In February, Colgate University celebrated its designation as a research university from the Carnegie Foundation. In the same month, the National Institute of Health (NIH) under the Trump administration announced cuts to grants and research funding that loom heavy over STEM research initiatives.
Like research universities around the United States, Colgate could see a notable impact from recent cuts to grants from the NIH. Historically, the federal government has negotiated with colleges and universities on its contribution toward their operating costs. At Colgate, these cuts do not represent a very significant percentage of the annual operating budgets, unlike universities with major medical centers. However, slashed NIH and National Science Foundation (NSF) funding could curtail faculty and student research opportunities.
President Brian W. Casey noted that the University is monitoring potential cuts very closely.
“If we see permanent cuts, we would have to see what University funds could be shifted over to meet this gap, but we are extremely mindful that we need funds for faculty and staff salaries, for our operations and for financial aid. So, we could see some very, very difficult decisions ahead of us,” Casey said.
Some Colgate students are already seeing the effects of this federal freeze. A large NIH Summer Internship Program was canceled due to a lack of federal funding as well as the Colgate Fall 2025 Bethesda Biomedical Research Study Group with the NIH. Junior Daytona Doherty, a double major in psychological science and biology, was among the students who was accepted into the study group. She was also planning on attending the Summer Internship Program. She shared her frustrations about the federal policy changes.
“The word that is brought up so frequently with these issues is ‘uncertainty,’ and as someone who likes things planned out, it is hard for me to operate not knowing what my next move is,” Doherty said. “I think that is the sentiment shared across the students who were planning on attending the study group. It really sucks for everyone in the STEM community, but we are all trying to stay optimistic that things will settle down shortly.”
In response to the Trump administration’s actions, STEM students and faculty organized a nationwide “Stand Up for Science” rally, and on Friday, March 7, members of the Colgate community gathered outside Olin Hall to share their grievances and demands for federal reform.
At the rally, professors took the time to explain the cuts and the role of researchers losing their jobs. Topics ranged from federal misinformation campaigns — some protestors spoke about how the label of “provisional employees” insinuates that the terminated employees aren’t essential to the NIH, despite their massive contributions to scientific research — to the importance of contacting local representatives to demand specific reforms.
The cut in indirect costs is far from the only concern. Funding for new grants also slowed after the NIH halted grant application review meetings in January. Assistant Professor of Chemistry Anne Perring is one of many faculty members who said that her research proposals will likely not be approved.
Perring saw the rally as an opportunity to commiserate with like-minded people and empower participants to speak up and take action. At the rally, she addressed the crowd briefly, urging attendees to consider the far-reaching impacts of these cuts.
“I wanted to try to explain how […] this is not a temporary change that we can ignore, this will all have real, tangible impacts on careers in science for a long time to come. It was exciting to see a lot of [attendees] stick around to write letters or call their representatives, I think that is the way that the public can communicate their displeasure,” Perring said following the rally.
Perring feels grateful to be at Colgate, where she is not at risk of termination or forced to fire student researchers, but still feels the emotional strain of these policy changes.
“It makes me really sad and angry to see beneficial programs that I know are largely functional and cost-effective dismantled for seemingly no reason other than spite. This is not saving anyone any money right now, and it will cost future generations dearly. I have little kids, and I feel completely unable to predict what the future will look like for them,” Perring said.
While Colgate’s operations have been less severely impacted relative to government labs and universities that rely more heavily on federal grants, the shutdown of some online scientific databases and journals and freezes on funding approval processes, however, have slowed research for Colgate faculty and students.
For sophomore neuroscience major Ashley Shanahan, who works in a lab on campus, less federal funding poses obstacles to her student research. She mentioned blocked datasets and inaccessible antibody treatments as examples of small things that may slowly start to have an impact on some of Colgate’s labs. Some damage, according to Shanahan, has already been done.
“I am hoping this is a part of the larger pattern of the Trump administration taking shockingly large measures early in Trump’s presidency, and that this is not something that will continue at such an alarming rate, but with that being said what has already been done will have a rippling effect on the scientific community,” Shanahan said.
Shanahan also has concerns about her future. While she will participate in a Colgate-funded neuroscience research project this summer, she said her post-grad dreams are under attack.
“It’s a really scary time. What we are specializing in learning right now is incredibly specific, especially for someone like me who is a neuroscience major,” Shanahan said. “My goal of pursuing higher education in neuroscience and working in research isn’t something that can be easily transferred to another path, so it is really difficult to watch as everything that I have been working for is becoming less and less stable and tangible.”
Acknowledging the rising tension as jobs and graduate programs are shrinking and becoming more competitive, Perring has been urging her students with graduate school offers to sign them immediately and apply for backup jobs in case an existing offer falls through. She shared Shanahan’s pessimism about the long-term impacts of these cuts.
“I am very worried about what this does to our ability, on a global level, to respond to or avoid the worst consequences of climate change. I am worried about public safety if we eliminate government systems like the weather service, the EPA and huge swaths of the field of public health,” Perring said. “I just don’t know what our country looks like without those safeguards. I don’t think it’s a pretty picture.”
According to Casey, the University will continue to communicate with affected students and faculty. The Federal Policy Working Group, which is tasked with monitoring updates out of Washington, D.C., will also be looking carefully at impacts to research.
