The GW
HATCHET
Pgs 7-8
May 12, 2025 Vol. 122
Iss. 1
Commencement Guide 2025
AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904 • ONLINE AT GWHATCHET.COM
University-wide budget cuts necessary to prevent layoffs, CFO says GIANNA JAKUBOWSKI ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Chief Financial Officer Bruno Fernandes defended officials’ decision to suspend merit-based salary increases and cut the University’s expense budget during Friday’s Faculty Senate meeting, calling it the “least disruptive” way to avoid “institutionalized” layoffs in response to faculty inquiries. Faculty senators questioned officials on their rationale for reducing the University’s fiscal year 2026 expense budget by 3 percent and freezing meritbased salary increases, pressing them on whether they considered alternative cuts. Fernandes said he and other officials will review all University expenses, including administrative costs, like consulting projects and executive salary increases, after each dean and division leader submits a 3 percent cut plan to preserve student resources. Provost Chris Bracey, Fernandes and Chief of Staff Scott Mory said in an email to faculty and staff late last month that GW will cut its FY2026 total expense budget by 3 percent to address a “structural deficit” after the University’s expenses have surpassed their current revenues in recent years, creating a “significant and unsustainable gap” that compounds annually. They also said usual merit-based staff salary increases will “not take place” in July, but officials plan to “revisit” the decision later in the year after determining fall enrollment revenues. “If we didn’t do this, then my concern would have been that we would have had to take stronger measures, which would have been more detrimental to the University,” Fernandes said at the meeting. Faculty Senator Ilana Feldman, a professor of anthropology, history and international affairs, asked officials what factors they considered when making the decision to halt merit salary
ELLA MITCHELL NEWS EDITOR
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The University’s medical arm is taking on the name of GW Medicine. Medical Faculty Associates spokesperson Anne Banner said officials are rebranding the MFA, a network of physicians who teach at the School of Medicine & Health Sciences and service medical centers including GW Hospital, to GW Medicine to represent the organization’s relationship with GW’s medical school. She said the rebrand has no set deadline for completion, but officials are incrementally implementing the title throughout this year and onward. “GW Medicine more accurately describes what we do, especially for our key target audiences, current and prospective patients,” Banner said in an email. As of May, University and MFA leaders have not made an official announcement of the rebrand. But the revamped moniker has established a virtual and physical presence, appearing
increases and if there were alternative cuts that could have been made. She also asked officials what they are looking to see, like enrollment increases, in order to reinstate merit-based salary increases for faculty and staff. Bracey said officials opted to halt staff and faculty merit salary increases instead of “more substantially” reducing the budget to combat higher education “headwinds” and a “structural deficit” from University expenses exceeding revenues in recent years. He said officials wanted to avoid faculty and staff layoffs while addressing the budget deficit by cutting expenses, like merit salary increases. Bracey said officials will resume faculty and staff’s merit increases if the University sees “liquidity” from boosted enrollment rates, particularly from graduate students. University President Ellen Granberg said the University would consider faculty’s performance reports
INSIDE
across the practice’s social media accounts and in its Ambulatory Care Center on the corner of 22nd and I streets. She said officials are using an “inside out” approach of first implementing the GW Medicine brand in spaces forward facing to the University community and later to broader public spaces. She said they are prioritizing the internal implementation to garner excitement for GW Medicine’s mission of “medicine, education and discovery.” Banner said officials “soft launched” the rebrand with SMHS’ Bicentennial Celebration, which began in early 2024. The name appeared in the GW Medicine Bicentennial Series in the 2024 fall and spring semesters — which included panels on heart health and speaker events on maintaining healthy skin — and the GW Medicine Bicentennial Excellence Awards in March, a recognition ceremony for MFA and SMHS faculty and staff. See MFA Page 4
NEWS A local governing body protested a Foggy Bottom smoke shop’s medical cannabis license Wednesday. Page 4
from this year for future years’s merit increase considerations since performance reviews are not being utilized this year. Faculty Senator Harris Mylonas, an associate professor of political science and international affairs, said officials previously stopped merit salary increases, including promotion salary increases, in 2020 due to budget challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. He asked officials if the current halt to merit-based increases applied to both faculty and staff and included promotion-related salary increases. Bracey said the pause on merit increases won’t affect promotion salary increases, though not stipulated in budget reduction announcement. He said officials wanted to “preserve” promotion increases, and officials should have stated “more expressly” in the announcement that promotion increases would not be affected. Bracey also confirmed that
the merit-based salary increase halts apply to both faculty and staff. Faculty Senator Jamie CohenCole, an associate professor of American studies, asked if the revenue the University receives from tuition increases will go to schools to reduce or avoid layoffs and maintain classes and student advising services. Cohen-Cole said officials spend “lots of money” on consulting projects, like for academic analytics, improving federal funding opportunities, severance pays to former executives and with current executive and executive staff salary increases. He asked Granberg, Bracey and Fernandes if they’ve considered reducing the budget in those areas to ensure additional cuts aren’t made to classes, advising and career staff, given students’ tuition keeps the University functioning. See BRACEY Page 4
GW Hospital appointed Edward Sim as interim CEO following the departure of former head Kim Russo last month, the Washington Business Journal reported Wednesday. Sim previously served as the executive vice president and president of the Acute Care Division of Universal Health Services, GW Hospital’s owner, a role he held since December 2022. Sims has worked in healthcare for about 30 years, most recently in management roles at both Baptist Health and Centura Health, headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla. and Centennial, Colo., respectively, according to his LinkedIn profile. As a chief operating officer at Centura Health, a role he held from July 2018 to November 2022, Sim led the system’s three operating groups, clinical delivery and shared services, which totaled about $5 billion in revenue, according to an October 2022 UHS release. Sims worked at Baptist Health for 11 years, according to his LinkedIn. He began as hospital president in October 2005 before hospital leadership promoted him to the role of president of physician integration in 2011. Former GW Hospital CEO Kimberly Russo began her stint as CEO in 2016, overseeing the construction of an additional 42-room trauma patient area in 2019 and spearheading UHS’s partnership with the D.C. government to open a new hospital, Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center GW Health, in Southeast D.C., which opened in April. Russo left her role at GW Hospital last month to take a position as chief executive of the central region of OSF HealthCare in Peoria, Illinois starting April 28, according to a company release. GW Hospital did not immediately return a request for comment regarding their progress in filling the role permanently. There is no CEO currently listed on the hospital’s website.
Faculty, staff rally on anniversary of proPalestinian encampment sweep
ARWEN CLEMANS | SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR The GWmedicine logo displayed in the lobby of the Medical Faculty Associates’ Ambulatory Care Center. WHAT’S
KYRA WOOD | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Provost Chris Bracey sits at a Faculty Senate meeting Friday.
MFA rebrands to GW Medicine from ‘inside out’ IANNE SALVOSA
GW Hospital names Edward Sim interim CEO
ELIJAH EDWARDS CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR
KHANH DANG
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Faculty, staff and students from GW and other D.C. universities marched to the White House on Thursday to protest the one-year anniversary of the Metropolitan Police Department clearing the pro-Palestinian encampment in University Yard. Protesters gathered at James Monroe Park on I Street at noon before marching past U-Yard and to the White House, holding “Hands off our students” signs and chanting “Professors united will never be defeated” as they condemned the anniversary of MPD clearing the pro-Palestinian encampment. Organizers from GW Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine called on GW to ban immigration agents from entering University buildings and for officials to divest from companies with financial ties to Israel. Senior Manny Blanco, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine, said he participated in the protest to commemorate the anniversary of MPD’s “raid” on “Shohada Square” — the name protesters gave to U-Yard during the encampment — and denounce President Donald Trump’s “campaign of terror” against non-citizen students. “It was important for the faculty of all the different District universi-
OPINIONS The editorial board argues its time that the GW community listen to and advocate for staff concerns. Page 5
KYRA WOOD | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Faculty and staff from schools across the DMV march past University Yard during a protest Thursday.
ties to recognize the one year anniversary of the raid in Shohada Square and U-Yard at GW, and that was something that affected students across the DMV,” Blanco said. “Professors, faculty and staff across the DMV felt that it was really important to come out here and say our demands haven’t changed.” Pro-Palestinian demonstrators, including faculty, staff and students, staged a 13-day encampment in U-Yard last spring to protest the war in Gaza and the University’s investments with companies that have ties to Israel. MPD arrested more than 30 protesters last May, including at least six GW students, when they cleared the encampment. In his speech, Blanco read a letter written in an Immigration and Cus-
toms Enforcement detention center by Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student who ICE agents arrested on March 8 and plan to deport, which Khalil said was due to his involvement as a negotiator in pro-Palestinian activities on Columbia’s campus. On April 11, an immigration judge in Louisiana — where Khalil is detained — ruled he can be deported as a “national security risk,” but legal hurdles remain as Khalil’s attorney informed a New Jersey federal judge he plans to appeal the decision. Blanco said he came to the protest to demand GW ban local police and immigration agents from entering campus buildings because the University has the power to deny the request of agents as a private institution.
SPORTS Catch up with Jonquel Jones, the basketball star delivering GW’s 2025 Commencement address. Page 6
“GW should not be complicit,” Blanco said. The U.S. Department of Justice antisemitism task force announced in February it will visit GW and nine other universities that reported “antisemitic incidents.” University officials have responded to the DOJ probe and agreed to participate in any inquiry by the Trump administration, according to a report by the Washington Post in late April. Around 12:20 p.m., demonstrators stopped on H Street in front of UYard, where officials had closed the gates, and began giving speeches as at least 10 MPD officers on bikes and six trailing police vehicles escorted them. At least seven GWPD officers stood in front of the fences during the demonstration to monitor the protesters.
CULTURE From senioritis to career pivots, dive into The Hatchet’s 2025 Commencement Guide. Page 7