The Graduate School of Political Management will relaunch a semesterlong program offered to non-GW undergraduates to study in the District in spring 2025 following an unsuccessful attempt to restart the program last summer due to low enrollment.

Tobias Greiff, the associate dean for academic affairs at the College of Professional Studies who oversees the Semester in Washington Program, said officials had to cancel its intended relaunch for summer 2024 because of low enrollment despite “hundreds” of initially interested students. Sarah Gunel, the former GSPM director of operations who oversaw the revamped program’s development, said the program initially struggled to secure adequate internships and financial aid, which pushed interested students away.

Undergraduates from other universities can apply to the Semester in Washington program — run by GSPM, which is housed under CPS — to study at GW in D.C. for a semester and take graduate-level courses on top of “hands-on experiences” and internships, according to the program’s website. The program is returning after a three-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and is now directly managed by GSPM instead of CPS, as it was before the pandemic.

Greiff said Semester in Washington’s return centers around GSPM’s direct management of the program, which grants participants greater access to the graduate school’s resources like networking events and career advising. Greiff said the relaunched program — which will have one core course as well as elective options, an internship course and a research course — incorporates GSPM faculty to teach classes for the students.

“Before COVID, it was structurally its own entity in the college,” Greiff said. “I think that that was just too small for what it could do. I think it can do better, so we have moved this into a larger experiential learning unit.”

Greiff said the program’s summer 2024 cohort initially attracted hundreds of “leads” — or interested students who inquired for more information, engaged with the website or began the application portal — but it “lost enrollments,” forcing officials to cancel the session.

He said a cohort of 15 students would make up a “good start” to the program. He said he did not have the numbers for how many students had applied to or enrolled in the program before its cancellation for the summer.

“I think decisions made in late spring that for students, it felt like it wasn’t the right time for them to come,” Greiff said.

A University spokesperson declined to comment on when the program was formally canceled.

The initial announcement of the program’s relaunch in January 2024 stated Semester in Washington would be “offered year-round,” and the website briefly listed a fall application deadline from January to June, before being taken down in July, according to web archives. Greiff said Semester in Washington “historically” ran in the spring and summer since its launch in 1995 and there were never plans for a fall 2024 session.

Gunel said CPS Dean Liesl Riddle asked her to take over the revamped program’s development in October 2023 and begin designing the program eight months before its intended June 2024 launch.

She said she recommended officials delay the program launch until summer 2025 as their timeline did not provide enough time to partner with scholarship providers to bring down the cost of tuition, find enough in-person internships for students or conduct market research, but GSPM officials rejected her request.

The program’s listed tuition is $26,040 for a 12-credit program or $13,020 for a part-time six-credit option, excluding a “program fee” of $50 and optional on-campus housing ranging from $5,500 to $8,000 per semester, according to the program’s website.

Gunel said Greiff had met with Virtual Internships Ltd., a London-based company that provides colleges “guaranteed” unpaid online internships for students before she joined the project in October 2023. Gunel said the company offered few placements with organizations directly involved in politics but many of the potential internships advertised a focus on politics and government.

“Those students want to get jobs that are directly related to politics,” Gunel said. “This Virtual Internships LLC, they had like nine categories of places where students would get internships, and none of them were specific to politics.”

Andy Radelet, the global head of partnerships at Virtual Internships, said the company offers 18 career fields including “international development” which he said offers internships in international relations and nongovernmental organizations. The company charges a $300 internship application fee and a $1,495 placement fee upon acceptance.

Greiff said all expenses through Virtual Internships are covered by CPS and students in future sessions would not incur any additional costs if they chose to do an internship through the company.

He said the revamped program now offers fully in-person internships which he predicted will be the “most common” option that students choose and that Virtual Internships was never intended to be the “sole” provider of internships for the program but GSPM partnered with them as a supplemental option in addition to using the platform to curate internships of all types and provide professional development modules to students.

Gunel said GSPM officials gave her “very little” help when she was placed in charge of the program in October and it wasn’t until she requested help from officials “a ton of times” and the program began receiving leads in February that officials began providing her with more resources. Gunel said officials were “very encouraged” by the program’s more than 700 leads by late February 2024.

She said officials decided to expand the program to a fall and spring session before the development of the summer program had finished, which she said put more strain on her planning of the summer program.

“I said, ‘I don’t think we should run three Semester in Washingtons a year when we haven’t even successfully proved one will work,’” Gunel said. “And they ignored that.”

Gunel said of the original 700 leads, two students had submitted applications and one student accepted their offer. She said she relayed these concerns in an email in late February to GSPM officials, but no one responded.

“Hopefully commitments will rally at the last moment, but if this trend persists into late March, it would be prudent for us to acknowledge and address the issue,” Gunel wrote in the email.

Gunel said Riddle instructed her via email to transfer all resources related to the program to Greiff’s team “effective immediately” following Gunel’s supervisor’s departure from CPS in February 2024. Gunel said she was laid off shortly after transferring the program details to Greiff due to officials eliminating her boss’ position and shutting down the department she worked in.

Jennifer Igbonoba contributed reporting.