Federal funding for KU programs that enable Haskell and KU students to conduct scientific research, further their studies and launch their careers has suddenly been terminated.
It wasn’t even clear as of Friday afternoon whether funding will be available to ensure about 30 current participants are able to finish out the semester.
Paulyn Cartwright is a KU professor and the director of KU’s Office for Advancing Success in Science, or OASiS. The office’s five programs are fully supported by federal funding — four of them from the National Institutes of Health.
More than 500 students have received training through the programs over more than two decades running, Cartwright said.
Students in the programs can engage directly in research, access specialized advising, present their research, attend conferences and more — “The whole goal of all of these programs was really to make science accessible to everyone,” Cartwright said.
On Thursday, Cartwright learned that funding was terminated for the four NIH-funded programs. The email she received stated, as the reason for the termination, only “due to changes in NIH/HHS (Health and Human Services) priorities.”
Cartwright said scientists are accustomed to priorities changing at the federal level, and they can adjust to that and refocus their research if they need to. OASiS was awarded the grant funds for these programs through a competitive process, and these cuts hurt because the office had made commitments to vulnerable trainees in these programs, she said.
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“It’s devastating for all of these trainees, you know,” Cartwright said. “And it’s devastating for me, because we promised them support. We brought them into these programs, and we promised that we’d support them for a given amount of time.”
The programs also help pay for the undergrads’ tuition; for many of them, they’re the reason they’ve been able to stay in college.
One of them, the Bridges Program, supports Haskell Indian Nations University students who want to pursue a science major that isn’t offered at Haskell. The program gives students a mentored research experience in a KU bioscience research lab for a year.
The Maximizing Access to Research Careers program, or MARC, helps support KU undergrads — including many Haskell transfer students — financially, so they can get experience doing biomedical research that they otherwise might not be able to do.
“Many students couldn’t afford to work in a lab because they have to work, and there aren’t a lot of paid lab positions, right?” Cartwright said. “And so this provided some financial support so they can get that research experience and go into science. Almost all of our undergraduates are low-income and depend on that support.”
PREP, the Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program, pays students to do research full-time at KU and work on coursework and professional development during a gap year. And IRACDA, Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards, gives postdoctoral professionals beginning their careers the opportunity to participate in mentored research and to develop their teaching skills by working with faculty at KU and Haskell.
Four IRACDA participants had just begun what was supposed to be a three-year experience in January, Cartwright said.
Only one OASiS program — the BioGEM Postbaccalaureate Research Program — has not had its funding cut. It’s funded by the National Science Foundation.
How long the Bridges, MARC, PREP and IRACDA programs will be able to continue was unclear because of contradictory information in the termination notice, Cartwright said, but the end is “definitely imminent.”
“I think they (the students) are very worried and stressed, because we haven’t been able to confirm the exact end date, which — you know, it’s been difficult for them, but they know it’s coming,” Cartwright said.
Altogether, the four OASiS programs received about $1.3 million for fiscal year 2024, according to the NIH’s online database.
The NIH is canceling millions of dollars’ worth of grants across the country, many that are funding lifesaving medical research, following orders from the Trump administration. Many were labeled by NIH as “DEI studies.”
At least three lawsuits filed this week — including one by the American Civil Liberties Union and one by attorneys general in 16 states — are challenging the NIH’s cuts that the ACLU called an “ongoing ideological purge of critical research projects,” ABC, NBC News and USA Today have reported.
There are currently eight students in the Bridges program, nine in MARC, eight in PREP and four in IRACDA, Cartwright said.
Others involved in KU’s OASiS programs could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
As of publication time, a spokesperson for KU had not responded to an email seeking additional information and asking what KU and/or the community can do to support affected students.
Read more on how federal funding cuts are directly affecting Lawrence and Douglas County community members in the articles linked below and on this page.
Contact information for the congressional delegation representing Lawrence and Douglas County is available at this link. The nonprofit 5 Calls, 5calls.org, has phone numbers and templates of scripts to help people make their voices heard on several federal issues.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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