Takeaway: If you have experienced any disruption in being paid or of your work as a result of the Trump administration’s freeze on federal funding, please fill out this form.
Dear colleague,
Today, our unions wrote to President Holloway and Senior Vice President for Research Zwick at the suggestion of our Principal Investigator (PI) Working Group to ask that that the administration commit to continuity of support for research and researchers at Rutgers, given the uncertainty caused by the Trump administration’s reckless attack on federal funding of all kinds, but especially research grants.
Here is an excerpt from our letter (and we thank our PI colleagues for suggesting it):
We are writing to you after consultation with and at the urging of Principal Investigators of federally funded grants to express our deep concern for the immediate impacts of the unprecedented and wide-ranging “pause” in federal funding on our junior colleagues, our students, the animals used in research efforts, and the long-term safety of the labs and equipment of which our PIs are the custodians. Our concern is especially focused on those of our colleagues who would face a termination of their visas if their positions were ended due to a loss of federal funding.…
Based on the discussion among principal investigators in our union, we have identified the most immediate areas for which bridge funding may be necessary in order to preserve the research capability of the University and to protect junior researchers. We ask, in the short term, that the university ensure continuity of support in these areas in the event that funding for formally approved federal grants is interrupted or terminated.
You can read the full text of the letter here. We look forward to the administration’s response to this urgent request and will keep you updated.
In the meantime, we want to hear from you if you’ve experienced any disruption in your pay, benefits, or work as a consequence of the Trump attack on federal funding. Please fill out this form if you have, and we will bring this to the attention of the administration.
Our efforts to resist this assault and to call on the administration to guarantee support for the whole university community depend on knowing about and responding to any problem our colleagues face. An injury to one is an injury to all!
We’ll also repeat a request from earlier this week especially to researchers of all ranks: We need personal stories about how your work will be affected by Trump’s assault; this is critical to organizing an opposition. Please click here to share your story with us.
In solidarity,
Rutgers AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, and AAUP-BHSNJ
Rutgers AAUP-AFT Facebook page: https://facebook.com/RUaaup/
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Visit our website: https://rutgers-ptlfc.org/
AAUP-BHSNJ website: https://aaupbhsnj.org/
AAUP-BHSNJ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RUaaupbhsnj