The University of Maryland, College Park, has over 5,000 faculty members, of which 2,300 are non-tenure track researchers dependent on grant funding and cooperative agreements with federal agencies. The UMD chapter of United Academics of Maryland began during the pandemic as an AAUP advocacy chapter. With help from AAUP and AFT, it is fighting to secure enabling legislation. Faculty in Maryland’s public four-year institutions are virtually the only state employees denied this right.
By Nina Randazzo, United Academics of Maryland-UMD
ESSIC (Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center) researchers typically operate on cooperative agreements with NASA and NOAA, making us vulnerable when the science budgets (and in particular, the Earth science budgets) of these agencies are subject to political attacks. Many ESSIC researchers work on issues related to the environment and climate change.
Prior to new contracts going out at the end of June, around 25 scientists (more than 10 percent of ESSIC research faculty) were told their funding would run out at the end of the fiscal year. Of these, a few received the grant money that they were waiting for and are now in a more secure funding position. Of the rest, some people received shorter term contracts that do not cover the entirety of the new contract period. HR has warned those who received year-long contracts that this is not a guarantee that there will be enough funding to cover the entire contract period. If we lose funding, we may be terminated partway through our contracts.
Our HR department has not confirmed if/how many people have received 90-day termination notices. They have also failed to disclose how many researchers are on partial-year contracts. The lack of transparency about current impacts generates confusion and insecurity.
Those funded through FY26 still face an uncertain future for several reasons. Not only will this allocated funding eventually run out, leaving us subject to cuts in future fiscal years already planned by the Trump administration, but even before the end of next fiscal year, our funding is subject to interference from the executive branch. Because no Appropriations bill was passed for FY25, the federal government is currently operating on a continuing resolution, which gives the executive branch a lot of discretion regarding the disbursement of funds. Further, the Trump administration has already used rescissions, or the “clawing back” of funds initiated by the executive branch, in unprecedented ways to defund programs such as USAID. These mechanisms of executive influence over federal funding make even the more secure workers vulnerable. Finally, many of us are part of research groups at NASA and NOAA. If those research groups and their computing resources are dismantled, we will likely be unable to continue our work.
This dismantling of research programs could even occur through agency leadership, given the willingness of the current Department of Commerce and NASA’s interim leadership to echo the Trump administration’s hostility to Earth science, particularly climate science, emissions monitoring, and related fields. As NASA’s recently replaced acting administrator Janet Petro repeatedly told us, “the priorities of this administration are clear,” and NASA intends to fully comply. The technical supplement that NASA published in response to the President’s budget request proposes cuts of more than 50 percent to Earth science and a decommissioning of greenhouse-gas monitoring satellites. Not only will people lose their jobs, but entire research programs will be wiped out. In short, we expect further job losses in the months and years ahead.