“I’m so frustrated and angry about it … their professional life has been spent here.”

MacPherson said the letter he received justified the layoffs as a “curriculum change” and called the letter “very cold, very impersonal.”

MacPherson said these changes mean that smaller courses, which are usually taught by lecturers, are being replaced with larger, lecture-based courses taught by professors, adding that increased class sizes take away from how students will learn in the classroom. With larger classes, most of the students will interact more with graduate student instructors rather than directly with the instructor, he said.

“I think it will decrease the quality of education because instead of having a class of maybe 50 students … now it’s this mega-course,” MacPherson said. “You may not even really get to interact with the professor at all.”

MacPherson added that philosophy is taught more effectively in a smaller, more personal setting that better facilitates learning.

“If you increase the class size of a philosophy class, you’re defeating the purpose of teaching philosophy … you may as well not teach it,” MacPherson said. “It makes me feel … bad for the students.”

Sax agreed with MacPherson, and said he doesn’t see the benefits of tenured faculty teaching over lecturers.

“I can’t see any principal difference between a lecturer, as a teacher of undergraduates, and a tenure-track faculty member,” Sax said. “I couldn’t say in general it’s going to get worse, unless of course classes get bigger.”

Sax said all student-teacher relationships begin in the classroom, and if a class size is too large, it will be harder for conversations to take place. He said the fact that tenure-track professors at the University have to put their research first can also affect how well students get to know their teachers.

“I think I had a phenomenally good relationship with my students,” Sax said. “I don’t want to be anything other than what I have been doing. It’s a dream job for me … I love my work,” Sax said.

Despite the concern of growing class sizes, Fitzgerald said new measures are being taken by the University to prevent classes from swelling in the wake of the new faculty hires.

LSA senior Grace Bowden said in general, she has had better learning experiences with some of her lecturers than with professors, who are not always as accessible.

“They are enjoying teaching, they’re not doing it for research as much,” Bowden said.

Bowden, who took a bioethics class taught by MacPherson last semester, said she is outraged by the decision to let him go.

“I think it’s a huge shame to lay off people that are really fantastic teachers just because they’re not full professors,” Bowden said.

Bowden said MacPherson engaged students and challenged them to consider other perspectives, adding he always put the class first.

“He was super interactive,” she said. “A lot of professors do tend to just lecture but he always asked us questions.”