Seattle Central College restores cut courses following student access issues

Even as waitlists at Seattle Central College filled, course sections were cut—leaving students locked out of classes required for transfer, graduation, financial aid, and visa compliance.

College administrators eliminated these sections during the 2025-2026 academic year in response to projected budget shortfalls. The reductions hit hardest in foundational courses, where enrollment demand had never faltered. By spring 2026, following a leadership transition and sustained faculty advocacy, Central began restoring those sections. However, faculty say the damage to students, to part-time instructors, and to the institution’s credibility has outlasted the cuts themselves.

For some faculty, the episode reflects a longer pattern: administrative decision-making concentrated at the top, faculty excluded from the process, and leaders who treat Central as a career waypoint rather than a community to sustain.

Waitlists full, sections gone

The cuts began in winter 2025, after former President Bradley Lane left Central and former Vice President of Instruction Chantae Recasner was appointed interim president.  Faculty said the reductions came suddenly, without supporting data or consultation with instructors who worked most closely with affected students.

“In open-enrollment institutions, if students are trying to enroll in courses, you offer more classes,” said Kaitlin McClanahan, tenured English faculty and faculty coordinator for the English department. “We had the students, and we did not have enough classes to offer them.”

English 101 and 102—required for degree programs and transfer pathways—were among the sections most visibly affected, despite filling each quarter consistently.

Dr. Anna Hackman, a tenured humanities faculty member, said the financial logic behind the cuts reflects a broader problem in how administrators approach public higher education.

“There were a lot of cuts to classes that happened very suddenly and with no data to justify them,” Hackman said. “What we have been able to gather is that these came from our former interim president, Dr. Chantae Recasner, who demanded cuts to budgets, which resulted in a significant reduction in course offerings.”

“A lot of administrators try to play that market model game of treating higher education like a market or a business, rather than a space of learning,” Hackman said. “The two do not really go together.”

McClanahan said she ended the fall 2025 quarter by warning students to prepare for delays in accessing English 102. “I told them, if you can not get in, do not panic—you may have to wait until spring, or even fall,” she said. “That felt terrible, because students are on a timeline. They have built their work schedules, caregiving responsibilities, and commutes around school. This is their life.”

Hackman said the situation left students without options and faculty without answers. “I do not know how many times I heard some version of, ‘I need this class to graduate,’” she said. “Students were left in a precarious position where they were not able to get into the courses they needed to complete their programs on time.”

The consequences extended beyond delayed graduation timelines. Students on financial aid must typically carry at least 12 credits per quarter to remain eligible for grants, loans, and scholarships.  International students and veterans face additional constraints: federal rules require them to take in-person courses, limiting their ability to substitute online sections when in-person options disappear.

Part-time instructors left without work

The reductions destabilized part-time instructors, several of whom work quarter-to-quarter without guaranteed assignments—making them among the most vulnerable when sections are cut.

“If you do not teach for a quarter, you can lose health insurance,” McClanahan said. “We have many wonderful part-time instructors who are flexible and amazing, and we can almost always give them classes in fall and winter, and then all of a sudden we had no part-time instructors for winter.”

McClanahan said watching colleagues absorb that uncertainty—without answers from the administration—was deeply demoralizing. “It was not even about us,” she said. “The hardest thing was that we were all so concerned about the students. How is this affecting them? Is it being measured?”

She said faculty responded by absorbing the overflow themselves. Instructors overloaded their rosters because, she said, it was nearly impossible to turn away students when the institution failed to provide enough seats.

Tenured English faculty and faculty coordinator for the Academy of Rising Educators, Desiree Simons, said instructors were largely excluded from the decision-making process despite working directly with the students most affected.

“Sometimes [decisions] are made in haste, sometimes with misinformation,” Simons said. “And students are not at the table.”

That absence, she said, makes it difficult to align institutional priorities with student outcomes.

A stepping stone, not a destination

Hackman said the problem runs deeper than one administrator’s decisions—pointing to what she described as a pattern of leaders who prioritize their own advancement over Central’s long-term health.  

“A lot of administrators treat Seattle Central as a stepping stone to something else,” Hackman said. “They are just here temporarily, so they do not have much interest in the long-term impacts to Seattle Central, its longevity, or its success.”

Hackman pointed specifically to Recasner, who left the interim role for a position at Olympic College. “She is now able to say that she ‘balanced the budget’ by making these cuts,” Hackman said. “She made these tough financial decisions, and Seattle Central is left with the consequences.”

Hackman said the pattern predates Recasner, noting that a former chancellor had threatened to cut the culinary program without explanation. Faculty have responded to these episodes through direct action and contract negotiations, she said, thereby securing open bargaining.

Students lost, trust damaged

Simons said the reductions contradicted Central’s stated commitments to student retention and completion.

“If you are talking about retention and completion,” she said, “how can you have that conversation if you are not providing students with what they need to be successful?”

McClanahan said some students ultimately enrolled at other community colleges in the Seattle area after failing to secure the required courses at Central.  Others may have left higher education entirely, and she said research suggests those students are unlikely to return.  “Studies show that if students feel dejected or leave because the school itself was the reason they left, they are not coming back,” McClanahan said.  “We lost those students forever.”

Hackman said the episode may have lasting effects on enrollment even for students who stayed.

“If students are not confident they can get the classes they need to complete their programs,” Hackman said, “they may look elsewhere.”

Sections restored, questions linger

Recasner has since left the interim presidency, and Brent C. Jones was appointed to the role. Faculty credited sustained advocacy by instructors, union representatives, and the Curriculum Coordinating Council (CCC+), which helped accelerate the reinstatements.

Administrators are now encouraging departments to expand course offerings when waitlists and enrollment demand justify additional sections, according to McClanahan.  Central has also begun developing procedures to monitor registration demand during enrollment periods, and departments are working to rebuild relationships with adjunct instructors whose assignments were previously eliminated.

The financial rationale for the original reductions, however, remains unclear to faculty.

“There was never any data provided to show this would save us money,” McClanahan said. “Central’s budget is not much different from what it was before that decision. We have seen the damage it has done.”

McClanahan said faculty morale is now as much a part of the recovery as restoring class sections because the two are inseparable.

“If you have faculty who are burnt out, cynical, and demoralized, it is a very different experience than if you have faculty who feel like this place is trying very hard to do some good,” she said. “How faculty are doing directly affects how students are doing and how they feel about the institution.”

Hackman said students should not underestimate their role in what comes next—particularly as Central enters a presidential search.  

“Students are the most important people at this college,” Hackman said. “If we do not have students in the classroom, what do we really have? Students have significant power to remind administrators of that, and when they come together, they have a lot of collective power.”