Columbia Lays Off 180 Amid “Intense” Financial Strain

Columbia College is shedding 180 researchers after the Trump administration lower the college’s analysis funding by greater than $650 million.

“Columbia’s management continues discussions with the federal authorities in assist of resuming exercise on these analysis awards and extra different awards which have remained lively, however unpaid,” college management wrote in a memo Tuesday morning. “We’re engaged on and planning for each eventuality, however the pressure within the meantime, financially and on our analysis mission, is intense.”

Whereas federal companies such because the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, the Nationwide Science Basis and the Division of Vitality have lower analysis funding at universities throughout the nation, the Trump administration has particularly focused a handful of high-profile universities, together with Columbia, for allegedly failing to curb antisemitism on campus. 

Columbia is taking a two-pronged strategy to navigating the sudden deep cuts to federal analysis funding. The primary focuses on “continued efforts to revive our partnerships with authorities companies that assist crucial analysis,” and the college mentioned the second prong is about taking “motion to regulate—and in some circumstances scale back—expenditures primarily based on present monetary realities.”

Regardless of Columbia’s earlier president acquiescing to Trump’s calls for to enact quite a few coverage adjustments to deal with alleged unchecked antisemitism if it wished its funding again, the college remains to be negotiating to recuperate it. Within the meantime, the layoffs introduced Tuesday symbolize about 20 % of researchers who’re funded “in some method by the terminated grants,” in accordance the assertion signed by Claire Shipman, Columbia’s performing president; Angela V. Olinto, provost; Anne Sullivan, govt vp for finance; and Jeannette Wing, govt vp for analysis. 

And the layoffs this week possible aren’t the tip of the monetary repercussions of the cuts to Columbia’s federal analysis funding. 

“Within the coming weeks and months, we might want to proceed to take actions that protect our monetary flexibility and permit us to spend money on areas that drive us ahead,” the assertion mentioned. “This can be a deeply difficult time throughout all greater schooling, and we are trying to navigate by great ambiguity with precision, which shall be imperfect at instances.”