would Iwata layoff faculty like this?

In the tumultuous middle teens of the adolescent 21st century, Nintendo released, to no real fanfare, the Wii U. Widely panned, widely forgotten, widely reemerging as a quality console for home brewing and exclusives that just didn’t get Daddy Reggie’s full attention. The failure of the console, at any other company, would see layoffs shooting into the dozens if not hundreds. Entire companies have folded for less. But the then president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, cut his salary and redistributed it among the folks that would normally be staring down the barrel of the unemployment line. Not a soul got laid off due to the under-performance of the Wii U. Iwata took the entirety of the blame, financial and moral.  

It remains the only way any institution should deal with financial hardship that I’ll accept.

Both of my current employers, the College of Saint Scholastica (CSS) and the University of Wisconsin – Superior (UWS), announced troubling news on the same day. Saint Scholastica laid off several beloved faculty members and UWS cut faculty salaries across the board. All in the pursuit of balancing budgets and acting as good stewards of the money students spend to attend these institutions. I can’t help but think of Iwata, slashing his own salary in half to ensure the continued livelihoods of those less powerful than he and I look to the administration at CSS and UWS for their own sacrifices. Is the president of CSS taking a pay cut? Are the highest paid employees seeing reductions in their salaries for the sake of the underpaid labour that frequently gets the brunt of the cuts? No such announcements have been made.

What I do know is that CSS announced extreme reductions in student employee wages and hours, making it even harder for the student body, especially international students, to afford the intense cost of living associated with attending university. CSS also, on the same day various layoffs were announced, sent an email announcing the new president that a lengthy, and expensive, search finally revealed, and an email announcing the optimistic forecast numbers for student enrolment for the upcoming Fall 2026b semester. “Greatly improved deposit numbers! Great turnout for campus tours! Solid dorm reservations and pledges from international students! A new president that we shelled out a fortune to find!” Why, in the same day that several beloved professor are laid off, does the college send such a message of implied financial optimism? Was anyone reading the fucking room?

UWS did no such insulting moves, and their email read professionally even if the underlying messaging was tragic. The pennies we make in pay get cut into further atomic divisions, but at least they aren’t bragging about the money they expect to make.

What would Iwata do?

We, of course, can’t know, but I can put on a hat that gives me an uncanny resemblance to a man at the helm of the biggest video game company on the planet (no citation) and combine that with some of the economic history I know to draw some conclusions here.

CSS slashing faculty slashes course offerings and student confidence. In addition to my teaching duties, I also act as an unpaid academic advisor for one of the courses I teach, and an alarming number of students tell me courses that are on the college designed curriculum plan aren’t offered. Such cases are resolved at the end of the degree program where students apply for exemptions and hope they are approved. Lily McCarthy penned a great opinion piece for the university newsletter (that features a candid photo of me “teaching”) describing the failed promises of a “liberal arts school” and the disappointing amount of faculty at the college to begin with. This was written in November 2025, months before faculty or students knew anything about layoffs. This is what makes students transfer. This is what makes students take their insanely high tuition dollars to other institutions.

In the short term, sure, laying off millions of dollars worth of faculty members and decreasing student worker costs by a separate millions of dollars leads to short term “savings.” But when those student workers go to a college that can actually pay them to do labour and when students flock to a school that actually protects and values their faculty, CSS will then find themselves in a position where they now have to spend money to regain the confidence that they nuked to save money.

The blame for all of this isn’t appropriately squared solely on the institutions’ shoulders, I am not so angry as to not recognise this. Donald Trump’s rampage against higher education and immigrants saw billions of dollars vanish overnight that would normally be invested in the educational goals of domestic and international students alike. An investment that pays dividends far beyond the initial investment. Even if the money remained, illegally cancelled student visas and the crimes committed by I.C.E. ruined any and all chance of international students attending school in the United States. For those who don’t know, international student tuition frequently subsidises the tuition of domestic students.

CSS and UWS are not alone in their new financial crisis as previously reliable government funding sources are suddenly artificially dry. I get that, I sympathise with educational leadership, but it is a weak excuse when the average salary for a college president is between $200,000 and $1,000,000. The median salary for post-secondary educational administration is $100,000.

Do I even need to remind the class of how much I am paid?

I’m always telling students to act their wage and have respect for their labour, especially when an institution isn’t giving them the respect they deserve. But how can I proclaim such platitudes without bushing when if I were to act my wage I would walk in, say hello, and then show a video while I played on my phone? I am, for better and worse, partly responsible for the education of students and when my colleagues and me are constantly working with the fragility of our career chocking us out how can we be expected to make good on that responsibility? We go above and beyond, everyday, and then get laid off. We sacrifice our health knowing that we aren’t provided the insurance to cover a portion of the doctor visits those sacrificed demand. We show up for work, smiles strained through tears knowing that our pay checks can’t even cover detergent good enough to wash out tear stains.

What the fuck are we expected to do?

Carry on as though nothing is happening? As though we are blissful in ignorance to the guillotine that is hanging above the wrong necks?

I don’t know. Watching friends scramble into a new reality where their career and community is torn from them knowing that anyone could be next, while being told my own pay is significantly lower, doesn’t create great conditions for thinking. It’s more of an action environment. A protest environment.

Which, students recognised. CSS students took the early morning to make their voices heard in the hallways outside the provost’s office, demanding that there be more transparency in this process and that faculty aren’t treated like fat to be trimmed from discarded liver. My spies (I was asleep as I spent the night sulking under the moon) tell mea team of administrators did nothing but stress “faculty matters aren’t the worry of students” before getting summarily dismissed and left in the dark. Administrators forget, that while students shouldn’t have ultimate power, they do maintain the means through which all of our livelihoods are supported. Student’s, through their own pockets, their family’s, or a government’s, pay our salaries. They pay the electricity bill, the food bill, the internet bill. The bills for all the fancy programs and sports teams and clubs and, yes, even the bloated administrative salaries. CSS students were not informed that layoffs would even be happening until they already happened. They found out anyway, of course, because faculty like me aren’t paid enough to keep the college’s secrets (and we were told to keep these cuts secret). But to dismiss “faculty matters” as none of their business is foolish. Faculty is the primary point of interaction with students. We, as I’ve said before, do the actual labour of teaching. Talking to students, guiding them through tears and drooping eyes and broken promises.

The students, controversially enough, should have a right to deny layoffs. They might not know what’s best, but they certainly come closer to that knowledge than whoever makes the decisions now. And if they aren’t listened to when they’re paying tuition, then they’ll be listened to when they aren’t.

But it’ll be too late by then.