Executive orders, looming budget cuts and other changes to major federal agencies by the Trump administration pose a serious threat to over $6 million in scientific research funding at Middlebury this spring. Hundreds of thousands in grants have already been lost, prompting faculty to worry that their ongoing projects will be impacted next.
Two weeks ago the college lost a $530,000 Inclusive Excellence Grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) after Trump’s executive order targeted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. The grant was in its third year of funding as part of a now-defunct $60 million initiative from the nation’s largest private funder of biomedical research, which cut off this funding to over 100 colleges and universities on Feb. 5.
Associate Dean of the Sciences Rick Bunt, who ran the HHMI grant for Middlebury, shared that the grant previously supported student research in faculty labs, additional teaching assistants for STEM courses and professional development for faculty. There is still enough money to continue some programs into next fall, but no future funding allocations will be made to continue beyond then.
“That’s a pretty big loss for us — about $260k funding over [the] next three years that we won’t get to use to improve our introductory STEM curricula,” Bunt wrote in an email to The Campus.
The college maintained that it would continue research activities as usual this spring, despite faculty concerns over the potential for sweeping cuts following a since-rescinded White House memo that froze all federal grants and loans on Jan. 27.
“We are tracking and evaluating the executive orders and related lawsuits to assess how they might affect operations, activities, and research efforts and funding as a whole,” a college spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Campus. “Until we know the specific impacts, we are proceeding with our research mission as usual.”
The HHMI grant is the only federal funding allocation to the college that has been permanently rescinded or canceled so far, according to Dean of the Faculty Jim Ralph.
The recent executive order banning all references to DEI has also had an outsized impact on federal funding grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), faculty said, because such disbursements often include references to diversity and inclusion.
“Many grants do have that kind of wording in there, and it was even an expected part of the grant application process. So this is a dramatic change in policy,” Professor of Biology Mark Spritzer told The Campus.
As of Feb. 10, Middlebury has at least 17 active grants based in Vermont provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that total over $4.9 million in scientific research funding, according to the organization’s online database.
The college also has three ongoing grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which provides $1,133,900 in total to those projects, according to the agency’s website.
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Mez Baker-Médard said that her NSF-funded research, which focuses on social and ecological interactions in marine environments, has not been paused. Still, the recent cascade of executive orders targeting higher education has worried her about the future of scientific research.
“This new climate has cast a chilling shadow over any research that could be seen as supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Baker-Médard wrote in an email to The Campus. She added that her and other scientists’ research “is now caught in the crosshairs of this deeply misguided and anti-intellectual assault.”
Spritzer said that while his research on age-related memory loss has not been cut off from its NIH funding, his project may be targeted by future executive orders. The tenured biology professor added that the largest impact of potential cuts would be for non-tenured faculty, whose job security can depend on research projects and subsequent publications that are often funded through federal grants.
“I think the big picture is that this has created a great deal of uncertainty among anyone who is a scientist,” Spritzer said. “I'd say that for the professors that are just trying to get started, it’s probably the most scary right now.”
Another recent executive order cut the indirect cost rate — which covers expenses such as support staff salaries, building maintenance and other costs not directly tied to scientific work — to just 15%. The Department of Health and Human Services and NIH previously negotiated the rate in order to determine how much the government would fund overhead costs.
The college’s indirect cost rate is 61% of salaries and wages as of June 28, 2023, according to the college website. The average college indirect cost rate is between 27% and 28%, according to the NIH.
On Feb. 10, Vermont and 21 other states sued the federal government over these cuts to the NIH’s indirect cost rates, and they received a temporary reprieve later that day. The state currently has 128 NIH-funded projects, totaling $84,668,147 for colleges, universities and several medical companies. A full hearing on the suit is set for Feb. 21, according to The New York Times.
Despite these drastic changes, the college stated it did not anticipate that the Grants and Sponsored Programs Office would be significantly impacted by the pending legal challenges.
“We continue to move forward with the essential work of Middlebury, working directly with those who are most affected while abiding by the law,” a college spokesperson wrote.
Despite the recent turmoil, the college has worked to maintain its ability to provide students with a quality education, according to Spritzer. However, there may be a limit to how much Middlebury can cover as federal cuts and freezes continue to accumulate.
“[Middlebury] has provided a great deal of reassurance,” he said. “But the reality is the holes that would be created by cutting federal grants, students would feel that. The college just can’t fund everything.”
Ryan McElroy '25 (he/him) is the Editor in Chief.
Ryan has previously served as a Managing Editor, News Editor and Staff Writer. He is majoring in history with a minor in art history. Outside of The Campus, he is co-captain of Middlebury Mock Trial and previously worked as Head Advising Fellow for Matriculate and a research assistant in the History department. Last summer Ryan interned as a global risk analyst at a bank in Charlotte, North Carolina.
