"The agency didn’t have to fire its experts but decided to in the interest of fairness." “We asked who was mission critical and more than half of people were identified,” Cheatham said. “That was too many.” “The Director couldn’t even show up to the 10 AM firing call held for all of us" - ThreadSky

omearabrian.bsky.social • 1 day ago

"The agency didn’t have to fire its experts but decided to in the interest of fairness."

“We asked who was mission critical and more than half of people were identified,” Cheatham said. “That was too many.”

“The Director couldn’t even show up to the 10 AM firing call held for all of us"

Reposted from Politico

"You screwed people": Inside the National Science Foundation’s firing of 168 workers👇

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omearabrian.bsky.social•1 day ago

Also, if you've spent five minutes with any NSF person, the idea that they'd say, "yes, end the careers of MORE needed, hard-working people just so it's fair to those of us you are already firing" is utterly preposterous.

ehaswell.bsky.social•1 day ago

Anyone except the Director, you mean? Or am I misunderstanding?

omearabrian.bsky.social•1 day ago

Any rank and file program officers or other staff. I haven't interacted with the director or any of the HR people doing these firings.

ehaswell.bsky.social•1 day ago

💯

mattwilkins.galacticpolymath.com•1 day ago

it's unacceptable & absolutely mind boggling that this mass firing happened with no pushback. Cowardly is the word. The phrase "removing 168 people who included most of the agency’s probationary employees and **all of its experts**" hit me like a bag of bricks...can science in the US even go on?

omearabrian.bsky.social•1 day ago

I mean, even at 90% strength (or if it gets down to rumored 50% strength) dedicated folks at NSF will still keep supporting science as best they can. But they shouldn’t have to be facing this, and the human cost of firing folks who gave up a lot to serve the community is appalling.

mattwilkins.galacticpolymath.com•1 day ago

yeah, absolutely appalling. Since I've only been on the proposal side of NSF, I don't know exactly how this is going to impact things. The human cost is certainly bad... the long term cost of these multi-institutional purges to science and society is going to be enormous

bstaggmartin.bsky.social•1 day ago

A somewhat cryptic but critical impact too is just the general erosion of stability/trust these actions cause. In a month, NSF grants have gone from de facto examples of stable research funding to seeming unreliable and subject to political/ideological whims...

mattwilkins.galacticpolymath.com•1 day ago

Indeed. On a personal note, I founded @galacticpolymath.com & spent the last 4 yrs helping scientists do outreach. We may not be able to continue. Many early career PIs we're working w have shelved proposals to wait for dust to settle. This will hit a generation of young scientists especially hard

bstaggmartin.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Yeah, being an NSF-funded postdoc right now is so frustrating. I was so happy to get this fellowship and want to just crank on developing my research/mentorship. I will continue my work no matter what, but these current events are just so distracting and demoralizing.

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