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Experts say “yes.” A House lawmaker plans to reintroduce a bill soon to make improvements.
The Trump administration
had historic levels of acting officials as well as high turnover rates for top positions. There were particularly controversial situations with temporary leadership at the Homeland Security Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence as well as acting inspectors general at the State and Transportation departments maintaining their other Senate-confirmed positions at the agencies. This all highlighted potential loopholes of the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which outlines three classes of individuals who can serve in Senate-confirmed positions temporarily when an official “dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office,” and specifies for how long.
Where and how gender and caregiving intersect for professors during COVID-19 insidehighered.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from insidehighered.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on work-life balance and teaching, research and service have caused significant stress for Stanford faculty members, particularly women faculty, as well as faculty members who are at the lowest level of the Stanford professoriate salary scale, are pre-tenure and who have at-home and family obligations.
Professors Anne Joseph O’Connell, law, and Sara Singer, medicine, delivered to the Faculty Senate a presentation on a quality-of-life survey conducted by the Faculty Women’s Forum. (Image credit: Andrew Brodhead)
A faculty quality-of-life survey conducted by the Faculty Women’s Forum in late 2020 revealed that untenured faculty members are especially concerned about the long-term effects of COVID-19 on tenure progress and about how the pandemic will be addressed in promotion reviews. The survey also reflected the perception among respondents that the university needs to do more to avoid faculty attrition and increasing inequity,
The Capitol Building Phil Roeder / CC BY 2.0 (Creative Commons)
For Years, the Federal Workforce Languished. Congress is Planning to Revive It
Taryn MacKinney, | February 26, 2021, 4:28 pm EDT
During a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, congressional leaders and a panel of experts examined the state of the federal workforce and talked through plans to bolster and protect civil servants in the coming years.
The last administration tried to undermine the federal workforce
To kick off the discussion, Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA) highlighted the previous administration’s efforts to undermine civil servants. Three of Trump’s executive orders undermined federal workers’ collective bargaining rights, he noted, and the introduction of a new federal job classification, Schedule F, would have made it easier to fire career civil servants. The administration also tried to chip away at the Office of Personnel
The battle for the future of the federal workforce February 23 Members of Congress are fundamentally divided on how best to improve the federal civil service. (bowie15/Getty Images) Both Democrats and Republicans agree that the federal government’s workforce management practices as they currently stand aren’t good enough to meet the needs of the American people. But as demonstrated at a Feb. 23 House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing, they have radically different ideas of how to fix things. Those two stances are well-exemplified in the policies advocated for by the most recent presidents from each party. During his four years in office, President Donald Trump placed his focus on making it easier to get rid of poor-performing federal employees and restructuring pay to better match private sector competition and performance metrics.