“Little Shock”: Even the colleges of society, and a largely non -party passenger schools, feel the suppression of Trump’s education

The school is located on a great trick with a stunning view of Pikes Peak, which is far from the Ivy League colleges that attracted President Donald Trump’s anger. Most of their students are passengers, where they get scientific degrees while overcoming full -time jobs. Students and faculty members alike describe the university, which is in a portfolio of a blue country, as a political defeat, if not political.

This optimism was inappropriate.

A review of the Associated Press for thousands of pages of emails from school officials, in addition to interviews with students and professors, reveals that school leaders, teachers and students quickly found themselves at the intersection of the Republican administration, forcing them to move in what they described as an unprecedented and random degree of change.

Whether Washington has reduced government departments, has returned back or launched investigations into diversity programs or habitor of the campus, Colorado-Corrado Springs has faced many challenges facing elite universities throughout the country.

The school lost three major federal scholarships and found itself under investigation by the Ministry of Education in Trump. In the hope of avoiding this scrutiny, the university was renamed on websites and job titles, all while dealing with pressure from students, faculty members and employees who wanted the school to take a more combat position.

“Uncertainty is doubling,” the school advisor told faculty members. “The speed of orders came from the shock.”

The college refused to provide any managers to conduct interviews with them. AP spokesman AP requested to explain that any professors or students who were interviewed in this story were talking about themselves, not the institution. Many faculty members also requested not to disclose his identity, either because they did not have a period or did not want to claim unnecessary attention to themselves and give them in the current political environment.

“Like our colleagues through higher education, we have spent a long time working to understand the new directives of the federal government,” Chancellor Jennifer Sobant said in AP.

Students said they were able to feel the tension that school officials and professors feel.

“We have officials who feel pressure, because we want to maintain our financing here. It was tense,” Ava Nox, a rising ascending covering the university’s administration, told the school newspaper.

She added that the faculty members: “You want to be very careful about how to conduct their research and how to address students. They are also boring with this new set of guidelines and conditions that are constantly changing by the federal government.”

A White House spokesman did not respond to the comment.

Optimism is not in place

Shortly after Trump’s second term victory in November, UCCS leaders were trying to collect information about Republican plans. In December, Sobanet met with a newly -elected Republican Congress member who represented the school area, a governor won by Trump by 53 % of the vote. In the observations of AP meeting, the chancellor drew a scenario in which the college may avoid sharp discounts and drinking under the incoming administration.

“Research dollars – it is difficult to withdraw the dollar, but Trump tried to decline the last time. The money passes through Congress.” “The grant’s money is likely to remain, but just change how it is formulated and what will be funded.”

Sobanet also noticed that the dismantling of the Federal Ministry of Education will require the license of Congress. I suggested that this is unlikely, given the formation of the US Senate.

Like many others, you didn’t completely expect how Trump strives to transform the federal government.

Conservatives’ desire to renew higher education began before Trump took office.

They have long complained that universities have become the strongholds of liberal indoctrination and loud protests. In 2023, Republicans in Congress held a hearing of a dispute with them Many leaders of Ivy League University. Soon after, the Presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania resigned. During the presidential campaign last fall, Trump criticized the campus protests around Gaza, as well as what he said was a liberal bias in the classroom.

His new administration has opened investigations into alleged anti -Semitism in many universities. More than 400 million dollars froze grants and research in Colombia, along with More than 2.6 billion dollars at Harvard University. Colombia reached an agreement last month To pay $ 220 million to solve the investigation.

When Harvard University filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s actions, his administration tried to prevent the school from registering international students. The Trump administration also threatened to cancel the Harvard tax exemption mode.

Northwestern University, Benson, Brentstone and Cornell have witnessed great pieces of financing, which reduced how they dealt with protests about the Israeli war in Gaza or to support schools for transgender athletes.

Trump’s decision to target the most richest and most famous institutions of officials in about 4,000 colleges and other university in the country.

Most students of higher education in the United States are taught in regional public universities or community colleges. Such schools have not usually pursued attention from culture warriors.

UCCS students and professors hope that Trump’s campaign will go beyond the school and other admiration.

“You have everyone – the liberals, conservatives, in the middle of the road,” said Jeffrey Scholes, a professor in the Philosophy Department. “You only see the type of disturbances and polarization that you see in other universities.”

Wallets

The federal government has a lot of influence over higher education. He provides About 60 billion dollars A year for universities to research. In addition, the majority of students in the United States need grants and loans from various federal programs to help pay tuition fees and living expenses.

This budget year, UCCS got about $ 19 Million in research financing From a mixture of federal, state and private sources. Although this is a relatively small part of the total budget of the school of $ 369 million, the college has paid in recent years to strengthen the campus research program by taking advantage of grant funds from government agencies such as the US Department of Defense and National Health Institutes. The extensive federal grant reduction can hinder those efforts.

School officials were dismayed when the Trump administration finished grants from the national endowment of humanities, the Ministry of Defense and the National Science Corporation. Civil -funded grants, cultural conservation and promotion of women in the fields of technology.

School officials rushed to contact federal officials to find out whether the other grants were on the cutting block, but they struggled to find answers, as the records appear.

School officials have repeatedly sought to help federal officials only to learn these officials who were not sure of what was happening as the Trump administration stopped grant payments, and launched thousands of closed employees and agencies.

“The sky is falling” in the National Institutes of Health, a university official informed notes about a call in which the school pressure groups were reports of what was happening in Washington.

There are also concerns about other changes in Washington that will affect how students are paid for college, according to interviews with faculty and education members.

While only Congress can completely cancel the US Department of Education, the Trump administration has tried to reduce its employees significantly and expel many of its functions to other agencies. the The administration lists nearly 1,400 employeesAnd the problems were reported in the systems dealing with student loans. Student loan management is expected to turn into another agency.

In addition, an early version of the main financing bill in Congress included significant discounts in scholarships. Although this ruling did not reach the law, Congress has loaned loans to students looking for graduate degrees. This policy can have ripples in the coming years on institutions such as UCCS that depend on their education dollars for its operating expenses.

DEI issues and transgender people hit the campus

To impose a change in campus, the Trump administration began investigations targeting diversity and efforts to combat anti -Semitism.

The Ministry of Education, for example, Opening the investigation In March, the doctorate targeted the scholarship program that has held a partnership with 45 universities, including UCCS, to expand opportunities for women and non -whites in teaching graduate studies. The administration claimed that the program was only open to some non -white students and was a racial discrimination.

“Sorry for being the bad news holder that was included in the list,” said Annie Larson, Assistant Vice President of Federal Relations and Communications with the entire Colorado University system.

“Oh, Wow, this is surprising,” Hillary Futtat, Dean of the Graduate School at the University of California.

UCCS has also struggled with how to deal with executive requests, especially those related to transgender issues.

In response to an order to cancel the money to the schools that allowed transwomen to play women’s sport, UCCS started a review of its sports programs. He decided that he had no transgender athletes, as records appear. University officials were also relieved to discover that only one school at their sports conference was affected by the system, and UCCS rarely had matches or games against that school.

“We have no students who are affected by this and do not compete against any teams we realize that will be affected by this.”

Avoid lights

UCCS attacks have taken preventive measures and self -control in the hope of saving programs and avoiding highlighting the Trump administration.

Email messages show that the school’s legal advisor began to consider all university sites and evaluate whether any scholarship may need to be reformulated. The university has changed the web address of its diversity initiatives from www.diversity.uccs.edu to www.belonging.uccs.edu.

The official responsible for the Department of Culture and belonging at the university received a new work title in January: Director of Strategic Initiatives. University professors said that the school discussed whether the women’s and ethnic studies department would be renamed to avoid drawing attention from Trump, but the department has not yet been renamed.

With the same path, UCCS officials have sought to avoid clouds into disputes, which is frequent in the Trump administration’s first. UCCS officials attended a presentation from the EAB Educational Consulting Company, which encouraged schools not to respond to every news course. This may be a challenge because some students and faculty members are looking for sound resistance to the issues resulting from climate change to immigration.

Shortly after Trump’s performance, for example, a California Sustainability program began to push the entire Colorado University system to condemn Trump’s withdrawal from an international agreement to address climate change. The type of statement issued by universities was without thinking twice in previous departments.

In an email, the best executive director of public relations at the University of California at the University of California at Cox University: “There are increasing feelings between the leadership of thought in the upper that the campus leaders do not take a public position on the main issues unless they affect their community on the campus.”

—

Colin Pinkley in Washington, Washington, contributed.