Tag: staff

  • Professional services staff need equal recognition – visibility in sector data would be a good start

    Professional services staff need equal recognition – visibility in sector data would be a good start

    Achieving recognition for the significant contribution of professional services staff is a collaborative, cross-sector effort.

    With HESA’s second consultation on higher education staff statistics welcoming responses until 3 April, AGCAS has come together with a wide range of membership bodies representing professional services staff across higher education to release a statement warmly welcoming HESA’s proposal to widen coverage of the higher education staff record to include technical staff and professional and operational staff.

    By creating a more complete staff record, HESA aim to deliver better understanding of the diverse workforce supporting the delivery of UK higher education. AGCAS, together with AHEP, AMOSSHE, ASET, CRAC-Vitae, NADP and UMHAN, welcome these proposals. We have taken this collaborative approach because we have a common goal of seeking wider recognition for the outstanding contributions and work of our members in professional services roles, and the impact they make on their institutions, regions, graduates and students.

    A matter of visibility

    Since the 2019–20 academic year, higher education providers in England and Northern Ireland have had the option to return data on non-academic staff to HESA. However, this has led to a lack of comprehensive visibility for many professional services staff. In the 2023–24 academic year, out of 228 providers only 125 opted to return data on all their non-academic staff – leaving 103 providers opting out.

    This gap in data collection has raised concerns about the recognition and visibility of these essential staff members – and has not gone unnoticed by professional services staff themselves. As one AGCAS member noted:

    Professional service staff have largely remained invisible when reporting on university staff numbers. Professional services provide critical elements of student experience and outcomes, and this needs to be recognised and reflected better in statutory reporting.

    This sentiment underscores the importance of the proposed changes by HESA, and the reason for our shared response.

    Who is and is not

    A further element of the consultation considers a move away from the term “non-academic” to better reflect the roles and contributions of these staff members and proposes to collect data on staff employment functions.

    Again, we collectively strongly support these proposed changes, which have the potential to better understand and acknowledge the wide range of staff working to deliver outstanding higher education across the UK. The term non-academic has long been contentious across higher education. While continuing to separate staff into role types may cause issues for those in the third space, shifting away from a term and approach that defines professional services staff by othering them is a welcome change.

    As we move forward, it is essential to continue fostering collaboration and mutual respect between academic and professional services staff. Challenging times across higher education can create or enhance partnership working between academic and professional services staff, in order to tackle shared difficulties, increase collaboration and form strategic alliances.

    A better environment

    By working in this way, we can create a more inclusive and supportive environment that recognises the diverse contributions of all staff members, ultimately enhancing outcomes for all higher education stakeholders, particularly students.

    Due to the nature of our memberships, our shared statement focuses on professional services staff in higher education – but we also welcome the clear focus on operational and technical staff from HESA, who again make vital contributions to their institutions.

    We all know that representation matters to our members, and the higher education staff that we collectively represent. HESA’s proposed changes could help to start a move towards fully and equitably recognising the vital work of professional services staff across higher education. By expanding data collection to include wider staff roles and moving away from the term “non-academic”, we can better understand and acknowledge the wide range of contributions that support the higher education sector.

    This is just the first step towards better representation and recognition, but it is an important one.

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  • Body cams, staff to carry ID, change of culture: TEQSA draft rules for protests, student complaints

    Body cams, staff to carry ID, change of culture: TEQSA draft rules for protests, student complaints

    Security stand in front of a pro-Israel protest at the University of Sydney on May 3, 2024. Picture: David Swift



    By: Erin Morley

    in Industry & Research, Top Stories


    March 19, 2025

    Universities will be expected to publish de-identified complaints data publicly, make student complaints processes clearer, and analyse the data twice a year if the university regulator’s interim guidelines for student complaints mechanisms are adopted.

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  • Staff furloughs sweep EducationUSA

    Staff furloughs sweep EducationUSA

    Effective March 14, the Institute of International Education (IIE) announced that it had been forced to furlough the majority of EducationUSA staff and employees of other ECA-funded programs, as it struggles to maintain operations under the Trump administration.

    “Over the past several weeks, IIE has been impacted by a myriad of external changes, requiring us to quickly adapt and to respond to the evolving needs of multiple stakeholders.

    “Numerous factors, including Executive Orders, program suspensions, and changes in the payments and processes of the US Department of State have impacted our operations,” IIE’s EducationUSA team wrote in a staff update.

    The US State Department’s flagship study abroad network added that it had taken the “difficult but necessary” step of dismissing all but two domestic staff members to maintain operations. Regional managers outside the US will also have limited scope, said EducationUSA.  

    The organisation emphasised that the program had not been cancelled or cut, but that funding remained frozen, limiting the institute’s ability to retain full staffing levels.

    It is unclear how many employees have been affected in total, let alone when or even whether their jobs will resume.  

    Further programs implicated in the furloughs include the Fulbright, Humphrey and Gilman scholarships, which rely on funding from the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) that was frozen by the State Department on February 12 and has not yet resumed.

    Intended as a temporary 15-day pause on federal funding, the Trump administration provided no rationale for the freeze, with stakeholders warning the measure threatened the survival of US study abroad.

    For decades, EducationUSA has been a cornerstone of global engagement

    Fanta Aw, NAFSA

    In a public statement, IIE said it regretted the workforce reduction but that it remained “hopeful that this is temporary and that we will be able to resume full staffing levels soon”.  

    “Our priority is to ensure that students and scholars continue to be able to have life-changing international educational opportunities,” it added.  

    There has been an outpouring of support from colleagues, facing unprecedented challenges under the Trump administration, which recently cut 50% of Education Department staff and proposed a ban on all Chinese study visas, alongside the financial freeze crippling study abroad.  

    “This is another pivotal moment for international education in the US,” said NAFSA CEO Fanta Aw: “For decades, EducationUSA has been a cornerstone of global engagement, providing students, families, and institutions worldwide with trusted, reliable guidance on US higher education.” 

    “We must do all we can to preserve and strengthen this critical program,” wrote Aw on LinkedIn.  

    With a network of over 430 international student advising centres across more than 175 countries and territories, the impact of staff furloughs at EducationUSA will be widespread, with operations largely ceasing across the globe.

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  • U.S. Department of Education slashes staff

    U.S. Department of Education slashes staff

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    The U.S. Department of Education announced March 11 that it’s cutting its workforce nearly in half–a move that Education Secretary Linda McMahon said is a first step toward eliminating the department.

    Roughly a third of staff will lose their jobs through a “reduction in force,” the department said in a press release. Combined with voluntary buyouts, the Education Department will have just under 2,200 employees by the end of the month, compared with 4,133 when President Donald Trump took office with promises to shutter the department.

    The layoffs represent a significant escalation of Trump’s efforts to reduce the department’s role in education, which is mostly run by states and school districts. Already, the administration has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts that paid for education research, technical assistance to states and school districts, and teacher training programs.

    Affected staff will be placed on administrative leave starting March 21, the department said. Ahead of the announcement, workers were told to leave the office by 6 p.m. Tuesday and that the office would remain closed until Thursday “for security reasons.” McMahon later said this was standard corporate process when layoffs occur.

    “Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” McMahon said in a press release. “I appreciate the work of the dedicated public servants and their contributions to the Department. This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”

    The Education Department administers major federal funding programs such as Title I, which provides extra money to high-poverty schools, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which supports special education. It also investigates civil rights complaints and oversees an accountability system that pushes states to identify low-performing schools and provide them with additional resources.

    Exactly how the layoffs will affect specific programs was not immediately clear. A former Education Department staffer, who spoke with Chalkbeat on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information, said the entire Office for Civil Rights teams based in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, Boston and New York were let go. That represents half of regional civil rights offices.

    The department said all divisions are affected but did not describe specific positions that were eliminated. In the press release, department officials said all functions required by law will continue.

    Only Congress can eliminate the department, but such deep cuts could leave the department a shell of its former self.

    Appearing on “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News shortly after the layoffs were announced, McMahon said Trump had given her a clear mandate to shutter the department. She said she would work with Congress to do that. Immediately cutting these positions would help the federal government send more money to the states, she said.

    “I said ‘OK we have to identify where the bloat is, where the bureaucracy is, and we’re going to start there,’ McMahon said. “We need to make sure that that money does get to the states.”

    Trump is expected to sign an executive order to start the process of eliminating the department, but has not yet done so. Conservatives say that for decades the department has failed to adequately address low academic performance and is a bloated bureaucracy.

    On Fox, McMahon reassured viewers that programs such as IDEA would still be funded through congressional appropriations. Asked what IDEA stood for, McMahon responded, “I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what it stands for except that it’s programs for disabled needs. It’s my fifth day on the job, and I’m really trying to learn quickly.”

    Conservative state school chiefs said in a letter to McMahon last month that they need more flexibility in how to use federal money, rather than following complex rules that ensure specific funding streams benefit certain student groups.

    Public education advocates fear that if money flows unrestricted to states, there’s no guarantee it will help the most vulnerable students. Even without an executive order, they worry that administrative changes could affect the department’s ability to perform basic functions.

    Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, condemned the layoffs.

    “Denuding an agency so it cannot function effectively is the most cowardly way of dismantling it,” she said in a statement. “The massive reduction in force at the Education Department is an attack on opportunity that will gut the agency and its ability to support students, throwing federal education programs into chaos across the country.”

    Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employee Local 252, which represents 2,800 Education Department employees, said the union will fight back against the layoffs and against what she called a misinformation campaign about the department’s work.

    “We must ask our fellow Americans: do you want your and your children’s rights enforced in school? Do you want your children to have the ability to play sports in their school districts? Do you need financial aid for college? Are you a fellow civil servant that relies on student loan forgiveness? Does your school district offset property taxes with federal funding?” she said in a statement.

    “If yes, then you rely on the Department of Education, and the services you rely on and the employees who support them are under attack.”

    Shortly after she was confirmed, McMahon sent a message to Education Department staff describing a “final mission” that would affect staffing, budgets, and agency operations.

    Department staff were given one-time offers of up to $25,000 to retire or resign in advance of a “very significant reduction in force.” More than 500 employees took some form of buy out.

    Another 1,300 employees are losing their jobs through the reduction in force, McMahon announced.

    Employees who are laid off will be paid through June 9.

    This story has been updated to include comments from Linda McMahon on Fox News, reaction to the layoffs, and additional information about affected offices.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

    For more on education policy, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership hub.

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  • Community College of Philadelphia staff schedule strike authorization vote (CBS Philadelphia)

    Community College of Philadelphia staff schedule strike authorization vote (CBS Philadelphia)







    Higher Education Inquirer : Community College of Philadelphia staff schedule strike authorization vote (CBS Philadelphia)




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  • Education Department to reduce staff by nearly half

    Education Department to reduce staff by nearly half

    The Department of Education is expected to lay off nearly half its workforce as of Tuesday.

    J. David Ake/Getty Images

    The Education Department is moving to lay off nearly 50 percent of its more than 4,100 employees as of Tuesday evening, according to four sources inside the agency who were told about the plans.

    It’s not yet clear what specific departments or positions were affected, though officials planned to tell affected employees this evening, sources told Inside Higher Ed. The department previously offered employees buyouts to cut down the workforce. The goal to reduce staff by 50 percent includes prior reductions. Those affected will receive 90 days’ severance and will have 10 days to transfer their job duties to another staffer or political appointee, according to a longtime staffer with inside knowledge of the reduction-in-force details.

    The department said in its announcement that the employees will be placed on administrative leave, starting March 21, and that core programs such as distributing student loans and Pell Grants will continue.

    “Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”

    The Washington Post reported that 1,315 employees would lose their jobs, in addition to the roughly 600 who took the buyouts. The reductions will bring the total workforce down to fewer than 2,200.

    Earlier on Tuesday, the department told staff that D.C. offices will be closed Wednesday and reopen Thursday for “security reasons,” according to an email obtained by Inside Higher Ed. One staffer said they were told by department officials that the closure was due to the reduction in force.

    The email instructed department staff to take their laptops home with them on Tuesday in order to telework Wednesday, and that they would “not be permitted in any ED facility on Wednesday, March 12th, for any reason.”

    Some department staff were notified of the impending layoffs during meetings with top department officials—including an acting deputy secretary—on Tuesday afternoon, according to sources inside the department who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on background.

    Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents over 2,800 workers at the Department of Education, pledged to fight the cuts in a statement released Tuesday evening. Smith said that the Trump administration “has no respect for the thousands of workers who have dedicated their careers to serve their fellow Americans.”

    “We will not stand idly by while this regime pulls the wool over the eyes of the American people,” Smith added. “We will state the facts. Every employee at the U.S. Department of Education lives in your communities—we are your neighbors, your friends, your family. And we have spent our careers supporting services that you rely on.”

    The expected cuts are part of a governmentwide strategy to reduce the federal workforce. All federal agency officials were told last month to start preparing for a “large scale reduction in force” and to eliminate all “non-statutorily mandated functions.”

    While the government layoffs are far-reaching, President Trump has frequently targeted the Education Department for cuts, even vowing to shut down the agency. That would require congressional action, but Trump and McMahon can make deep cuts to the agency even if they don’t abolish it altogether.

    Trump is reportedly planning to sign an executive order directing McMahon to “take all necessary steps” to return authority over education to the states and facilitate closure of the Department of Education “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” according to draft text reviewed by Inside Higher Ed.

    Higher education groups and advocates have warned that cutting staff and programs at the department would be catastrophic for institutions and students, though critics say the agency is in need of a serious overhaul. State higher education officials, university administrators, nonprofit advocacy groups and students depend on the Education Department to oversee federal student aid, manage the student loan portfolio, investigate civil rights complaints and allocate billions of dollars in institutional aid, among other operations. The department, which has an $80 billion discretionary budget, issues about $100 billion in student loans every year and more than $30 billion in Pell Grants.

    The massive personnel cuts—the largest in the department’s history—will likely impact most agencies and offices in the department, including the Office of Federal Student Aid, sources say. Within FSA, the cuts will be most severe among teams that work directly on policy and higher education oversight, including the Ombudsman Office, which investigates complaints into student loan practices and financial aid.

    Staffers at the Education Department have been anticipating the reduction in force for the past week. Last Tuesday, department leaders called a meeting to discuss the impending layoffs but canceled at the last minute. Meanwhile, staff have been awaiting the executive order from Trump to close down the department since last Wednesday.

    “Everyone’s ready,” one exhausted staffer told Inside Higher Ed.

    Other federal agencies have started to lay off thousands of employees via a planned reduction in force, a process that should give them 60 days’ notice. At the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump expects 65 percent of the workforce to go, according to Government Executive, a trade publication tracking the layoffs. Last week, the Veterans Affairs Department said it was laying off 80,000 people.

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  • La Trobe University uncovers $10m in underpayments to staff

    La Trobe University uncovers $10m in underpayments to staff

    Anna Booth said the university has demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying noncompliance issues. Picture: Martin Ollman



    By: NCA Newswire

    in Top Stories, Workforce


    March 10, 2025

    La Trobe University will fork out more than $10m to cover the underpayments of 6700 staff, after investigations found the institution had failed to properly pay employees over a seven-year period.

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  • Education Department staff anxiously await sweeping cuts

    Education Department staff anxiously await sweeping cuts

    It’s been a whirlwind week at the Department of Education, and some career staffers are anguished over its bleak, uncertain future.

    On Monday, the Senate confirmed Linda McMahon as the new secretary of education, and shortly afterward, she released a memo laying out department personnel’s “final mission”: “the elimination of bureaucratic bloat here at the Department of Education.”

    The next day, department leaders scheduled a meeting to announce a major reduction in force, which current staffers say is rumored to include layoffs of nearly 50 percent of the workforce—but the meeting was canceled at the last minute, according to a department employee.

    Then, on Wednesday, media outlets, citing sources in the administration, reported that President Trump would sign an executive order to abolish the Education Department as soon as Thursday, sending frenzied staffers scrambling to prepare.

    When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Thursday morning on X that Trump wouldn’t be signing the order that day after all, one staffer said it felt like cruel misdirection.

    “It’s definitely feeling like whiplash,” they said. “Folks had steeled themselves for today … Everyone seems ready to rip off the Band-Aid, and the delay feels like a game to torture people.”

    Several current department employees, who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on background and on the condition of anonymity, offered a chaotic picture of upheaval and uncertainty within the department, with staff scrambling to prepare for the dissolution of their offices, even as the administration’s plans and timeline remain unclear.

    One current employee told Inside Higher Ed that McMahon’s memo announcing the administration’s plan to downsize the department was “insulting and antagonizing.”

    “The notion that we should be honored to undertake this ‘final mission’ is absurd,” they said. “It’s basically saying, ‘You should thank us for firing you.’”

    One career staffer who’s been with the department for more than a decade said most employees are anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop. Over the past few weeks, they said, anger and indignation have turned to heartbreak.

    “Reality is sinking in everywhere … Folks are seriously depressed,” they said. “And yet, working to advance the goals of this administration may actually be worse than not having a job.”

    ‘Slash and Burn’

    Trump has advocated for eliminating the 45-year-old Education Department since the early days of his campaign. When he nominated McMahon as secretary, he said he hoped she would “put herself out of a job.” Still, many department employees were taken aback by the sudden escalation.

    The longtime staffer said that when Trump was inaugurated, they anticipated some serious changes at the department. But the speed and wantonness of the move to abolish it has surprised them.

    “I foolishly believed they’d try to take a studied approach to any changes, consult with seasoned career staffers with institutional knowledge and expertise,” they said. “Instead it’s slash and burn.”

    Last week, the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management directed all federal agencies to prepare for “large-scale reductions in force” and the elimination of “non-statutorily mandated functions,” which could be a precursor to the Trump administration’s plans to heavily reduce the head count at Education Department as much as possible without congressional approval.

    A draft of Trump’s forthcoming executive order, obtained by Inside Higher Ed, includes a two-paragraph guideline for winding down department activity and little else. James Kvaal, who served as under secretary of education under President Joe Biden, said the absence of a plan is revealing and concerning.

    “[The document] reflects a lack of clarity within the Trump administration about what they’re trying to do, or even disagreement among certain elements,” Kvaal said.

    Department staffers are concerned about the administration’s strategy for implementing its ambitious spending cuts. One employee who spoke with Inside Higher Ed was placed on administrative leave last month and said their experience was “chaotic and haphazard.” The staffer said cuts to programs, contracts and personnel have been largely left up to a small group of young Department of Government Efficiency employees, whose approach has been “like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what they can get away with.”

    They said that if the Trump administration’s approach to cuts at the department so far is any indication how they will handle plans to gut the department, it could exacerbate the impact on students and educational institutions.

    “Nobody is going to know what’s happening, which means zero accountability,” they said. “It’s going to be a mess.”

    DOGE has already canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in department contracts, including some that are essential to the operation of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. And sources within the department say that hundreds of Federal Student Aid staff have either taken a buyout or been placed on leave.

    A current department employee who specializes in higher education said they fear that the department’s closure—or the major cuts that precipitate it—will have a devastating impact on the sector, and on affordability and access in particular.

    “There’s going to be a huge setback in the progress we’ve made even just in terms of who gets to go to college,” they said. “Universities are being put on such a high alert on every front … it’s a wholesale attack on the sector.”

    Kvaal said that even under Biden, the department in general—and the student aid office in particular—were severely understaffed, a problem that he has said contributed to the bungled rollout of the new FAFSA last year. He added that further reductions could hobble agencies’ capacity to perform essential duties like student loan and aid disbursement.

    “The department was thinly staffed even prior to these cuts, and as a result it was difficult to run programs smoothly and deliver benefits that students needed,” he said. “If there are, in fact, hundreds of people leaving FSA, that could put our progress with FAFSA at risk and upend our efforts to prevent student loan defaults. If nothing else, asking senior managers to focus on nudging their staff out the door and preparing for legislation that will never come is a real distraction.”

    Both Kvaal and current employees are concerned that when the Trump administration does release concrete plans for distributing the department’s responsibilities, they will welcome the private sector into administering services like student loans and financial aid.

    “It seems like the longer-term goal here would be to privatize the FSA, like they’re doing with Social Security,” one staffer said. “That’s a mess waiting to happen and would take way longer than four years. In the interim, the damage could be enormous.”

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  • Q&A: Bill Shorten talks VC pay cuts, student happiness, and giving UC staff hope

    Q&A: Bill Shorten talks VC pay cuts, student happiness, and giving UC staff hope




    By: Erin Morley

    in Features, Top Stories, VC’s corner


    March 3, 2025

    The new vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra (UC) Bill Shorten said universities will never make everybody happy, but they should do their best to try.

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  • Federally run tribal colleges reel from staff cuts

    Federally run tribal colleges reel from staff cuts

    Native American education advocacy groups are calling on the Trump administration to spare Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute from employee cuts, after the Office of Personnel Management ordered federal agencies to lay off most probationary employees.

    The two tribal colleges are the only ones operated by the Bureau of Indian Education rather than tribal nations, making them vulnerable to the administration’s federal workforce reductions.

    At Haskell Indian Nations University, about 40 people have already lost their jobs across campus departments, out of about 160 employees, according to a Monday letter from the Haskell Board of Regents to the U.S. Department of the Interior. The board urged in the letter that the university be exempt from the staff cuts. The Lawrence Times reported that the institution has had to postpone or cancel some campus events. Meanwhile, roughly 20 employees were laid off at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, out of a staff of about 100, according to Indian Country News.

    Pearl Yellowman, the former vice president of operations at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, who was recently laid off, told the Native American news outlet that one department has only a single employee left.

    “Our students are going to say, ‘Where’s my instructor?’ ‘What happened to my class?’ ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Is my future of being a student OK here?’ ‘Where’s my tutor?’ ‘What happened to this person?’ ‘Are my scholarships in jeopardy?’ ‘Is my financial aid in jeopardy?’” Yellowman told Indian Country News.

    Ahniwake Rose, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, said in a news release that “there are legitimate concerns that workforce reduction at these institutions will eliminate vital services and much-needed educational programs the students need to complete their degree programs.”

    Jason Dropik, executive director of the National Indian Education Association, emphasized in the release that the Bureau of Indian Education has a “federal trust obligation to educate Native youth.”

    “Significant workforce reductions will negatively impact students and have long-term educational consequences for our Tribal Nations,” he said.

    For Haskell, this isn’t the first time the university’s status as a federally run tribal college has been a source of tension. Kansas lawmakers have recently debated about whether Haskell should be under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Education at all.

    U.S. senator Jerry Moran and Representative Tracey Mann of Kansas announced plans late last year to propose legislation to remove federal control of Haskell, arguing the institution would be better run by a new university Board of Regents. The plan, backed by the then-president of the Haskell board, came after a tense congressional hearing regarding student and employee complaints about the university, which were revealed in a report by the bureau.

    After the recent staff cuts, Dalton Henry, president of the Haskell Board of Regents, recognized these policymakers and the Bureau of Indian Education for “working to reduce the impact of these changes.”

    “We are grateful for their attention to this issue,” Henry said in a news release.

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