It was with a mix of excitement and sadness that I left GW last May to take a position with more growth potential at another university. Excitement because I was growing and moving up in my career but sadness because I was leaving so many wonderful people and a community I truly cared about. During my time at GW, I served first as an operations assistant to two departments in the School of Engineering & Applied Science and then as a department supervisor for a large department in the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences. I also served on the Staff Council for two years. I loved my departments, positions and the people I worked with, but the University’s misguided priorities and a lack of transparency from top officials drove me to leave the University. 

Despite persistent faculty, staff and student calls for transparent leadership and communication, the University — through emails sent and signed by former Provost Chris Bracey — repeatedly tried to distract the community from the issues they raised. The community repeatedly asked for financial transparency, called to disarm the GW Police Department and requested that officials hire more staff to support its faculty and students. Bracey and other top officials actively ignored these concerns and suggestions, choosing to focus instead on unstated, unclear issues that were not in the best interest of the University community. When Bracey wrote to address the community’s concerns, he trivialized and downplayed the issues. He assured us the University would hire more staff and was in a fine financial state to do so last spring semester in an email sent to staff and faculty, making it seem that the community was overreacting to the looming financial issues and especially to high staff turnover and burnout at GW. Guidance that top University officials provided to the staff and faculty surrounding general issues has been largely nebulous, making it difficult for team, department and college leaders to manage their jurisdictions. This created deep distrust not only between the community at large and the administration but also between the different sections of the community. 

Particularly over the past year, many top officials at the provost and vice president-level have offloaded many of their responsibilities onto the college-level administrators. This has resulted in college-level administrators being forced to offload many of their responsibilities, like financial tracking and communication with departments and teams, onto department-level administrators and chairs without additional compensation. This behavior has burned out many staff and faculty and made it difficult, and at times almost impossible, for them to do their jobs.

As a staff member who worked tirelessly not only for the good of my department but also for my college and the University at large, it was truly disheartening to watch the institution actively work against itself. The University is spending far too much time, energy and resources on properties in and around the Foggy Bottom-area, while neglecting the student, faculty and staff experience. Again and again, the GW community watched as the administration hemorrhaged money to acquire yet another piece of real estate in Foggy Bottom, while at the same time the GW community was told the administration did not have the finances to make improvements to current buildings, hire more professors or give raises to hardworking staff that the administration has referred to repeatedly in emails to staff and in Staff Council meetings as the “backbone” of the University. 

The GW community has repeatedly watched the tuition at GW climb higher and higher, making it one of the most expensive institutions to attend, while at the same time paying its leaders more and more, including giving Bracey an undeserved $400,000 raise during the 2022 calendar year, and former University President Thomas LeBlanc, whose mismanagement of the University led the faculty to hold a vote of no confidence in him, an even more undeserved severance package. The GW community has seen all of this and made a note of where the administration’s priorities lie — and it’s not with the true betterment of the University, its faculty, staff or students but instead with acquiring property in the midst of a budgetary crisis.

Given the present realities faced by higher education as a result of actions taken by the federal government, the University needs to draw strength from its network. Instead, by not listening to its concerns, GW has been alienating that network, including alumni, who are no longer as motivated to give as they were 10 years ago. GW’s tuition is astronomical, driving away talented students. The lack of support from officials is being noticed by faculty, who are leaving the University or choosing not to bring their incredible skills and ground-breaking research to GW. The absence of investment in staff is no secret and continues to lead to poor morale, low motivation and a desire to leave the University for something better. As for the alumni, GW has such a strong, once-engaged base of alumni — fundamental to networking, opportunities, guidance and fundraising for GW. With the dissolution of the previous version of the GW Alumni Board and transition to the GW Alumni Council in 2018 to just GW Alumni this year, many alumni have mentioned to faculty and staff that they are feeling that their voices are no longer heard by the University. For many alumni who are associated with more than one institution, GW is no longer at the top of their list of places to support. 

Finally, I need to stress that this mess does not fall squarely on University President Ellen Granberg. On the contrary, this dates back to the disastrous tenure of LeBlanc, who led an era of gross financial and resource mismanagement at GW. As Granberg works to right the ship, it is imperative that she elevate those within the University with clear leadership and vision — as she has done with the interim provost — and that she bring in others from institutions that have weathered these storms and can provide tried and true ideas to get GW back on track. Granberg inherited a University desperately in need of administrative culture reforms, and she needs to work from the top down to rebuild a strong community and shore up the cracked and broken foundation that was in place when she arrived.

As I close, I call on the GW community — faculty, staff, students, alumni and parents — to speak up and work as allies for the betterment of the University. As a staff member at GW, I heard repeatedly from faculty, staff, students and alumni that the administration was not going to listen to their concerns. However, I feel strongly that if the community unites and refuses to succumb to the divide-and-conquer tactics of the former provost, positive change will happen. 

Emily Lewis is a former GW staff member and Staff Council member.