Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Thursday, June 26. Jasper Smith wrote the top of today’s Briefing and the Footnote. Julia Piper compiled Transitions. Brock Read wrote the rest. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

When research and mission collide

The Trump administration’s wars on federal research funding and DEI initiatives have resulted in dozens of canceled grants to historically Black colleges and universities. For the nation’s biggest HBCUs, the loss of that funding is another roadblock impeding a decades-long effort to obtain the coveted “Research 1” Carnegie classification, I reported yesterday.

More than $140 million in grants to Black colleges have been terminated since Trump took office. The grants, from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, supported projects like a center focused on Black maternal health and mortality, research on Alzheimer’s disease among Black Americans, and scholarships for Black undergraduate students pursuing careers in STEM.

The mission of historically Black colleges — focusing education and research on the Black community — overlaps with what the Trump administration classifies as “illegal DEI.” Citing Trump’s executive orders banning DEI in government grants, federal agencies said that research supported by the federal government must be open to all, and cannot privilege or exclude any demographic groups.

HBCU presidents argue their institutions’ research is beneficial to everyone. The standard explanation administrators often see in grant-termination letters is that their research or grant proposals “no longer align to the priorities” of the federal agency.

• Howard University, the nation’s only HBCU currently classified as Research 1, has lost at least $11 million in federal grants.
• Tennessee State University has lost more than $20 million.
• North Carolina A&T, on the brink of R1 status, has lost more than $24 million. “We are still calculating our loss,” said Melissa Hodge-Penn, the university’s interim vice chancellor for research, “because we have been receiving … terminations each week.”

To obtain Research 1 status, a university must spend at least $50 million on research and confer at least 70 Ph.D.s a year. The 13 HBCUs seeking that classification say it could usher in more funding for research on the Black community, larger federal contracts, and more resources to attract faculty and students.

Some HBCU advocates say the president didn’t intend to hurt the institutions. Trump has for years touted his support for HBCUs, and he signed an executive order this spring calling for more investment in them. HBCU advocacy organizations like the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund are working with the administration to safeguard HBCUs. They’re also trying to create distance from the idea that the work done by their institutions falls under the umbrella of DEI.

• Quotable: “There have been some overzealous bureaucrats throughout the enterprise of the federal government that have canceled grants that the administration did not want canceled,” said Lodriguez Murray, senior vice president of public policy and government affairs at UNCF.

Regardless of what Trump wants, HBCUs now face a complicated ultimatum. One administrator said federal agencies have issued instructions to change language in grant applications that explicitly focus on Black people. Doing so could preserve access to vital research funding. But at what cost?

• “If we abandon our mission and our sector, we will regret it,” said Crystal deGregory, an HBCU historian.

The bigger picture: HBCUs are at a pivotal moment. Many Black colleges are closer than ever to realizing long-held dreams of becoming research powerhouses. If the federal government is no longer a reliable partner, what will they do? “The pool and the resources are now just getting that much smaller and the competition has just gotten that much stiffer,” said Quincy Quick, a vice president for research at Tennessee State. “Because now, everybody’s going to be kicking over every rock, looking in every crevice, closed door, to find resources to support our research enterprise.”

📱 Read Jasper’s full story: HBCUs Reel as Trump Cuts Black-Focused Grants

Federal news

• NIH to stop terminating grants? In an internal email Tuesday, the director of the extramural-research division of the National Institutes of Health told employees not to kill any more research grants, and to “unrelease all grant projects that are in the cue [sic] to be terminated.” The message came a week after a federal District Court judge deemed hundreds of NIH grant terminations “void and illegal.” (STAT)
• Trump’s third challenge to in-state tuition for undocumented students: The Department of Justice is challenging Minnesota laws providing in-state tuition to undocumented students, according to a Wednesday announcement. The department previously sued to prohibit similar policies in Texas, which quickly took its regulations off the books, and Kentucky, where the case is ongoing. (U.S. Department of Justice, The Texas Tribune)
• UK research caught up in Trump’s cuts: The president’s grant cancellations have suspended or stopped more than 20 British research projects, an analysis shows. At least nine British research teams have been issued stop-work notices, and 14 more have lost funding that came via American collaborators. (The Times)

Quick hits

• Deeper-than-ever tuition discounts: Tuition discounting, steadily on the rise over the last decade, hit another peak in the 2024-25 academic year, according to a study from the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Private colleges paid 56.3 percent of the cost of tuition for first-time, full-time undergraduates — up from 54.4 percent in 2023-24, and from just 48.2 percent in 2016-17. (NACUBO)
• A hometown tax for Delaware’s flagship: Matt Meyer, the state’s Democratic governor, signed a bill Tuesday that permits the City of Newark to tax the University of Delaware up to $50 per student it enrolls. The tax could yield up to $2.4 million in revenue for the city. The university owns about 40 percent of Newark’s land. (Delaware Online)

Austerity watch

• U. of Connecticut prepares austerity measures: The university and its health system will eliminate jobs, restrict hiring, and use one-time funds to close a daunting $134-million budget cap in the 2026 fiscal year. UConn has been hit by steep declines in both federal grant funding and state appropriations. (Higher Ed Dive)
• Student-affairs office gets the ax: Western Washington University will eliminate its student-affairs division, moving much of its work under the Office of the Provost, as the university stares down a $23-million budget hole. The institution will also reduce its athletic director to a half-time position. (Western Washington U.)
• Cash infusion for Sonoma State U.: In a surprise move, the State of California has pledged $45 million to help the struggling public university find its footing. Sonoma State had announced plans to shut down all of its sports programs, close six academic departments, and lay off more than 60 employees as it tried to remake itself amid a budget shortfall. The new money will restore some athletics and academic tracks while funding new programs. (The Press Democrat, The Chronicle)
• Pennsylvania college plans art auction: Albright College will sell off most of its art collection as part of its plan to close a growing budget deficit. The auction isn’t expected to be a major moneymaker, but the private college has struggled to cover storage-and-preservation costs, resulting in damage to an unspecified portion of the collection. (Spotlight PA)
• Oklahoma colleges seek tuition hikes ... : Fifteen of the state’s 25 public institutions asked regents to approve tuition increases for the 2026 fiscal year, including the flagship University of Oklahoma, which requested a 3-percent hike. Kevin Stitt, the state’s Republican governor, said earlier this month that he thought raising tuition was unnecessary. (Oklahoma Voice)
• ... while Indiana colleges hold the line: The state’s 15 public colleges will freeze tuition for the coming academic year. Mike Braun, the state’s Republican governor, requested the freeze weeks after approving a budget that delivers funding cuts of at least 5 percent to state universities. (Indiana Capital Chronicle)

Transitions

• Mark Riley, dean of Florida State University’s Graduate School, plans to step down and return to the department of physics faculty.
• Dean Stoyer, a former chief marketing and communications officer for the Phoenix Suns, has been named vice chancellor for communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
• Michael F. Collins, chancellor of UMass Chan Medical School, will step down at the end of the 2025-26 academic year.
• Julie Brown, vice president for advanced learning at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research, has been named provost at Averett University.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com. You can also find Transitions online here.

Footnote

Three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and alums and employees bemoaning the eventual deletion of their university email accounts.

Wright State University is confronting that last inevitability. Its retired faculty association is fighting to prevent the university from discontinuing all retiree and emeritus email accounts this fall.

The university said the decision would help strengthen cybersecurity and improve data management. “Retiree and Emeritus accounts, while intended to maintain connection with our community, pose increasing risks due to their extended lifecycle and the potential to store sensitive university information,” the university wrote in an announcement.

Retired faculty haven’t been swayed. They’ve since taken to Facebook and sent a letter to the university’s president to argue that access to the emails is an earned right of passage.

Sure, the retired faculty make a practical case for the continuation of their accounts. For some who spent decades at Wright State, the emails hold scores of contacts, recommendation letters, health records, financial records, and, as one contributor to a group email thread noted, “electronic purchases that I have saved for future reference.”

But the retirees make an emotional appeal as well — one that captures why campus email accounts inspire such devotion. “There are retirees who spent most of their adult years at Wright State,” reads the letter to the president, “and developed that emotional bond clearly reflective of alma mater.”

For others, email access is, at the very least, a source of Ohio pride: “I have always been so proud to give my Wright State email address,” another retired faculty member wrote in a group email, “and make sure that everyone knows it’s ‘Wright’ like the Wright brothers in Dayton.”