The GW
HATCHET
August 26, 2024 Vol. 121 Iss. 4
AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904 • ONLINE AT GWHATCHET.COM
Pro-Palestinian protesters march on first day of class
LeBlanc, Diaz received more than $900,000 in severance pay, tax forms show HANNAH MARR NEWS EDITOR
KELLEN HOARD REPORTER
Officials’ salaries increased from 2021 to 2022, with GW tacking on severance payments for former top employees, University tax forms show. The IRS requires all nonprofit organizations to report its revenues and expenses, including the compensation of up to 20 current key employees who make more than $150,000 a year from GW and “related organizations” using the Form 990, which discloses financial data from July 1 to June 30 each year. The form shows that four officials who left GW from June 2021 to June 2022 have received severance payments of between $338,000 to more than $1.1 million, and the University extended loan guarantees to the Medical Faculty Associates that now total more than $300 million. The form reveals that GW paid former interim University President Mark Wrighton a salary of about $1.3 million and raised Provost Chris Bracey’s compensation by almost $400,000 during the 2022 calendar year. The University also paid about 53 percent more in legal fees during the Fiscal Year 2023, dishing out $11.6 million to firms compared to $7.6 million the previous year, according to the form. Here is a breakdown of the University’s latest public financial disclosure:
Severance pay
The forms show that since 2022, former University President Thomas LeBlanc, former Chief Financial Officer Mark Diaz, former Head Basketball Coach Jamion Christian and former General Counsel Beth Nolan received severance payments of at least $1,167,000, $976,440, $774,228 and $338,250, respectively. LeBlanc left GW in December 2021 after serving as president for four years, which culminated with widespread calls for his resignation from faculty members who felt his leadership did not match the University’s core values. He came under fire from faculty who criticized officials for violating principles of shared governance with his 20/30 plan, which proposed decreasing the
HANNAH MARR NEWS EDITOR
JENNA LEE
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
GRAPHIC BY AN NGO
undergraduate population by nearly 20 percent and increasing the proportion of STEM students to about 30 percent of GW’s population. LeBlanc made $1,527,713 during his last year in office, a $280,910 pay increase from the year before. LeBlanc hired Diaz in August 2018 after working with him at the University of Miami from 2005 to 2017. In an April 2022 survey, faculty members reported an “overwhelmingly negative” view of GW leadership, with Diaz being mentioned in a negative light by 62 survey participants. In January 2020, Diaz also came under criticism from faculty over the 20/30 plan, with some faculty senators saying the move would force GW to take on more debt to account for lost revenue. Diaz left the University in June 2022, after making $1,318,578 in 2021. CFO Bruno Fernandes said in March that GW still pays Diaz for consulting on arrangements with Universal Health Services, which has owned GW Hospital since 2022. GW fired Christian — who joined the University in 2019 —
and his three assistant coaches in March 2022 after poor performance and the basketball team’s third-consecutive losing season. Christian made $725,851 during his final year at GW. Nolan, the first of the four officials to depart, retired and left the University in June 2021 after leading GW’s legal services for almost 14 years. Nolan made $654,360 during her last year. A University spokesperson declined to comment on how the University determined the four former employees’ severance payments.
Compensation of top officials
Officials paid Wrighton $1,293,735 between January and December 2022 — $1,210,000 in base compensation and $83,735 in nontaxable benefits, per the form. The interim former president’s income during his term, which began on Jan. 1, 2022 and ended on June 30, 2023, remained slightly lower than LeBlanc’s in three of his four years in the role, excluding 2020 when LeBlanc took a pay cut due to the onset of COVID-19. Before his stint at GW, Wrigh-
ton served as the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis from 1995 until 2019, collecting more than $2.8 million in total compensation from his 24 years in office. The form did not include University President Ellen Granberg’s compensation because she began her tenure on July 1, 2023, the first day of the 2023-2024 tax cycle. Bracey saw a $391,811 pay bump in the 2022-2023 tax cycle, earning $966,960 compared to $575,149 the previous year. When asked for comment on the pay bump, a University spokesperson pointed to Bracey’s transition from interim to permanent provost in February 2022. Vice President for Health and Dean of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences Barbara Bass earned $1,399,361, a $74,444 raise from the year prior. Professor and Director of GW Online Engineering Programs Shahram Sarkani earned $1,278,666, a $64,127 raise from the 2021-2022 tax cycle. Sarkani is the highest-paid professor at the University, per the form. See OFFICIALS Page 4
Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside University President Ellen Granberg’s on-campus house and the barricades surrounding University Yard on the first day of the fall semester to underscore ongoing demands that GW discloses its finances and divests from Israel. At 6 p.m. on Thursday, about 100 demonstrators gathered at James Monroe Park on the corner of 20th and I streets to hear speeches from GW pro-Palestinian student organization representatives and D.C. activist groups before marching to Granberg’s F Street House, and then to the barricades that officials installed around U-Yard following the pro-Palestinian encampment in the spring. At the beginning of the protest, University security personnel asked students in U-Yard to leave and closed the gates, which are supposed to remain open daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. One security officer guarding Kogan Plaza told Hatchet reporters not to walk through the area but officials did not erect any barriers to block off the space during the protest. Officials had previously fenced off Kogan during the encampment in the spring before removing them on July 14. The rally and march marked the first pro-Palestinian protest of the semester promoted to the public via social media. More than a dozen protesters gathered for an unannounced demonstration at the National Mall Kickback orientation event Wednesday with signs like “GW funds genocide” and voluntarily dissipated after roughly an hour. See DEMONSTRATORS Page 4
SAGE RUSSELL | SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR Protesters march up 20th Street to University Yard.
MFA searches for new CFO nine months after filling role HANNAH MARR NEWS EDITOR
GW is seeking a new chief financial officer for the Medical Faculty Associates less than a year after officials hired the former CFO. Robin Nichols began her role as CFO on Oct. 16, 2023, and officials listed a job posting for her position on July 2, fewer than nine months after she assumed the position. School of Medicine and Health Sciences Dean Barbara Bass, who also served as the MFA’s CEO until May, said in February that she hoped new “expertise” in MFA leadership, including Nichols, would make “tough moves” by the end of the fiscal year to begin paying off the organization’s $200 million debt to GW. Nichols declined to comment on why she left the University because of a non-
disclosure agreement she signed that prevents her from speaking about GW but confirmed Thursday that she is no longer working for GW. Nichols’ LinkedIn states that she still holds the position. The job posting lists the salary range for the role as $290,900 to $589,900. Former CFO Lance Kaplan made $482,236 between July 1 2022 and his departure in February 2023, according to the MFA’s tax forms. The CFO is responsible for balancing short-term and long-term strategic objectives to maximize the MFA’s financial performance as well as developing models that respond to new financial or operational circumstances, according to the posting. GW took the reins of the MFA in 2018 and acquired governing power over the nonprofit physician group, replacing its
leaders in the following years with officials like Bass and outside hires. By early this year, the MFA was floundering close to a $250 million deficit since fiscal year 2020, and GW has paid for their losses out of pocket, granting loans to the MFA that total almost to $200 million. In 2022 and 2023, officials have projected the MFA would break even during the year and walked back those forecasts months later. GW CFO Bruno Fernandes said in February 2024 that he expects the MFA to lose between $30 million and $50 million in FY2024. Bass said in a September press release that Nichols would be a “great asset” to their organization because she understood the intricacies of day-to-day finances, as well as how to drive long-term strategy and vision. “She is a highly sought after senior ex-
ecutive leader with an expansive career and involvement in national CFO networks,” Bass said in September. The MFA brought Nichols into the enterprise after Kaplan left the CFO role in February 2023. GW hired Bill Elliott in May to replace Bass as interim CEO to provide full-time leadership in both the MFA and SMHS that officials hoped would enhance the “integrated performance” of the GW academic medical enterprise by allowing Bass to focus solely on SMHS while Elliott focuses on the MFA. Elliott’s appointment as CEO marks the third time in the last decade that the MFA has changed its executive management. The MFA brought in Robert Kelly as a new CEO in January 2017 after terminating former CEO Stephen Badger, who held the position for more than 15 years.
Five CLRE central office staff left GW this summer, per web archives RORY QUEALY NEWS EDITOR
Five Campus Living and Residential Education central office staff left GW this summer, shrinking the department’s leadership
from 16 to 11 employees, according to website archives. Assistant Vice Provost for Student Support and Residential Engagement Kevin Stensberg will leave the University next month after working at GW for about
LEXI CRITCHETT | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR A student passes in front of Amsterdam Hall, which houses the Campus Living & Residential Education Office.
a year, making him the second CLRE department leader to leave in fewer than four months after former Campus Living Director Dan Wright left in June. The departures of Stensberg and Wright leave two of the four highest leadership positions in CLRE vacant. Stensberg oversaw the Residential Education branch of the department and officials hired Kyle Johnson in March to serve as director of Residential Education — a position that had been left unfilled for more than a year. Seth Weinshel, the associate vice president of business services, leads the Campus Living team, which now lacks a director without Wright. The Campus Living director typically oversees on-campus housing facilities and housing registration while the Residential Education director leads residential programming and student leadership opportunities, according to CLRE’s website. A University spokesperson declined to comment on how CLRE will adjust its operations to ac-
count for leadership vacancies and what positions, if any, would absorb the responsibilities associated with Wright’s director role. Officials posted a job listing for Wright’s role in late May and removed the posting in early August. The page doesn’t list a job posting for Stensberg’s role. The spokesperson declined to comment on if officials plan to announce a replacement for Stensberg. Stensberg will become the interim senior student affairs officer and dean of students at Bemidji State University effective Sept. 3, according to a BSU release. Wright will join the University of Michigan’s housing office, a University spokesperson said in June. Residence Hall Association President Andrew Levin said staff turnover within CLRE is “par for the course” at GW. He said sometimes he will work on an RHA initiative with a University employee within the Division for Student Affairs — which houses CLRE — and discover a few months later
that the employee left. “It can be difficult to know who to go to, just because of these changes,” Levin said. One of CLRE’s seven assistant directors also left the University this summer. Mitchell Foster, the unit’s former assistant director of equity and assessment, took a position in July at Saint Mary’s College of California as the director of its Intercultural Center. Two of CLRE’s three housing associates — who contribute to supervising student staff and executing housing operations and assignments alongside assistant directors — departed GW this summer. Former Front Desk Operations Housing Associate Trennise Harrison left in July and former Communications and Summer Operations Housing Associate Alexandria Vieux left in May, according to their LinkedIns. “The University’s residential experience is designed to help students partake in a safe, inclusive, community-oriented environment,” the spokesperson said.