Faculty and students said GW’s undergraduate GWTeach program is in limbo after three of four program leaders received imminent termination notices amid the school’s restructuring, leaving the program with one remaining tenured program director.
Graduate School of Education and Human Development’s Interim Dean Lionel Howard notified GWTeach’s three contract faculty — master teachers SuJin Choi, Meghan Hollibaugh Baker and co-director Jonathon Grooms — in a January email obtained by The Hatchet that said GSEHD would not be renewing their contracts due to “financial barriers” at the end of the spring semester. Five GWTeach students and two faculty members said administrators have not communicated any information about the program’s future besides the email, adding that the faculty departures could signal the program’s end.
A University spokesperson declined to confirm officials’ non-renewals of the three individuals’ contracts and said GW has not made a final decision on the future of the program. The spokesperson said officials are focused on continuing instruction and student support as GSEHD undergoes a “period of change.”
“Any adjustments will be made with careful attention to academic quality and student progress, and will be communicated as decisions are finalized,” the spokesperson said in an email.
They said the University is “continuing to work” with GWTeach leadership by holding discussions with faculty, staff and students.
Howard’s notification comes after GSEHD officials sent possible termination notices to 25 percent of the school’s contract faculty in June as part of restructuring because of the school’s continued declining enrollment, operational barriers and financial struggles. Following Howard’s January communication confirming the contract non-renewals, GSEHD Interim Academic Dean Jennifer Clayton sent out an email in March obtained by The Hatchet to the 25 percent of contract faculty detailing two attachments that “summarize” information related to faculty leaving GW.
“Will the students in the pipeline get the education and the experience they deserve? I say they will not,” GWTeach co-director and physics professor Gerald Feldman, who was the sole GWTeach faculty member who did not receive the notice, said. “If those people are gone, they will not.”
Feldman — who is not impacted by the contract non-renewals because he is tenured — said he emailed interim Provost John Lach in February and asked to speak with him after Howard sent GSEHD contract faculty follow-up termination emails, though Lach did not offer to set up a meeting.
“He basically gave a very short response and said, ‘I’m sure the GSEHD people are taking care of this,'” Feldman said.
Feldman said GSEHD launched GWTeach in 2015 as a replication of the UTeach model, a nationwide STEM teacher preparation and licensure program that originated at the University of Texas at Austin, and aims to expand the pipeline of secondary math and science teachers with a goal of producing more than 8,300 teachers by 2023. GW received a $1.45 million grant to implement the model and later sustained the program through donations and increased enrollment after the grant expired in 2023.
Feldman said GWTeach has consistently increased enrollment for “several” years — now with 116 students enrolled for the fall semester and 171 students enrolled this spring — despite GSEHD’s decline in graduate program enrollment.
“We are in a self-sustainable mode currently, and we’re about to be eradicated,” Feldman said.
Feldman said Choi and Hollibaugh Baker coordinate students’ volunteer teaching in D.C. public schools and are independent auditors of students’ candidacies for teacher licensure, serving as the final approval of students’ teaching portfolios and licensure exam scores. Feldman said he believes GSEHD faculty outside of GWTeach would be tasked with those extra responsibilities if GW does not renew the master teachers’ contracts, which he said would strain those faculty because they would take on extra work outside of their normal research and teaching commitments.
“You make the master teachers go away, the program goes away,” Feldman said.
Feldman said Howard and Clayton hosted a town hall on March 31 that left students who attended the forum “confused” because officials did not answer their questions about the fate of the GWTeach program, instead saying that “talks” about the program’s future were underway, also suggesting they email GSEHD with any feedback.
“I thought the information flow from the deans was almost non-existent,” Feldman said. “There was nothing useful coming from those people.”
Two of the three impacted GWTeach faculty did not return multiple requests for comment.
The third GWTeach faculty member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there are ongoing planning conversations about the future of the program between GWTeach faculty, GSEHD leadership and the Office of the Provost. The faculty member said they feel officials are not fully considering the solutions to GWTeach faculty presented regarding the program’s viability — including models based on enrollment projections, GWTeach’s current stability and context about the program’s structure and goals — because of a lack of dialogue in the planning conversations.
The faculty member said it is uncertain whether the program will continue as normal or enter a phase-out process, which would involve fewer class offerings and pausing minor declarations and new student enrollment, since officials have not provided further updates since Howard’s January email.
“My understanding is that there has been little evidence of negotiation,” the faculty member said in an email. “GSEHD leadership has not responded with counter proposals, requested revisions to meet specific targets or engaged in a back-and-forth process around viable solutions.”
The faculty members who received non-renewal notices are still listed as instructors for the majority of the courses according to the schedule of classes, with two of the five fall 2026 GWTeach classes full and waitlisted with students.
The faculty member said officials’ slow decision-making timeline has meant faculty feel unsupported even though they said they believe GSEHD leadership values the program.
“Preventing further harm requires recognizing that core faculty are essential to the program and should not be viewed as expendable due to their status as contract faculty,” the faculty member said.
Morgan Pyzynski — a senior studying public health with minors in disaster management and STEM teaching — said Howard and Clayton’s vague answers about the future of the program during the March town hall left her frustrated because they did not provide a timeline on when officials would make decisions about the program’s future.
“I’d rather have the University be honest about their stance and the actions that are going to happen going forward than leaving a lot of students in limbo,” Pyzynski said.
Pyzynski said Howard and Clayton confirmed at the town hall that students who have already declared a minor in STEM teaching would have the opportunity to finish the program, but did not name any specific information about the fate of the program — only that conversations between Howard, Clayton and program leadership are underway.
She said it is unclear which remaining GSEHD faculty could step in and teach the GWTeach curriculum, given the UTeach program model relies on teachers who have experience teaching in K-12 classrooms — a background she said many GSEHD faculty do not possess.
The University spokesperson declined to comment on who would replace the current GWTeach leadership to teach the GWTeach program courses in the fall and what specific changes regarding course offerings, class sizes and reducing program requirements would be implemented.
“The quality of the program is contingent on the support that students receive from master teachers and being able to understand why they might be giving certain advice beyond just what literature says,” Pyzynski said.
Jack Vore, a senior majoring in history with a minor in STEM teaching, said he was “saddened” by the impending faculty departures because GWTeach has been the highlight of his time at GW. Vore said GW often feels lonely and transactional, but GWTeach is the opposite by giving him a sense of community and deep connections with faculty.
“I was going to transfer out of this University before I became fully involved with GWTeach, and it really turned my life around,” Vore said.
Jacob Joyner, a senior studying mathematics with a minor in STEM teaching on the licensure track, said Grooms, Hollibaugh Baker and Choi’s departures will reshape the future of the program because GSEHD professors who would cover GWTeach classes after their departures have backgrounds in academia and theory, not classroom and behavioral management.
“In my opinion, GWTeach is gone after they leave,” Joyner said.
