Since returning to the White House, President Trump has signed a series of executive orders reshaping federally funded research grants, including those from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Although several of these orders have been blocked by federal appellate courts, uncertainty continues to linger among Middlebury faculty and across academia more broadly. The orders seek to redirect research priorities and impose a uniform 15% cap on indirect cost rates.
Last February, the college lost a $530,000 Inclusive Excellence Grant after the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) — the largest private funder of biomedical research in the U.S. — decided to end the program following President Trump’s executive order restricting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs.
Associate Dean of the Sciences Rick Bunt shared that other science-related grants at the college have not been cut. However, delays in renewing existing funds have lasted longer than expected. The Vermont Biomedical Research Network (VBRN) award, funded by the NIH and administered by the University of Vermont, currently supports the research of five Middlebury faculty members. During the most recent five-year renewal cycle that concluded in 2025, approval, which is normally granted in February, was delayed until July. This delay disrupted faculty research plans and reduced the number of summer student research assistant positions since the college was not permitted to use the funds until the end of the summer.
“It’s not uncommon for a new administration to impose small delays, but this [VBRN] was much larger than I’ve ever heard of in the past,” Bunt said. “It’s disruptive because we lost a lot of summer research that could be funded by [VBRN].”
Beyond final approval from the NIH, the college was not allowed to spend the funds until authorization was granted by the U.S. government’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). For the VBRN award renewal last year, this approval came even later, in September. The five faculty members managed to roll the funds over to the next year or begin spending them in late October.
Director of Grants and Sponsored Programs Chuck Mason echoed this assessment. Lengthening grant application timelines have posed challenges over the past year.
“The most notable change we have observed so far is in the timeline of grant cycles [as] the DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] cuts eliminated large numbers of staff positions and those folks kept the grant cycles moving,” Mason wrote in an email to The Campus. “We are seeing a backlog of pending proposals as the system equilibrates, and funding decisions are taking longer than usual.”
Mason said that the humanities and federally funded DEI-related research are more vulnerable in the current political climate than the grants in the sciences.
“The humanities are potentially more vulnerable to budget cuts and any research involving DEI will not be funded,” Mason wrote. “It is possible that changes in the peer review process could impact our efforts in STEM (NSF and NIH) but at this time it is too early to tell.”
Bunt noted that the main challenge now is not keeping previously secured funds, but acquiring new funding. Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Jennifer Crodelle, who was awarded NIH and NSF grants last semester, was surprised to receive the funding and shared the sentiment of uncertainty.
“I ended up submitting the grant applications with zero expectation that I would get them,” Crodelle said. “Hearing those stories [people’s funds were cut or held] while applying was pretty disheartening.”
After her NSF-funded postdoctoral work prior to Middlebury at the Courant Institute at New York University and VBRN-supported research since joining the college, this was Crodelle’s first time applying for federal grants on her own.
“I had colleagues who were going to apply for [NIH and NSF grants]. They just got cut in the middle of grant preparation, which actually takes months and months of work to justify your life’s work to somebody,” she said. “And right before they hit submit, they just can’t get access to the portal. [NIH and NSF]’re just not funding that anymore.”
Crodelle added that she had heard of rare cases at other schools where funding was cut even after grants had been approved.
“They got the grant, they’re starting the research, and then they can’t access some money anymore,” Crodelle said.
Federal grants include solicited categories, which require applicants to respond to agency-defined priorities, and unsolicited categories, which allow researchers to pursue their own ideas. Solicited projects can be canceled or adjusted when an administration’s priorities shift. Still, Crodelle worries about the risk of losing the grant in the future if the administration further changes its stance toward research.
“My NSF grant is through this EPSCoR program [Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research], which is for underfunded states like Vermont. I thought for sure that was going to be cut, and it wasn’t,” Crodelle said. “But I have this constant fear that it’s just going to be taken away if the administration one day decides, ‘We don’t care about Vermont anymore, we don’t care about math or neuroscience, and we’re just going to take that money back.’”
For liberal arts colleges such as Middlebury, Crodelle said the impact on faculty has been less severe than at research-driven institutions. At research universities, faculty salaries typically depend on grant funding. Most Middlebury faculty are paid a contracted salary for nine months of work, and research grants can allow them to earn additional compensation over the summer.
Hugo Zhang '28 (he/him) is a News Editor.
Hugo previously served as an Online Editor. He intends to major in Economics and Geography. He enjoys cartography, traveling, and history. Last summer, he studied at Sciences Po Paris and traveled across Europe. He has also conducted research on ethnic minority policies, economic transformation, and urban planning in Northeastern China, also known as Manchuria.
