By Adrienne Mitchell

On Sept. 11, a guest viewpoint in Eugene Weekly noted, “LCC stands at an inflection point.” 

I couldn’t agree with that sentiment more — but not for the reasons laid out.

The truth is that our community’s college has become a testing ground for big money, special interests and out-of-state donors that spent at unprecedented levels in an attempt to buy our Board of Education elections to push an agenda that turns back the clock on values of social responsibility we know our community still holds dear.

Financial Decisions that Put Students Last

After the pandemic, the Lane Community College budget has stabilized due to strong enrollment growth of 26-plus percent over the past three years and growing reserves, which have increased by $1 million over the past two years while revenue exceeded expenses, not the other way around.

Despite this, LCC chose to cut $675,000 in unspecified programs and services from its 2026 budget while simultaneously increasing management staffing levels by 10 percent the same year, and after recently wasting nearly $1 million on outside attorneys, including hiring a lawyer not admitted to the Oregon State Bar. All this while judges found LCC violated state law with illegal union busting, including surveilling union emails and illegal threats against LCC faculty for exercising their rights to free speech.

At the same time, LCC is making the case for even more cuts despite growing reserves. What’s more — only 33.5 percent of LCC spending went to instruction and only 11 percent to student services, according to the most recent fiscal audit. 

Let’s get real: These choices do not support the mission of our community’s college. 

Breaking Promises to the Public

In May, the LCC administration quietly decided not to offer the licensed practical nurse program, which has long been an urgently needed lifeline for our community’s health care needs. This happened without notice to the public, students who had applied, or the faculty who were preparing to orient new students the very next week. 

Further, this decision was made without any vote of the board, without an opportunity for public comment before the program was put on hiatus — in direct violation of longstanding LCC board policy and documented history of voting on program suspensions. 

Similarly, the LCC administration effectively dismantled the DEI office in 2023, leaving it without any staffing for more than two years and counting, without a board vote at public meetings.

This contravenes the public interest and Oregon’s sunshine law.

The people of Lane County will lose our voice in our community’s college if the administration continues to remove the authority of the Board of Education and shut the public out. 

The Common Good is On the Line

Right now hundreds of LCC faculty are in negotiations for our next union contract. We are the instructors, counselors, librarians, mental health clinicians, coaches and instructional experts. We make it our life’s work to fulfill the college mission of transforming lives through learning. Our goal is to create optimal learning conditions for our students. 

We’re asking for enough counselors and tutors to support students; a safe, healthy campus where we’ll be secure in the event of a lockdown.

We’re asking for the basic tools faculty need to teach — equal pay for equal work and reasonable workloads with no mandatory overloads.

In contrast, the LCC Administration has proposed to:

• Remove the obligation to provide students access to the campus health clinic;

• Allow classes to increase to 150 percent of current sizes; 

• Provide no guarantee of student services levels or improved safety; and 

• No longer protect part-time faculty from removal for exercising rights to nondiscrimination, privacy, free expression of divergent viewpoints, academic freedom, union activity and participation in civic life free from institutional censorship.

Protecting Our Democracy

A quintessential purpose of higher education is to encourage vibrant discussion, celebrate divergent viewpoints and provide space for debate and deep learning where free expression forms the very bedrock for our broader democracy. 

Faculty remain unwavering in our commitment to work collaboratively with our campus partners and community allies to create the conditions where we can do our best work in service of students — a campus where the administration engages in transparent, inclusive decision making characterized by ethics and integrity; seeks settlement over disputes; takes a reasonable approach to contract negotiations; amply funds the college mission, and, importantly in an ever more fragile democracy, welcomes the free exchange of ideas.

Public institutions belong to the public. It’s time we come together as a community to ensure the public still has a say.

Adrienne Mitchell has taught at LCC for 25 years and proudly serves as the president of LCCEA, representing hundreds of faculty members at Lane Community College.