Clarissa Eaton says she feels like she's on the front line at UMass Boston, because she and other non-tenure track faculty are the ones who connect the most with students.

"We're there at the beginning," Eaton said. "We're teaching the smaller classes sometimes. We're the ones that they'll stop by our office hours and just chat, so I think it's going to be a really hard blow to the students because they're losing a connection."

Francoise Kayamba is one the students who could lose her connection with Eaton.

"She is a wonderful, wonderful professor," Kayamba said. "And she's really a professor who truly cares about her students. She would ask us how we're doing in class. We would meet with her and actually build a rapport."

As colleges face increasing financial uncertainty during the pandemic, hundreds of faculty members in Boston could lose their jobs.

Students are coming to their defense.