UC San Diego’s normally joyous commencement ceremony could have a muted tone Saturday as the school ends the academic year with historic cuts in research funding that have upset every corner of the campus.
The school says that 88 grants valued at roughly $90 million have been subjected to termination or stop-work orders, mostly due to cuts the Trump istration is making at colleges and universities nationwide.
The biggest cuts at UCSD — the country’s 7th largest research school — have involved National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. The campus said Thursday that 43 NIH grants totaling $43 million have been canceled or disrupted. The National Science Foundation canceled or delayed 13 awards totaling about $5 million.
“Additionally, 181 NIH awards are delayed or at risk of being delayed, and overall notices of awards (new, amended and continuations) are down 26% from last year,” UCSD told the San Diego Union-Tribune in a statement.
Many UCSD faculty say that the cuts have forced them to reduce the number of laboratory jobs that are typically open to undergraduates. Those jobs lead many students to seek Master’s degrees and doctorates, and help provide workers for UCSD’s $1.7 billion research enterprise.
UCSD chose an upbeat person — former Ironman World Champion Mark Allen — to give the main address at this year’s all-campus commencement. And computational biologist Terry Gaasterland is hoping for the best.
“Saturday will be a day of celebration,” she told the Union-Tribune. “Our students are the beating heart of the university. They are our mission.”
But she’s also worried about the near-term future, saying, “The value of cancelled grants is a small proportion of total grants, but the uncertainty puts everyone at unease. This makes it difficult for first-year graduate students to match with labs for the remainder of their studies.
”If we cannot find a way to bridge current students to their degree we will lose an entire generation of scientists.”
