag-patti-park","16":"tag-rainer-apostol","17":"tag-sarahi-soto-talavera","18":"tag-susan-stone","19":"tag-uc-berkeley-school-of-social-welfare","20":"tag-ucla"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}