‘It’s been really painful’: Former Barnard staff members reflect on the impact of last summer’s layoffs

Former employees reported facing financial difficulties and an unstable work environment following Barnard’s “Collegewide restructuring” in July 2025.

Photo by Jacquie Traenkle/The Barnard Bulletin

By Haila Desai and Riya Mahanta

April 4, 2026

Last summer, Barnard College announced the dismissal of 77 full-time staff members in a “hard but necessary decision to eliminate multiple staff positions across departments.”

“This is a painful moment, as many of those leaving have helped shape the Barnard we know today,” President Rosenbury wrote.

Areas at the College impacted by the layoffs included the Barnard Magazine, Facilities Services, and the Athena Center for Leadership. The Athena Center saw a decrease in programming during the Fall 2025 semester after the resignation of the Constance Hess Williams ’66 Director and the layoffs of several Athena Center staff. 

Following the layoffs, the instability of the work environment prompted additional Barnard employees to seek employment outside of the College.

The Barnard Magazine

Molly Frances, who worked as a copy editor for the Barnard Magazine in the Communications Department, recalled being informed of her position’s termination while helping her daughter move out of her college apartment. Frances stated that there was “zero clarity” regarding how layoff decisions were made and who was affected.

“Two guys I’d never met got me on a Zoom call and told me I was done and that my health insurance would end the next day,” she recalled. “I was laid off, end of story, and there was no reason given.”

Frances was later told that Barnard would cover two months of health insurance through COBRA, but continuing that coverage afterward would have been too expensive for her family. She also noted that in the weeks immediately following the layoff, before she officially enrolled in COBRA, coverage for laid-off staff was actually retroactive. However, this was not clearly communicated, leaving herself fearful that something medical could happen during that period without insurance.

President Rosenbury wrote that the College offered “generous separation packages,” which included severance, two months of fully covered health insurance, job placement support, and continued access to Barnard’s Employee Assistance Program. 

While Frances received severance and “some” support from an outplacement service, she personally did not find the latter to be particularly “meaningful,” but suggested that others may have had a more beneficial experience.

Frances also noted that the loss of benefits extended beyond her job. Her family lost access to Barnard’s tuition assistance program, which provided significant financial support for her children’s out-of-state college education. 

“That was gone immediately,” she stated. “We had to figure out how to pay for essentially three years worth [of tuition] because one of my kids had two years to [graduate] and the other had one year — it’s been really painful.”

Frances also emphasized the emotional toll of the layoffs, particularly in light of her long-term commitment to the College, where she had worked since 2019 and had hoped to do so until she planned to retire in 2029. 

“It’s affected what I’m going to collect in Social Security — it’s changed a lot of things,” she stated. “It broke my heart, honestly, and I’m happy to say that because I loved working at Barnard so much.” 

While upset about the layoffs, Frances said that it has been “very freeing,” since she is able to spend more time with her friends and family and take on freelance work.

“I’m working on a book with my partner that I wouldn’t have had the time to do otherwise,” Frances said. “I wanted to work for three more years [at Barnard], but since I’m not, I’m using my freedom as best I can, and I’m having a great time on that level.”

Frances also pointed to broader structural consequences of the layoffs. She noted that entire teams, including much of the magazine staff, were eliminated.

 “When you lay off an entire magazine staff abruptly, the magazine is going to reflect that loss,” she explained.

Independent investigations by The Bulletin determined that the Barnard Magazine used an AI-generated image in its latest issue. Many Barnard students, faculty, and staff members have previously expressed their concerns about the College eliminating traditional operations in favor of AI. 

“I think it’s pretty unacceptable for an educational institution to be using AI, especially given that we had so many capable staff able to do this job, and seemingly for no reason,” Atreyi Basu (BC ’28) told The Bulletin. “I’m sure there were commercially available pictures that were better to use, given the moral, ethical and environmental implications of AI.”

The College states that “[engaging] with new tech” amid the “AI revolution” is one of its long-term goals. Throughout the 2025-2026 academic year, Barnard has organized events and initiatives to promote responsible AI use in academic settings. Last November, Executive Vice President for Strategy and Chief Administrative Officer Kelli Murray introduced Millie, an AI program intended to eventually “serve as a campuswide concierge,” which would reflect Barnard’s “ongoing commitment to remaining on the cutting edge of technology.”

“I can speak [only about] my department, but the layoffs did not make our department stronger,” Frances stated.

An unreliable environment

Laura Hendrickson (BC ’10) worked as the administrator of Barnard’s Chemistry Department for eleven years. A Barnard alumna, Hendrickson stated that she was motivated to return to the College by the sense of community she felt as a student and a desire to give students a similar, positive academic experience. However, Hendrickson chose to leave her position at Barnard shortly after the layoffs.

“There’s something special about Barnard, and I believe that it is made up of the dedication of the faculty and staff to the student experience,” she told The Bulletin. She added, “As a student, I was blissfully unaware of all the things that go on administratively at the College.” 

While Hendrickson was not among the 77 employees laid off last summer, she still felt deeply impacted by the layoffs. 

“It was honestly shocking to see how that happened,” she said. “I understand that layoffs are completely normal, and they happen in times of financial crisis, but the way that layoffs were —  or were not — communicated to staff was very confusing.”

Since 2024, Barnard has been operating at a deficit, which currently stands at $1.7 million. This is a significant improvement from past years, when the deficit has been more than $20 million. However, the College is still facing economic hardships and recently “decreased instructional and administrative expenses” and “raised the cost of tuition by 5.5 percent, lowered Columbia cross-registration costs, reduced administrative spending, and reorganized staff.”

Employees did not learn about the layoffs until they were announced to the broader Barnard community. Hendrickson was informed about the layoffs when one of her friends, a fellow Barnard alumna, contacted her.

“I personally didn’t know if I still had a job until 4:30 that afternoon [when the layoffs were first announced],” Hendrickson stated. “When I tried to confirm whether or not I was laid off, the answers were not forthcoming for quite some time. The information simply wasn’t there, and I saw that as a colossal problem in communication.”

Hendrickson stated that the College did not clarify to employees about which staff members were laid off. 

“If you knew somebody who had been directly affected, or if you sent an email to somebody and got an email … that their account was no longer active, you would assume, ‘Oh, they must have been laid off, or they must have left,’” she explained.

After working at Barnard for 11 years, Hendrickson decided to resign from her job. She stated that the layoffs were “definitely part of” her decision to leave.

“There were fewer people remaining to do a workload that had not decreased,” Hendrickson said, adding she “would not [be] adequately compensated” for changes in operations. “I did not find that to be the job that I had signed up for when I started working at Barnard.” 

Support from mutual aid

Shortly following the announcement of the layoffs, Barnard staff members established the Barnard Mutual Aid Fund to financially support laid-off coworkers with rent, security deposits, groceries, and medical care. An Instagram post stated that those who were laid off “lost their jobs without warning or time to prepare,” with some “facing eviction or struggling to afford basic needs.”

Launched on August 10, 2025, the fund raised over $13,000 within a month, with contributions from 108 donors. In a February 2026 statement to The Bulletin, a representative of the Mutual Aid Fund stated that “approximately 15 staff members” received assistance, and that the fund was closing its operations because it was no longer receiving requests for financial support.

“The layoffs at Barnard were devastating and handled in a way that felt profoundly disrespectful. Colleagues who dedicated years of service to the institution were dismissed with no acknowledgment of their contributions,” a representative stated. “They were treated as expendable line items rather than as people who shaped and sustained this community.”

“We have been told from those who remain [that] the silence has been just as troubling. Staff were given no meaningful explanation of how decisions were made, no clear plan for how the work would continue, and no space to ask questions,” the representative continued. “While staff understand that the difficult decisions must happen, they are not experiencing the leadership or respect that should come with those decisions.”

Impact on students

Students have stated that the layoffs have impacted their experiences of security and maintenance on campus.

“As an incoming student, I’d say that I was definitely a little bit uncertain about how operations and different departments would look when I arrived here,” Sophia Lalani (BC ’29) told The Bulletin. “I did give the school the benefit of the doubt and hoped that there were reasons for their choices, but I had questions that I didn’t think were fully answered about what exactly happened with the layoffs [and] the justification for removing so many people.”

“I’m not super sure about how efficiency looked last year, but I do think that what I’ve experienced [of Barnard] so far is fairly high efficiency in most practices,” Lalani continued.

However, Lalani also felt there was room for improvement.

“I’ve noticed some delays in security and maintenance — things like the turnstiles being placed [in the Quad] and then never being activated,” Lalani stated. “Those kinds of things definitely [made me] believe [there is] a lower level of efficiency this year compared to past years.”

“Another thing I’ve noticed is that security in other forms has been kind of unreliable, as we got multiple messages throughout the past school year [about] getting into dorms,” she said. “I’m not totally sure if that’s because of less security staff, but things like that do definitely point to holes in the security and maintenance systems here.” 

In the College’s official announcement of the layoffs, President Rosenbury wrote that Barnard was “not reducing faculty positions or instructional services, and student support will remain our priority.”

While administrators have maintained that the layoffs did not directly affect students, many former staff members raised concerns about how their roles were understood within the College. 

“The staff are a valuable asset who support students every single day — that work should be recognized and celebrated across the College,” Hendrickson said. 

Frances questioned the College’s statement that the layoffs did not affect students directly, telling The Bulletin, “[Administrators] said it wasn’t student-facing jobs [that were impacted], but they were all jobs meant to support the student body.” 

Campus News Deputy Editor Kimberly Wing contributed to reporting for this article.