Washington University’s faculty and staff hiring freeze implemented in March was lifted Nov. 1. Individual schools can now begin to fill open positions.

The freeze was implemented in the spring due to the major economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The University projected losses of over $175 million by the end of 2020, largely because of the suspension of elective medical procedures. The hiring freeze was just one aspect of the University’s plan to cut costs, which included faculty and staff furloughs, reduced spending on special projects and travel expenses.

Since March, Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Administrative Officer Hank Webber said that the University has been “gradually relaxing the measures that we took.”

According to Webber, some actions have included salary increases for faculty and contributions to retirement plans. While the University is not making up for missed contributions, the majority of the people furloughed are back at work.

The process of rolling back the hiring freeze started on the medical school campus. “It is the success of the measures that we took, combined with strong and dominant performance and a more rapid than expected return of clinics in the medical school that have allowed us to waive the freeze,” Webber said.

However, uncertainty about rising COVID-19 cases in the St. Louis region makes it difficult for the University to chart a clear course forward. In particular, the University’s recent decision to re-suspend certain elective procedures makes it clear that a full return to normal is not yet in the cards.

“I think it’s way too soon to be sure that this is a step toward a return for all being normal,” Webber said. “It would be way too soon to say we’re out of the woods—you’d have to have a crystal ball that’s a lot better than mine.”

The freeze, although temporary, did have repercussions for departments seeking new faculty members. The Department of Philosophy, for example, lost three faculty members last fall and needed to aggressively hire or risk the quality of their program. They managed to appoint and accept the new hires just days before the hiring freeze went into place.

Chair of the Philosophy Department Ron Mallon said that the standing practice for new faculty was for each department to decide on a candidate and then submit an application to the dean.

“We absolutely got lucky,” he said. “I think if any of those three people that we had hired had turned us down, it may well be we would not have been able to make a second offer to someone on our list.”

Since the end of the hiring freeze, Dean of the Faculty of the College of Arts & Sciences Feng Sheng Hu plans to use this opportunity to recruit top scholars for a variety of disciplines.

“We are taking advantage of the fact that many institutions are unable to hire faculty this year and aiming to recruit a cohort of stellar scholars to Arts & Sciences,” Hu said. “More specifically, we will be announcing a faculty hiring initiative. This is a thematic hiring program with a focus on using data analytics and digital technologies to transform Arts & Sciences disciplines and beyond.”

Other universities have adopted different approaches to their hiring practices in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Harvard University has made an effort to scale down graduate programs in fields that are dependent on academic job markets that might suffer after the coronavirus. However, Hu said that the University has no current plans to scale down any programs.

“We are always looking at student outcomes at both the undergraduate and graduate level to ensure that we are doing a good job in preparing our students for the workplace and helping them reach their goals,” Hu said. “The pandemic makes this more important than ever.”