Without staffing, Office of Sustainability faces uncertain future
The Office of Sustainability (OoS) is currently functionally on pause.
Normally run by two full-time staff and a team of three to five interns, the office has been a pillar of the Georgetown environmental community since it was founded in 2013. The departure and movement of the office’s permanent staff, however, leaves the office waiting for direction.
Audrey Stewart, who has led the office as its director since its founding, left the university at the end of January to spend more time with her young son, according to a statement she sent to the
Georgetown University staff resist after being asked to take new public health roles or unpaid leave Lauren Lumpkin Staff at Georgetown University are railing against a program that asks them to temporarily take on health-related roles during the pandemic such as conducting wellness screenings, registering visitors to campus or security or go on unpaid leave. It comes as the school has designed a spring semester that will include about 200 hybrid courses, increased access to campus facilities and brought twice as many residential students to campus than in the fall. In preparation, the university revamped a program that places employees into temporary public-health-oriented jobs.
Staff members claim “Redeploy Georgetown” program forces them to become health screeners against their will
In a letter to administrators published on Jan. 26, Georgetown staff members accused the university of violating its Just Employment Policy by forcing employees to become public health screeners for Spring 2021 and taking away health benefits from those who refused to be repositioned.
These employees were selected as part of the university’s Redeploy Georgetown program, which seeks to reassign existing staff to new roles involving “visitor registration, wellness screening and perimeter access support” during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, staff members allege that Georgetown’s Human Resources (HR) department has used the threat of unpaid leave to coerce employees into positions where they are inadequately trained and vulnerable to COVID-19.