University of Southern California Layoff — October 2025

The USC Dornsife Office of Experiential and Applied Learning (ExL) is being closed as a separate administrative unit amid university budget restructuring, though its programs (JEP, Prison Education Project, Mock Trial, Fisher Fellowship) will continue under their directors. A student confirmed that two staff members — Associate Dean for Experiential Learning Dean Tammara Anderson and ExL Innovation and Implementation Manager Amber Harris — have been laid off. The closure and layoffs are part of broader tension and budgetary cuts at the university, which have also prompted faculty demonstrations over union recognition and labor protections. Program operations are reported to continue, but it is unclear where programs will be administratively housed going forward.

University of Southern California disclosed this layoff in an official WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice recorded by the CA state workforce agency on October 17, 2025. That record post-dates the layoff itself, which is how a late or amended filing reaches the state. The notice covers 2 employees in Los Angeles, CA (Los Angeles County), with the layoff effective October 8, 2025.

LayoffTalk has tracked 41 layoff events at University of Southern California since July 2023, including 1,065 jobs documented in official WARN filings, with 28 additional events known from news reporting.