As Northwestern faculty grapple with the implications of a federal funding freeze, they are already living with the effects of a 10% non-personnel spending reduction enacted by the University in February.
For NU, the spending reduction was seen as a drastic but necessary move to brace for potential federal funding cuts in the near future. That was until the Trump administration froze $790 million in federal funding for NU on April 8, citing federal antisemitism investigations into the University.
“If the current U.S. administration stays in power for the full four years, it could start to have pretty devastating impacts on graduate (and) undergraduate education,” art history Prof. Christina Kiaer said.
Kiaer said the spending reductions, which were for the full 2025 fiscal year, were effectively 20% budget cuts because they were enacted halfway through the fiscal year.
To comply with the spending reduction, Kiaer, the chair of the art history department, said the department had to cancel a large event planned for spring and catering services for other events.
Many art history Ph.D. students, especially international students, are reconsidering summer research travel because they are nervous about traveling outside of the country, she said.
Kiaer also said the department had to cancel a Warnock Lecture in art history for Spring Quarter when the speaker, who was supposed to visit from Paris, elected not to come because she did not want to visit the U.S. in its current political climate.
“She didn’t want to have to try to come through customs control, and then suddenly we saved all the money on the catering at the dinner,” Kiaer said. “Ten percent is a small enough amount that I think we’re going to get through.”
Beyond the budget cuts, Kiaer said many departments had to admit smaller cohorts of Ph.D. students. In the future, she said these Ph.D. students will become teaching assistants.
When there are fewer teaching assistants, Kiaer said faculty might need to pick up some of the grading work, which takes time away from their research.
“Northwestern is an R1 research university, so if we have our teaching loads doubled, then that cuts down significantly on the research we can do, and then that cuts down on the prestige of our departments and our scholars,” Kiaer said.
Due to the tightened budget, Kiaer said the department hasn’t been able to support all its students and faculty for resources like classroom trips. Instead, she said the department has had to pick and choose what to fund.
“It’s just harder to do what we would normally do to really enhance undergraduate courses and research for graduate students and undergrads and faculty,” Kiaer said.
Since the spending reduction was required in the middle of the year, molecular biosciences Prof. Heather Pinkett said her department struggled to make an educated decision about where to spend money.
Similarly to Kiaer, Pinkett acknowledged the challenges posed by the timing of the spending reduction in the fiscal year. Purchases made prior to the reduction will be unaffected, she said, but the reduction prevents the department from doing anything later in the quarter.
Pinkett said her department cut its future programming, including limiting seminars led by guest speakers.
“In addition to just the seminar alone, there is dissemination of really important information — oftentimes it’s preliminary data that’s not yet published — that we’re seeing firsthand,” Pinkett said. “We’re having one-on-one conversations that really move research forward and move innovation forward.”
Following the spending reduction, McCormick Prof. Erica Hartmann said the civil and environmental engineering department tried to minimize the impact of the reduction on students.
Hartmann said the department cut a seminar series where experts from around the country come to NU and talk about their research. These seminars were inspirational for students and helped them build networks and collaboration, she said.
“(We) bring in professors from other universities whose research they might find inspiring and with whom they may want to pursue graduate research,” Hartmann said. “This is a lost opportunity to create those kinds of connections, where they can actually meet one-on-one with those faculty members.”
Beyond the seminars, Hartmann said the department normally funds student organizations like Solar Decathlon, a competition in which students design sustainable buildings. However, the Department of Energy canceled the competition this year, saving the department travel expenses.
Potential federal funding cuts could have “real” ramifications for individual researchers, Hartmann said, but also the public, who she said will be deprived of critical knowledge and innovation.
“These cuts are not to the University per se. They are to individual research labs,” Hartmann said. “They have big implications for the University as a whole, obviously, but they also have life-changing implications to the individuals who are working on these projects.”
Email: n.kanieskikoso@dailynorthwestern.com
X: @ninethkk
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— Federal government freezes $790 million in funding for Northwestern
