Officials said community members feel the University’s key administrative processes are overly complicated and that there should be greater clarity around University decision-making, which will drive the Foundational Excellence Initiative’s priorities.
Health Policy and Management Professor Zoë Beckerman and Chief of Staff Scott Mory, who are leading the steering committee for the Foundational Excellence Initiative, said in a message Friday the group has heard through interviews and listening sessions with community members that GW’s administrative processes are too complicated, full of fragmented and repetitive systems and highly reliant on informal workarounds, which creates inefficiencies, unnecessary costs and burdens for community members. The committee’s findings come after officials launched the initiative earlier this year to identify opportunities for GW to manage costs, grow revenue for the University and improve the school’s overall operations.
“We have heard the need to simplify how GW operates — reducing unnecessary complexity, clarifying roles and decision pathways and strengthening opportunities for alignment across schools and units,” Beckerman and Mory said in the email.
GW’s Foundational Excellence Initiative is part of the strategic framework and is intended to help streamline GW’s internal processes and functions to improve the University’s long-term financial health. Officials launched the initiative to outline steps to clear the University’s current structural deficit and invest in the strategic framework, a move its website hints could lead to additional layoffs.
University President Ellen Granberg said in her pre-read report for Friday’s Faculty Senate the Huron Consulting Group, which officials hired in summer 2025, has a reputation for recommending layoffs and is aiding the steering committee’s work, has completed more than 50 interviews and held listening sessions for the initiative with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, Staff Council and Student Government Association. She also said Huron conducted a “tabletop exercise” with the GW Leaders Forum in April and will meet with assistant deans of research, finance directors and the Graduate Student Caucus in the coming weeks.
Beckerman and Mory said the committee has heard that GW relies too heavily on “informal workarounds” and “personal networks” to get things done across the University, which are difficult to maintain over time and can lead to burnout and low morale for faculty and staff. They said the committee has also found that several key administrative processes were unnecessarily complicated, which slows University decision-making.
Mory and Beckerman said community members have told the committee that GW has too many “fragmented” systems and data sources and “limited” access to information that can be used for planning and making administrative decisions. They said their findings also indicate that GW has “redundant” tools and platforms across divisions used for similar purposes, creating broader inefficiencies and unnecessary expenses.
“Taken together, we are hearing a strong desire for greater clarity and transparency of the financial, operational, and structural realities facing the university, so that decisions affecting our collective future are grounded in tested facts,” Beckerman and Mory said in the email.
Beckerman and Mory said the committee will be “testing” their ideas based on the feedback they’ve received with officials in early summer to ensure they align with the University’s goals and will work with the leaders of the units for which they are making recommendations to validate them and to understand barriers to their success. They said they will share their ideas with University leadership, the Faculty Senate, Staff Council and Student Government Association later in the summer for feedback before hosting community town halls on their proposed recommendations.
“As this work continues, we are focused on ensuring that decisions are grounded in evidence, aligned with GW’s long-term priorities, and considered through an institution-wide lens,” Beckerman and Mory said. “We remain committed to ongoing collaboration across the community, thoughtful stewardship of diverse perspectives, and clear, timely communication as opportunities are refined and decisions take shape.”
Granberg said during the initiative’s January launch that it came about as officials were developing the strategic framework, when they realized the University needed to improve its functions and strengthen GW’s financial health to meet the framework’s goals. Granberg said in an interview with The Hatchet at the time that officials added the strategic framework’s third priority — “Strengthening Our Foundation for Excellence” — after soliciting feedback from faculty and staff.
