Updated: Sept. 17, 2024, at 12:50 p.m.
Faculty senators raised concerns about personnel vacancies, resource allocations and missing department budgets at a meeting Friday — points of contention that officials didn’t directly address.
Members of the Faculty Senate said Columbian College of Arts & Sciences departments like history and Romance, German and Slavic studies have yet to receive a budget for FY2025, which hampered their ability to plan events and arrange speakers. Katrin Schultheiss, a faculty senator and professor of history, asked if the department is lacking a budget because officials haven’t yet allocated one to CCAS and questioned how GW is “investing heavily” in the University’s academic mission while paying “huge” salaries to top-level administrators.
“It hasn’t been visible to us in CCAS where those enormous investments in the academic mission of the University are being done and huge salaries are being paid to top-level administrators,” Schultheiss said.
University President Ellen Granberg did not respond to Schultheiss’ comment. CCAS officials told department chairs in January to accommodate a 15 percent cut of the school’s expected noncompensation spending to meet its budget target set in late March by GW for fiscal year 2024.
Kausik Sarkar, a faculty senator and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, said the School of Engineering and Applied Science has 25 empty faculty positions across the school.
Provost Chris Bracey said some ongoing faculty searches have not yet yielded candidates, but he noticed SEAS has been filling vacancies. He said the University has a dashboard for faculty to track the last years of statistics on full-time faculty “in real time,” which students cannot access.
Tarek El-Ghazawi, a faculty senator and the electrical and computer engineering department chair, said his department has lost a dozen faculty members over the last decade, who have not been replaced.
Heather Bamford, a faculty senator and an associate professor of Spanish literature, said the University hasn’t replaced faculty tenure-lines for certain departments, including hers, after departures. She said instead, officials fill the vacancies with non-tenured contract faculty, who are compensated at a lower rate.
Officials failed to meeting a Faculty Code clause requiring 75 percent of regular faculty to be tenured or on a tenure track for the fifth-consecutive year in April.
“We have people in our department who are making $60,000 teaching seven classes a year, and I think that’s important to state in a public forum because those faculty really struggle with morale, which makes sense because they’re working really hard and not getting any compensation,” Bamford said.
Faculty senators also raised concerns during the meeting about whether GW is properly allocating funding to schools and departments, citing the more than $900,000 in severance payments since 2022 to former officials like former University President Thomas LeBlanc and former Chief Financial Officer Mark Diaz as a particular worry.
Granberg said the University has begun talks with Grant Thornton — an independent CPA firm based in London, England, who has a “long-term contract” with GW and audits the University’s consolidated financial statements — to receive input on the University’s budget model, which she said is in need of revisions.
“We are hampered by a budget model that does us no favors, and so I am, that’s part of why I’m very excited that the budget revision process is moving forward,” Granberg said.
Granberg also said officials were working on a new budget model to make more efficient use of GW’s money, which she previously announced at a Staff Council meeting in January. The current model has not been updated since 2017, Bracey said at the Friday meeting.
“There is a clear sense in speaking with several deans that the budget model that was adopted in 2017 really does need to be tweaked and fine tuned to provide additional resources and support for the academic enterprise,” Bracey said.
Faculty senators also pressed officials on the input they reportedly gave to the U.S. Attorney General for D.C. regarding stay-away orders, which barred five students arrested by local police at the pro-Palestinian encampment last spring from entering any public spaces in Foggy Bottom for six months.
The Student Coalition for Palestine at GWU alleged in late July that officials pressured the attorney to revoke legal agreements issued to students after the encampment clearing that allowed them to enter spaces in Foggy Bottom not owned by GW and replace them with harsher agreements that banned students from campus altogether for six months.
Phil Wirtz, a faculty senator and professor of decision sciences and psychological and brain sciences, said officials should advocate for the U.S. Attorney General for D.C., who issued stay-away orders, to loosen restrictions to ensure students have access to their full University experience, like the Disability Support Services office and Gelman Library.
“Somebody’s got to stand up for the kids,” Wirtz said. “Somebody’s got to take an action that says, wait a minute, you’re hamstringing, you’re kneecapping our students. And while I certainly appreciate the legal process, I also think that at some point the University needs to step in.”
Granberg said GW took a “neutral position” regarding D.C. court hearings this summer for arrested students in the spring. She said the University did not issue suspensions to any of the students with stay-away orders, meaning students are still able to attend classes.
Granberg said she was “extremely pleased” that sanctions against students would not appear on their permanent record if they chose to accept their agreements but did not specify when she became aware the sanctions wouldn’t be on their records. She said the courts are a “fairly blunt instrument” but that students facing legal proceedings would have access to mental and physical health facilities on campus through the Student Support Office and the Division for Student Affairs. She did not specify how students would be able to access these resources.
“We were very, very welcome to every idea that came across the transom about how to make this workable for the students,” Granberg said.
Vice President and General Counsel Charles Barber said students would have to go back to court with their attorneys to be able to access spaces in Foggy Bottom or make other revisions to their orders.
Granberg said total student registration stood at 24,689 on the first day of the fall semester, which is two fewer student registrations than last fall. She said the figure demonstrates GW’s “continued stability” and attractiveness during “very trying times” in higher education.
She said total enrollment has exceeded 25,000 as of last week, and officials expect additional students to enroll over the coming weeks.
Faculty senators also passed a resolution 22-1 defining the term “consultation with the faculty” surrounding University policy as ensuring that there is “adequate” time for members of the senate and committees to consult on proposed policies. The resolution requests that policies should be publicly posted for at least 60 days of review before being approved and administration should address feedback from faculty before officially announcing the policy.
The senate also held a moment of silence for professor Murli Gupta, who died in August at age 78. Schultheiss said Gupta served as a faculty senator for 22 years and was a member of the mathematics department for 45 years before he retired this spring.
She said Gupta was a steadfast advocate for faculty rights, fairness, safety and protection and promotion of the central educational mission of the University.
“Your example remains,” Schultheiss said. “Thank you, Murli.”
Sachini Adikari, Tyler Iglesias and Fiona Riley contributed reporting.
This post has been updated to correct the following:
The Hatchet incorrectly attributed a quote about faculty tenure-lines to Masha Belenky. The speaker was Heather Bamford. We regret this error.
