A month after officials implemented a position review program aimed at protecting GW’s “limited” resources, biology department faculty and staff say officials declined their request to hire an additional staff member, leaving existing employees stretched thin.

Officials in late February announced they were instating a “position management review process” to add an extra level of review during hiring and ensure GW stays within its budget in response to President Donald Trump’s recent executive actions targeted at higher education. Biology staff and faculty said officials denied their request to replace an administrative staff member who departed the University in late February, forcing existing staff and faculty, as well as staff from other departments, to assume additional responsibilities to cover the vacancy.

Guillermo Orti, the chair of the biological sciences department, said the University denied his request in the last month to hire an administrative staff member for the biology department after one of the department’s two staff members left the University in late February.

He said he “immediately” asked the University to backfill the position as they worked to hire a new staff member because the role is “critical” for the department’s success. But he said a few weeks later, University leadership denied his request until the end of the fiscal year because the position was “redundant.”

“The positions were always assigned to the department, and the need was always there for those positions,” Orti said. “These people are not spinning their wheels in their chairs. They’re performing an important function.”

He said officials likely believe they will be able to save money for the University by downgrading to fewer staff, but the divestment from staff could actually “hurt” the University’s revenue because the sparse employees become overburdened.

He said the former administrative staff member was in charge of scheduling, so he assumed the responsibility for the upcoming summer and fall semesters. He said the vacancy makes his department “less efficient” when scheduling classes, which could potentially in turn drive away some of the revenue that biology brings into the school. GW is a tuition-dependent institution, deriving 46 percent of its operating revenue in FY2024 from tuition.

He said taking on the additional work is “wasting” his time because he isn’t able to focus on his responsibilities as a professor.

“I’m wasting my big salary to do these administrative things when I should be doing sort of higher level activities like publishing papers or writing grant proposals or training my graduate students,” Orti said. “I don’t have the time to do that.”

University spokesperson Kathy Fackelmann said although GW has “deferred approval” of some requested positions across the University to the next fiscal year — which begins July 1 — University leadership has approved the “majority” of requests from departments. She said officials understand community concerns about workloads and hiring timelines, but the University is committed to recruiting and retaining top talent with “minimum disruptions.”

Fackelmann said officials will continue to evaluate the position review process and will communicate any decisions or adjustments in a “clear and transparent manner.”

She declined to comment on what steps officials are taking to ensure that employees are not regularly forced to take on tasks outside their job descriptions due to staffing gaps. She also declined to comment on whether officials have received any feedback or concerns from faculty or staff regarding the effects of the new process on hiring and promotions.

“The University appreciates the understanding, cooperation and flexibility of all our colleagues as we navigate these times together and support our shared community,” Fackelmann said in an email.

Biology department Supervisor Emily Lewis, who works as the department’s other administrative staff member, said many of the responsibilities that aren’t getting done due to the vacancy have fallen on her lap, even though she doesn’t have experience doing that work or the access in many of GW’s back systems — which are necessary to complete the tasks — because the University previously declined her access request.

She said the department struggled with scheduling classes for the upcoming semester after the former staff member left, and given she has no experience working on schedules, she’s had to call the former staff member “several” of times to ask for help.

“I feel awful doing that because he doesn’t work here anymore,” Lewis said. “This isn’t his job anymore.”

Lewis also said biology faculty have asked for her help on tasks like helping students receive a stipend, but she had to call on an anthropology department Administrator Lilly Smith, who had the necessary administrative experience, for assistance.

She said she is also leaving her role at GW next month, booting the department down to zero staff members who began the semester in the office. Lewis said the University approved biology’s request to backfill her position, but the hire will likely not be finalized until the time she leaves the position, meaning she likely won’t be able to train and transition the new employee.

She said she hopes the department will be “quiet in the summer,” which will allow the new staff member to learn the ropes of the position before the fall semester begins so the department can hire the necessary graduate assistants to support the department and graduate students can receive their stipends in time. Lewis said pushing through the hires and stipends will be a “huge problem” because the department doesn’t have the adequate number of staff to handle such a large task and it will likely fall on Smith, which isn’t fair.

“I honestly fear that it will impact other departments more than it will impact ours because if Lilly is working all the time on biology stuff, of which there is a lot more than anthropology stuff, then what’s happening to the anthropology stuff?” Lewis said.

Smith said she has taken on some of the responsibilities of the vacant administrative role in the biology department because she does the same work for the anthropology department and the two departments share an office space in the Science and Engineering Hall. She said she immediately offered her help to the biology department once they began their annual doctoral student awards and it became clear their position would go unfilled.

Smith said the University hasn’t offered to compensate her any additional funds for the role, but she’s “thankful” that since she is paid on an hourly rate so she can receive overtime payment for the additional work. She said she also has a part-time job and is a master’s student, which is stretching the little time she has outside of work very thin.

Smith said even though officials said they’ll reconsider whether it’s necessary for the position review policy to continue at the end of the fiscal year, it can take months for departments to interview candidates before they find the right person, and the department won’t be fully staffed until the beginning of the fall semester at the earliest.

“This will impact operations further down the line,” Smith said.